6/7/07
DEUTERONOMY 7
In chapter 7 Moses is telling the people how to act when God takes them into the promise land. Notice the scripture says that God’s gonna do the driving out. He’s gonna drive out those big, bad Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. But, notice also that the Scripture says that “when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.” The word there is charem. It means to totally annihilate; the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them. That’s what God’s commanding them to do. Totally destroy them. And not only that, but to destroy everything they are about. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. My, my; that doesn’t sound like the god most are preaching today. This god of love and mercy, who is not vengeful or wrathful. This god doesn’t exist. The God of the Bible is a God of love, yet He is a God of wrath as well. This scripture proves it. You see, if we give sin the smallest place to stand, eventually that sin will grow to control us. Remember this, either take out the enemy, or the enemy will take you out. Engage the culture or the culture will engage you. Know that. When will we realize that we can’t worship God on Sunday and ignore the shedding of innocent blood through abortion. Don’t we know that the blood is on our hands? We’ve got to break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For we are the people holy to the Lord our God. The Lord our God has chosen us to be holy. And not just that. He’s chosen us to fight against the gates of hell.
In the next few verses, Moses is explaining God’s love for his people, and how he delivered Israel from Egypt.
Then in vs. 12 there is a big “if”. I love all of the “if’s” of the Bible. Because they come with some sort of a promise. Not necessarily of a blessing either. I won’t get into that, but read Dt. 28:15-68 and you’ll see what I mean. But this “if” precedes a covenant. However, the “if” has to do with following God’s laws. It seems that wherever I see that in the Bible, I already know that somebody’s gonna break it and find out the bad side of that “if”. After all, man always seems to want to do things his way. But anyway, Moses is telling the people that they have to pay attention to and follow God’s law in order for Him to keep his covenant of love with them. Then, Moses goes on to explain this covenant of love. What a glorious thing this was.
But, look what verse 16 says. Haven’t we read this before? Why yes we have. God is repeating what He said in vs. 2. “You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.” This is very important. Don’t have any mercy on the idolatrous people that God is going to give over to your. You see, when we got saved, God delivered us from sin. All sin. Don’t make any pacts with Satan on which sins you can hold on to. You can’t hold on to any of them. Destroy them all. And when God tells you to get rid of something, you had better do it. Or, it just might be a snare to you. Better yet, it WILL be a snare to you. You had better do like David did and cut the head off of the giant. All of the giants.
And if all of this seems like it’s too hard, look at verses 20-23. You see, God is gonna do the driving out. He’s gonna “send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.” Then He goes on to say that you don’t need to fear these people. They cannot stand against the Lord! And look, all we have to do is stand on God’s Word and God will drive them out “little by little” and He will bring us in. So why is it that we do it the other way around? We try to bring ourselves in, little by little, and compromise God’s Word. I’ve got news for you: that has never worked, and that will never work! The Word of God is the only thing we can stand on and expect victory! God is the only one Who can bring us that victory.
So, what must we do? Ruthlessly and mercilessly take out the lies of the devil, before they take us out. Period. Destroy the sin in our lives before it destroys us. And cut off absolutely any place for the devil to put his foot. Everything. Cut off everything. Which leads me to my next point…
And look at the final verses in chapter 7. God’s giving us a big warning. Verses 25-26 say “The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.” Oh, but how tempting it is to salvage what God has commanded us to destroy. Don’t salvage anything that God says to destroy. That is detestable. How can we apply that today? Real simple. Look again at verse 26 and lets ask ourselves “What detestable things have we brought into our houses?” Wait a minute! I’ve got the answer. How about half naked women, alcohol, blasphemy, and blatant idolatry; just to name a few. You might say “Wait a minute, I have never…” Not too fast, my friend. I’ve got two words… “American Idol”. And a few others would include NFL football, soap operas, God-hating talk shows, etc. Before you scream “legalism”, hear me out. I don’t watch American Idol, so I can’t say a whole lot about it. I do know that it’s name sends up some red flags though. How can anyone watch a grown man totally berate people and tear them down to nothing? And then we complain when someone insults us in some way. The sad thing is that countless “Christians” worship God on Sunday and go home to watch(worship) this idolatry. And NFL Football, now this one hurts me, but I can’t play favorites. I love football, but every time I watch a game in my house I have to turn my head when a beer commercial, with some half-naked stripper in it, comes on. Well, at least I turned my head, right? Wrong! So what if I turned my head. I just did exactly what Deuteronomy 7:26 told me not to do. I brought a detestable thing into my house. I don’t have time to get into the others I mentioned. But I really don’t have to. You should know better than to watch soap operas or Oprah Winfrey. But here’s one that might hurt too…Fox News. I won’t say anything. But just ask yourself if you are inviting anything into your house that you shouldn’t. You see, often times, we will compromise by saying “Well, I know most of it’s bad, but this part is good.” Or something to that affect. I hope everyone knows that this is for me too. I don’t bring television into my house, but I do compromise and get some rabbit ears for the “big game”. I enjoy football and I’d like to say there’s nothing wrong with watching it. But I just don’t know. If I apply this scripture to one thing, I can’t be hypocritical and not apply it to the things I like. Removing television from your house is a hard step, but I think it is a step that is necessary. Trust me on this. Removing television will not push you away from God. It will only draw you closer to Him. And closer to your family as well.
So, what’s my whole point? I’m not sure right now. I think I have a few. I would like to encourage everyone to do a television fast for a week or two. I guarantee, you will not regret it. And, when you turn back(hopefully you won’t), you will see how gross the immorality is that we sit through. Let’s not allow ourselves to become hypnotized by the devil. We’ve got to totally destroy all sin and all of the lies of the enemy.
In Christian Love,
Adam Tennant
