Deuteronomy 29 A deliberate act of a warped mind

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 29:16 You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. 17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

19 When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. 20 The Lord will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will fall on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven. 21 The Lord will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.​

This is from the easy English site.

Moses reminds the people again about how God rescued them from Egypt. Moses reminds them about their journey. He warns them not to give honour to idols. That would be like a poisonous plant. The plant may look good. But it produces poison that could kill a person. Suppose that someone decides not to listen to Moses. Suppose that other people start to worship idols. It would ruin the whole nation. People would not enjoy the benefits of the covenant if they did not belong to it personally. God would not forgive a person if that person decided to sin on purpose. Nobody would remember his name. The Israelites thought that that was a terrible thing.​

This is from studylight.org.

These verses carry the warnings: "Remember, O Israel, that the Lord is your God, for, as you well know, the temptation to idolatry comes to you from all the surrounding nations; `You have seen their abominations.'"Payne brought up a question which, in the minds of some, might require an answer. He asked, "Why would idolatry attract anyone?" There is a great deal of attractiveness in idolatry, strange as it might appear.

(1) "There is the deliberate act of a warped mind.

(2) There is the sort of person who merely wants to be different." Take a look at the people who turn to Eastern cults, or go off with a lunatic like Jones and wind up drinking cyanide in South America!

(3) There is the ability to get God "out of the way" in idolatry, at least in the mind of the idolater. An idol limits God's presence (in the pagan view) to a specific location, leaving the wicked person free to serve his own lusts. It is the natural passion of every wicked person to put God out of mind; and an idol enables the accomplishment of the next-best thing, that of restricting God to a single location.

(4) Also, an idol misrepresents God in every way. The idol is blind, and deaf, and mute, and helpless, and can, in no way, harm the idolater. That is not the way God is!

(5) In addition to all this, in the ancient pagan systems, there existed the most licentious ceremonies by which the idols were worshipped, and these lustful orgies were a major attraction to men through the lusts of the body.

I got this quote from a site called "a skeptic's journey through the Bible".

Moses acknowledges there may still be idol worshippers out there in Israel, which of course, God has strictly forbidden (Exodus 20:2-7). He says that if those people make this covenant now and think that they’re safe, they’re dead wrong. God will bring all of the curses mentioned in this book (and there are a ton of them) on those people and they will never have peace, no matter where they are (Isaiah 48:22).​

Sometimes, when we get older, we reminisce about all the "secret" things we think we got away with as a child. One such story, I heard, was of a little girl who stole a bracelet. It was beautiful, she said, golden and sparkly and she just had to have it. She never got to wear it.... it stayed hidden in a "secret" place for years. Every now and then, she would sneak to get away from her family and pull it out of it's "secret" place and admire it. Then she would hide it again so no one would know what she had done. Since the opportunity to cherish her "secret" thing were few and far between, she forgot about it over time and it remained hidden for many many years. She said she found her "secret" thing years later. It was no longer shiney and beautiful.... it was dull and cheap looking. She said she thought it was the excitement of having something no one else had, something all her own, that gave this "secret" thing its allure.

Do you have a "secret" thing? Is there something you don't share with anyone? Something that is hidden away... where no one will every know about it? Is there something in your life that you think you just can not live without? Do you have something in your life that is more important than anyone or anything around you? If you do.... that fact that you hid it and you covet it.... should now be a clue to its real identity. Maybe it's a little gold bracelet, maybe it's the value of your portfolio, maybe it's a talent.... is your "secret" thing causing you to sin? Does your "secret" thing warp your mind a little?

:coffee:
 
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