Have you ever attended a wedding where the bride and groom’s families didn’t show up? We must never take lightly the gathering of God’s covenant people. Not only is the gathering act important, but God includes certain parameters for experiencing His covenant union properly, such as certain activities and a certain order for worship.

Those who worship the Holy God are not hobbyists; worship of the Creator is grounded in a redemptive work. This work of God both qualifies the people and instructs them in the exclusive nature of their worship. The detailed criterion, as outlined in Deuteronomy 23, makes far greater sense in these terms. We are entering the presence of Almighty God who sets the foundations of the earth, who exclusively chooses His redeemed saints, and who provides their redemption which includes congregational membership in this temporal life.

Children born out of sin are excluded generally from the congregation, such as Ammonites and Moabites, for four-hundred years (v3). Sinclair Ferguson notes the case for Ruth the Moabitess as representative of the heart of the law given here: “Everything about Moab spelled alienation from God and from his promises.” The exclusive nature of God’s assembly of covenanted people makes the redemptive work of Ruth all the more important for us to consider. This is no contradiction in God’s Word, but the explication of Christ’s sufficiency in salvation—He came from the line of those who would be excluded by the inheritance of depravity—yet the covenantal God works miracles in saving those otherwise unsavable. Only through Christ can anyone enter the assembly.

The exclusivity of the Lord’s presence is also a design for preservation. Should any without faith enter the assembly they would be consumed by holy wrath. The Lord commands: for this reason “shall thy camp be holy.” The expectation for covenant people is living within and according to the constant presence of the Lord (v14). Is this not the joy of salvation, that we enter the only true satisfaction and comfort in this life and forevermore? Experiencing this holy work of God is simultaneously the means through which He delivers His people from depraved disobedience. The sexual and financial purity expected of His people is a mark of His design for exclusive participation in the assembly (vv18–20). The order and parameters He graciously gives serve as signposts for the embassy of heaven on earth — an embassy made of a particular, redeemed people who experience together the very life-sustaining presence of their Savior.

How are you embracing the presence of the Lord this week? How is He making you distinguishable as His very possession — by comfort or assurance?  

Pastor Chris