Beware
of False gods
Deuteronomy 12: 29 - 13: 18
The Great Covenant
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Max
A Forsythe
Introduction:
When I was growing up in the fifties, there was something of a wholesome
innocence engineered on purpose into the rural landscape and culture of north
central Ohio. To be sure, there was
organized gambling and recreational drinking in the local American Legion, but
you had to go to the county seat to find anything worse.
Rumor had it, that a particular newsstand carried the blue movies and
magazines to which only members of the several lodge-type drinking clubs had
access. Health classes at the local
school were segregated by sex and never was any literature read or discussed
that did not meet the approval of the school board who only hired teachers of
impeccable character. In fact,
character was the only really important criteria, competence in subject matter
was an asset of course – but an intellectual sense was less preferred over the
more common.
The hallmarks of Western
Civilization were not only taught but also practiced daily by teachers and the
community at large. The children of
wayward parents were given special attention, and fatherless boys especially
merited special opportunities to hang around with honest hard-working men.
All in all – that classic American landscape was beautiful in the
fullness of its simplicity. A biblical theonomy had been realistically achieved far and
wide across Middle America.
However, in my short lifetime the
whole structure of community, education, social cohesion and living under some
semblance of God’s law has almost entirely disappeared.
It was soon after the video-tape revolution that the old newsstand in the
county seat closed up shop! A bit
of evidence that blue rated movies were more widely and cheaply available.
Of course – none of this happened over night, there was a thirty year
period of steady decline that seemingly was encouraged by the liberality of
state laws and the progress of corporate socialism.
The self-supporting small towns, shops and farms were gutted
economically, the schools were consolidated and any and all means of local
control over the social structure declared unconstitutional and even today
remembered as un-American! The
mainline churches too, were captured from within by cultural despisers of
biblical doctrines and values.
Immorality, early became
acceptable only as a transition to a more proper amorality over a long
thirty-five year period. A
transition markedly noted by the character flaws of far too many over-grown
hippies who had the necessary paperwork to take over the educational system.
One local school board put up with coaches taking teenage girl friends
and blatantly harassing those they could not subdue emotionally.
In that time period, one young lady fled a local school to the vocational
center where I worked. One day she wanted to ask a question about government, but
stood trembling in the doorway after everyone else had left.
As gently and kindly as I could, I told her that she was safe at our
school from harassment, but to make her comfortable – we would go to the front
lobby and talk. She finally relaxed
in the new environment and a few weeks later asked me to drive her home after
school. I suggested that we talk to
one of the lady teachers – since in our local culture, neither she nor I
should give any suggestion of impropriety.
She understood and a ride home was arranged.
I could go on and on with a
lifetime of impressions and examples of our cultural devolution. I well remember reading a passage written by C.S. Lewis that
stuck in my mind until I finally understood it. In the late fifties he suggested that while there was little
visible difference between Christian civility and cultural norms at that time,
he said we would only have to wait a generation to really begin to notice how
Christian behavior would stand out like a glowing lamp in the greater dusk of a
decaying culture. A cultural event
encouraged and bragged about in the media controlled music industry.
Of course, we know that no
society is perfect and that every culture has in it the seeds of its own
destruction, however I tell you about this cultural phenomenon because my and
our experience is similar to that of the generation to whom Moses spoke when
they were ready to occupy the land of Palestine.
There were temptations of every sort within the land to which they were
going and Moses would admonish them to keep themselves and the culture of Israel
pure from the degradations of the natives.
I still remember when my father warned me against buying anything in that
one newsstand. He grimly predicted
that while it was possible in that time to avoid places where we out not go,
things would really be different when that unwholesome culture made itself
available in every home! I still
don’t know how he knew that the internet was going to happen twenty years
before it did. Had he lived only
another year – I could have shown him the good that could be done in that
context.
Old
Covenant Milieu: As
we look at the end of chapter twelve and the whole of thirteen in our text for
today, there are four divisions that we shall consider.
First, there is the warning proper against idolatry in verses twenty-nine
through thirty-two. The strongest admonition is in verse thirty-one:
“You shall not worship the Lord your God in
that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for
their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to
their gods.”
Dr Raymond Brown contrasts this
with acceptable worship, a regulative principle for worship if you will.
The regulative principle in our time takes two forms.
The form that we practice is that we carefully allow only those elements
of worship that we know the Lord desires and demands.
The other form of regulation is the one where people refrain from those
practices known to antagonize the Lord of heaven and earth.
In the context of Deuteronomy – the Lord is absolutely adamant that the
people learn nothing at all from the local Canaanites, period!
Everything the locals say and do is despicable in the eyes of the Lord.
Then in chapter thirteen, three
contexts for idolatry are explored. Dr
Brown identifies these: “Moses
warns (13: 1-18)
that the temptations may come from three different quarters; idolatry may be
presented as an attractive option in a religious (1-5),
domestic (6-11)
or community (12-18)
context. Later generations may be
troubled by public, secret or forceful enticing.”
The Canaanite society was very
pragmatic in its approach to religion. Religion
had to serve a useful purpose – so they derived a cultic ritual that appeared
on the surface to encourage agricultural fertility and growth.
So they indulged themselves in sympathetic magic to persuade the various
multitude of deities to guarantee their rightfully desired prosperity.
Like our own society – they murdered their children and went on to
indulge every immoral vice known to man and then some!
Your redeemed imaginations can only guess at half of it, at least I hope
that is the case?
At least, we know that the Lord
God of heaven and earth condemned them to cultural and individual deaths for the
despicable affront of their unacceptable worship. It will probably take another generation of reimaging
worship, for the liberal churches to sink this low.
There are hints in the media that some of the most corrupt social
organizations have descended to this level.
Human sacrificial remains are found every once in a while – even in the
Midwest.
Chapter thirteen of Deuteronomy
covers ground that is now past history in our fair land. False prophets are condemned in the strongest language and
the ultimate capital punishment is prescribed.
The false prophets of Baal are recorded as being destroyed at the
insistence of Elijah. There are
precious few other instances where this took place. But, at least the biblical sentence should give pause –
even if it was not always carried out. Three
things were demanded of Israel in this situation. J.A. Thompson outlines them in this fashion:
“Faced with traitorous prophets ,three lines of actions were to be
followed:
Israel was not to
listen …
Israel should
continue to walk after Yahweh …
The false prophet
should be put to death …”
Later in the New Testament, Paul
encourages the Corinthians to put a man out of the church.
Certainly we may understand that anyone lawfully excommunicated from
Christ’s Church will find spiritual death from the Supreme Judge of all the
earth. That is why – sessions
consider such heretical questions carefully and seriously.
In our country, most of the
mainline denominations rarely have any heresy trials any more and to their shame
some godly souls are put out so that the remaining spiritual low-life’s may
feed their own self-esteem!
The second danger for idolatry is
within the family of God. Let us
suppose, as I have often suspected – that a self-important member of the
religious community takes it upon himself, or even herself to change an aspect
of the church that is personally upsetting.
The secret sin here is the plotting and maneuvering bit by bit to achieve
politically what cannot be achieved by rational argument or debate. I know of one thirty-year old example where members of a
session taught as part of T.U.L.I.P a strange doctrinal element that undermined
the whole defense of the Gospel itself. These
few took private exception to the teachings of the church and decided that the
whole church should see it their way.
In that same sense, the liberals
infested the main line churches by redefining the sacred words of the biblical
text – so that they could achieve power and later come out of their
theological closet to market heresy as truth.
Now, one reason the death penalty
is prescribed in the Great Covenant is the fact that Israel’s religion was
singular in its moral overtones to human relationships.
When you hear the biblical phrase “a whoring
after other gods”, the implications are indeed sensuous!
The third danger for idolatry is
within the context of the whole community.
Robert Barnes writes an article in December’s Tabletalk, that
describes a “’tribal misunderstanding’ as
[another] Dr Harrison rather mildly put it.”
This misunderstanding leads to a war which “results
in the near-annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin, with more than twenty-five
thousand men falling. Gibeah, the
Benjamite city that refused to act with justice, was destroyed with fire.”
The case in question revolves
around a miscarriage of justice which the Covenant law demands be achieved.
Legal procedures are argued and followed before the civil war is
resolved. Dr Thompson observes that
“these latter verses are an expression of the
ancient concept of corporate punishment where there is corporate
responsibility.”
Well did Moses perceive the
social implications related to spiritual as well as material idolatry in its
many forms. All three cases have
many, many examples from scriptures and history.
Well may we ponder anew the implications of spiritual idolatry: the
casting off of the One true God for anything less – which is either more
desirable, profitable or even convenient.
New
Covenant Continuum: We
have only to move on to the New Testament period to see the greater Prophet
Jesus Christ condemn almost the whole ecclesiastical establishment of the Old
Covenant Church! There is no
greater condemnation of false spiritual leaders in any other part of the Bible
like there is in the reports of the four Gospels.
We cringe today when we read the words of the reformers when they
describe their papist enemies. Believe
me, they do not hold a candle for the apt phrases that describe the sons of
Satan described by Jesus in chapter eight of John!
Verse forty-four is damning in its description of the leaders:
“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your
father’s desires. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there
is no truth in him. When he lies,
he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
These are the ones who pick up
stones at the end of the chapter to kill the only Son of God, the same who later
achieve the same end in a star chamber court – in connivance with the imperial
authority. Even the Jewish
historian Josephus, who describes the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD,
declares that generation of elders to be the most wicked and deserving body ever
to receive the final justice of the Creator God.
The threats of punishment revealed by Moses are taken seriously by our
God and Father! Heretical churches
will not last forever, the Lord’s justice is applied in every age and place as
His providence allows.
Contemporary
Application: Now,
as we wind down on this chapter of Deuteronomy, we understand that our own
culture has devised temptations for idolatry as near as your own keyboard.
I once read an article in a major news magazine devoted to the wide range
of religions presented on the virtual highway.
The simpleton who wrote the article scandalized the whole meaning of any
and every religion when he stated that all religions were coming together on the
web. All you have to do is type in the word religion to see that
every cult imaginable and some that you couldn’t imagine have turned up as a
virtual spiritual smorgasbord for the uninitiated and even innocent.
Imagine if James Kennedy walked up to a modern newsstand and asked for a
book on religion? I doubt that the book The Greatest Faith Ever Known,
would even be among the choices! Providentially,
the Lord took care of His own that day even as He has in the time of Moses all
the way down to our own day. True believers in every age are given the gift of the Spirit
to help them discern the “true truth” as
Francis Schaeffer described “the faith once given
to the saints.”
So let us take seriously the
revelations of the Lord concerning appropriate worship and let us take care to
worship Him in spirit and in truth as we are commanded by Christ. Amen.
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