seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 4:25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, 26 I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. 27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. 28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. 31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.
I went back to classicstudylight.org for these words.
Heaven and earth will testify against an idol worshipping Israel; they will be destroyed in the land God promised to give them.
God was giving Israel the Promised Land, but not unconditionally. If they persisted in idol worship, God would remove them from the land and scatter them among the nations.
If Israel is exiled, they will get their fill of idols - God will put them in a land filled with idols.
God would not totally abandon Israel in exile; when they were ready to turn back to the Lord, He would be ready to receive them. God really is the God of the second chance - and the one hundred and second chance!
However, if Israel was to find the Lord, they must seek Him with all their heart and all their soul.
God was giving Israel the Promised Land, but not unconditionally. If they persisted in idol worship, God would remove them from the land and scatter them among the nations.
This, of course, is exactly what happened - some five hundred and fifty years later, at the time of the Babylonian Exile of Judah.
If Israel is exiled, they will get their fill of idols - God will put them in a land filled with idols.
Often, God's chastisement on us is to give us what our sinful hearts are longing for. If Israel wanted idols, God would give them idols.
God would not totally abandon Israel in exile; when they were ready to turn back to the Lord, He would be ready to receive them. God really is the God of the second chance - and the one hundred and second chance!
However, if Israel was to find the Lord, they must seek Him with all their heart and all their soul.
In this context, to seek God with the heart has the idea of passionately seeking Him, seeking Him because you really want to love the Lord. Seeking God with the soul has the idea of seeking God with our mind, will, and emotions; with giving all of ourselves to Him.
And this is from the easy English site.
There was a danger that the Israelites would forget God’s covenant. They might enjoy the good things in the country and then they might start to worship idols. (People believed that idols were models of their false gods.) If they did that, God would be angry with them. Many Israelites would die. Other Israelites would leave their country. An enemy would force them to live in foreign countries. There they would worship idols that people had made. That happened after an enemy defeated Samaria. (See 2 Kings 17:6.) And it happened when an enemy defeated Jerusalem. (See 2 Kings 24:10-16.) Even then, if they returned to God, he would forgive them. He would remember his covenant and he would show mercy.
I keep think of what Jesus said about the rich man in Matthew 19:16-30 as I read what Moses is saying in these verses.
Matthew 19:23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
It's not just money that people worship. So many have put away the telltale idols but still make other things their god. Think of those who spend every minute of the day on a quest that does not take them to God. Like the rich man worshiping money, power, and prestige there are those who won't give up cocaine, heroin, cigarettes or food. There are even some who worship their own way of life.
When Moses was talking to those people back at the bank of the Jordan River, life was a lot simpler. There was no google, split screen, or smart phones. The camels were necessary for transportation, not rolled and stuck in a neat paper and cellophane corral. The idols in the days of Moses were easy to spot even when hidden in their belongings. Remember when Rachel took her household gods?
Even though it was simpler to find and identify the idols back then, the prophetic part is just as true today. Sure, God will let you worship those idols and horrible things will happen if you do.... but when you are ready to destroy the distractions, when you are ready to give away all your "riches", when you are ready to give up your precious way of life, then God will be there.... ready to take you back.
Sorry to get so preachy.....
