Tag: evil in the sight of God

51.i. Wilderness – 15.o. “So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”

 

 

Deu 17:2  “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Judges are also commanded to make sure that any who have gone after idolatry are to be investigated, and if found to be guilty, are to be executed. There was never to be capital punishment unless there was evidence from at least two independent, unimpeachable sources. We may comfort ourselves that we would never judge someone guilty of murder so quickly, without proper evidence. Yet many will murder someone’s reputation in their own mind or in the minds of others with no witnesses, much less one. Remember 1 Timothy 5:19 does not say “except from two or three gossips”; it says except from two or three witnesses. If a matter is false, it does not become true because many people hear it or many people repeat it.  Additionally, the witnesses had to be so certain of what they saw, that they were willing to initiate the actual execution. The execution was a community event, in the sense that it was supported by the community. The whole village would know the justice of what was being done. (Guzik)

No creature that had any blemish was to be offered in sacrifice to God. We are thus called to remember the perfect, pure, and spotless sacrifice of Christ, and reminded to serve God with the best of our abilities, time, and possession, or our pretended obedience will be hateful to him. So great a punishment as death, so remarkable a death as stoning, must be inflicted on the Jewish idolater. Let all who in our day set up idols in their hearts, remember how God punished this crime in Israel.(Henry)

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee,…. In any of their cities in the land of Canaan: man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God: as all that is wrought is in the sight of the omniscient God; here it means not any kind of wickedness, for there is none lives without committing sin of one sort or another, all which is known to God the searcher of hearts. (Gill)

Sometimes I wonder if we fully understand the gravity of sin. Do we understand that just because someone does not see us sin does not mean that God has not seen it? He is aware not only of the sin but the thoughts and intentions of why you are doing it. We may easily discount our sin and sinfulness but every last word spoken, every thought we have allowed time in our minds, and every action we have taken will be judged by God – For all will come before the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ. 

How much sin do we tolerate because we either give it no thought or it is unknown by others? How much sin is in our pathetic lives because we choose to neglect God’s Word and thereby are never growing or finding the need to repent? How much sin is in our lives because we intentionally choose to deafen our ears to the Holy Spirit’s conviction? How many days go by without the thought of the sinfulness of sin and the Holiness of God?  We are not without blemish but are we offering the absolute best of ourselves? Are we giving our whole self as a sacrifice to God for the purpose of honoring and glorifying Jesus Christ? Do we worship something else in our lives over God?

If worshiping God for you is on Sundays at Church, there is a high probability that you are worshiping something else the rest of the time. If you are neglectful and complacent with the word of God and things of God, there is a high probability you are worshiping something else above God. If you are deaf to the Holy Spirit’s leading throughout the day the is a high probability you are worshiping something else. If you are critical of what others are doing but fail to see your judgmental spirit there is a high probability you are….. certainly not worshiping God.

Oh that we would seek to purge the evil from our own hearts as much as we seek to purge it from others.

44.p. “Wilderness” – 8.v. “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people”

 

Exodus 32:11-14  But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

 Deuteronomy 9:18-20    Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke him to anger.  For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the LORD bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.

 Psalms 106:23   Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them

 Deuteronomy 9:26-29    And I prayed to the LORD, ‘O Lord GOD, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

In his prayer, Moses first gave the people back to God. “LORD, they belong to You and not to me. Moses then appealed to God on the basis of grace. “LORD, we didn’t deserve to be brought out of Egypt to begin with. You did it by Your grace, not because we deserved it. Please don’t stop dealing with us by grace.”  Moses next appealed to God on the basis of glory. “LORD, this will bring discredit to You in the eyes of the nations. The Egyptians will think of You as a cruel God who led your people out to the desert to kill them. Don’t let anyone think that of You, God.” Finally, Moses appealed to God on the basis of His goodness. “LORD, keep Your promises. You are a good God who is always faithful. Don’t break Your promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.” “Undoubtedly Moses was filled with compassion for the people, but his chief concern was for the honor of the name of God.” (Guzik)

Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people? so as to think or speak of consuming them utterly; otherwise he knew there was reason for his being angry and wroth with them; but though they were deserving of his hot wrath and displeasure, and even to be dealt with in the manner proposed, yet he entreats he would consider they were his people; his special people, whom he had chose above all people, and had redeemed them from the house of bondage, had given them laws, and made a covenant with them, and many promises unto them, and therefore hoped he would not consume them in his hot displeasure; God had called them the people of Moses, and Moses retorts it, and calls them the people of God, and makes use of their relation to him as an argument with him in their favour; (Gill)

Do you ever wonder how often we may have displeased God with our actions? Do you ever think about how many times Jesus Christ, sitting at the Right hand of God, has interceded on our behalf? How many minutes and hours go by every day without a thought about Jesus Christ, God’s Word, and things of God?  We live free from the guilt of sin because of the substitutional death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We are not set free to live as we will or according to this world’s pleasure.  We are to live in such a way that in all we think, say, and do, Jesus Christ is honored and glorified.