Tag: sun moon

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.

49.p. Wilderness – 13.v. “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully”

 

Deu 4:15  “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly.

Deu 4:19-20  And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.

Exodus 19:5-6     Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;  and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ 

 Psalms 28:9     Oh, save your people and bless your heritage! Be their shepherd and carry them forever.

 Psalms 33:12     Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

 Ephesians 1:18     having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

 Titus 2:14     who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

 1 Peter 2:9    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

As the people had seen no form or figure when God spake to them, so they were to beware for their very lives (cf. ver. 9) of acting corruptly by making any kind of image, whether of man or of beast, for the purpose of worshipping God as represented by it; they were also to beware of being so attracted by the splendor of the heavenly bodies as to be forcibly seduced to worship them and offer them religious service. They were not in this respect to imitate the heathen; for God, who had delivered them out of the furnace of Egyptian bondage, had taken them for himself to be his special possession; and therefore they were to take heed not to forget the covenant of Jehovah their God, nor to offend him by making any image or representation of him as the object of worship. Among the heathen, and especially in Egypt, images were the very pillar and support of religion; but in Israel, as God had revealed himself to them without form, it was as a spirit he was to be worshipped, and not under any outward representation. (Unknnow)

God did not deliver us from the bondage of sin so that we could do our own “Thing”, but so we would do that which honors and glorifies Him. There is so much more to learn of the Holiness of God and the sinfulness of sin. Every single day our sinful nature must be recognized in the light of His Word. When recognized, it must be turned away from. Every day we have the opportunity to grow in our understanding of God’s Holiness and the sinfulness of sin. This knowledge and understanding do not come to us naturally but by and through His Word and with a heart, mind, and soul desiring to know and understand so that we might not sin against Him but rather honor and glorify Him. 

Every day we have the opportunity to grow in our understanding and knowledge of God and things of God if our heart’s desire for it does not become dimmed by worldly distractions.