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.