Day 146: Destroying sin – Deuteronomy 7 vs 1 – 16
1-2 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you (the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you) and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them - then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3-4 You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
5-6 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7-8 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9-11 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.
12-15 “And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you. 16 And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.” Deuteronomy 7:1-16 English Standard Version.
Today’s longer reading was from a part of the Bible that atheists and agnostics use to ask “how can Christians believe in a God who is so cruel as to tell His people to destroy other nations?” It certainly was strong language. But they ignore the fact that, as Creator, God has the right to judge sinners. And because atheists and agnostics treat sin so lightly, they don't realise that it ultimately leads to death. What do vs 5-6 & 11 tell us the people of the land's attitude to God was, and why their day of judgement had now arrived?
They hated God and had degenerated into idol worship (and the wicked practices that were associated with that - including temple prostitutes and child sacrifices). Why did God not want the Israelites to have anything to do with them and with their altars? (vs 3-4 & 16).
God knew that the Israelites were vulnerable to the temptations that the pagan practices offered and it would not be long before they began to do those things too. This is why the Bible teaches that we need to 'put to death' all the sins that had once dominated our lifestyle. What did God say that Israel's obedience would lead to? (vs 12-15)
The earlier readings this week showed how Christians are called to reach out to sinners with the message of God's mercy for all who repent. But that doesn't mean Christians must treat sin lightly. Sin brought death to the world - and unforgiven sin will bring the soul to hell. Let us not make any compromise with sin, but rather take vs 5-6 to heart and apply it to ourselves.