The children of Israel were to seek Jehovah and come unto the place which Jehovah their God would choose out of all their tribes to put His name, even unto His habitation with His altar (Deut. 12:5-6). Here we have three things: the place, the name, and the altar. To the place chosen by God they were to bring their burnt offerings and all their other offerings, and there they were to eat before Jehovah their God, and they, their households, and the Levites who lived with them were to rejoice in all their undertakings, in which Jehovah their God had blessed them (vv. 6-7, 10-12, 14-15, 17-19, 26-28). They were not to do according to all that they had done before they entered the good land, each man doing what was right in his own eyes; and they were to be careful not to offer up their burnt offerings in every place that they saw (vv. 8-9, 13). To fulfill these requirements was to have a center of worship, as Jerusalem would be later, for the keeping of the oneness among God's people, avoiding the division caused by man's preferences. This was good and right in the sight of God.
The children of Israel were permitted to slaughter the cattle and eat the meat within all their gates, in all that their soul desired, according to the blessing of Jehovah, but they were not to eat the blood (vv. 15-16, 20-25). This was right in the sight of God.
The children of Israel were to be careful lest they be ensnared in following the nations and lest they seek after their gods to learn how to serve their gods (vv. 29-30). That was an abomination to God, which He hated (v. 31). After giving this charge, Moses concluded by saying, "The whole thing that I am commanding you, you shall be certain to do; you shall not add to it, nor shall you take away from it" (v. 32).
Chapter twelve of Deuteronomy corresponds in at least four ways to the revelation in the New Testament.
First, both in this chapter and in the New Testament we see that the people of God should always be one. In order to preserve the oneness of the children of Israel, God did not allow each of the twelve tribes to have its own worship center. If each tribe had had its own center for the worship of God, there would have been twelve divisions among God's people, for each center would have been the ground and the base of a division. In His wisdom, God did not allow His people to have their own choice or preference but required them to take His choice and to come three times a year to the unique worship center, even though travel to that place was inconvenient for many of them.
The principle is the same in the New Testament. Regardless of their number, God's children, the believers in Christ, must be one and have the same center for the worship of God. However, the actual situation among Christians today is division. There are many worship centers, and this has led to divisions.
The divisions among God's people are the result of having different preferences. Many prefer to have their own way instead of God's way. Whenever the believers have their own way and their own preference, there will be division. All denominations are according to man's preferences. The situation in the Lord's recovery is altogether different. The Lord's recovery is a matter of coming back to God's way according to God's preference.