“They sacrificed to demons, non-gods,
gods that they had never known,
new gods that had come up lately,
which your ancestors had not feared.
You ignored the Rock who fathered you,
you forgot God, who gave you birth.”
-Deuteronomy 32:17-18
Alrighty folks, what should be pretty crystal clear by now is that the Song of Moses is intended ONLY for those who have been redeemed by God.
The Lord is ONLY talking to His people here.
This means native-born Hebrews AND those foreigners who have chosen to throw away their pagan gods forever and be grafted into the commonwealth of Israel.
Understand those Hebrews who ended up running after other gods and apostatizing were part of the redeemed but chose to walk away from their faith.
Also understand that from around 30 A.D, the redeemed of the Lord would also include all disciples of Yeshua.
“If you belong to Messiah,
then you are Abraham’s seed,
and heirs according to the promise.”
-Galatians 3:29
Onward back to our text study.
From verse 17, we’re told the Israelites will eventually lose their minds and end up sacrificing to “demons”, “non-gods”, and “gods they never knew”.
“Gods they never knew” is referring to those strange and foreign deities Israel’s patriarchs and ancestors never bowed down to and worshipped.
You should also know that “demons”, “non-gods”, and “gods they never knew” are to be treated as distinctly different terms.
We’re not talking about a bunch of parallel terms all referring to the same thing here.
This is actually a list of those alien things and different kinds of gods to which Israel wrongly made sacrifices but shouldn’t have.
When it comes to demons, a lot of folks chalk them up to just figments of people’s imaginations.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
Demons are real spiritual entities who by definition fight against and oppose the Lord.
In fact, there are many stories of Yeshua casting out demons in the New Testament.
Here is one of them:
“When He came to the other side
into the country of the Gadarenes,
two men who were demon-possessed
met him as they were coming out of the tombs.
They were so extremely violent
that no one could pass by that way.
And they cried out, saying,
“What business do we have with each other, Son of God?
Have You come here to torment
us before the time?”
Now there was a herd of many swine feeding
at a distance from them.
The demons began to entreat him, saying,
“If You are going to cast us out,
send us into the herd of swine.”
And he said to them, “Go!”
And they came out and went into the swine,
and the whole herd rushed down
the steep bank into the sea
and perished in the waters.”
Now that we’re talking about demons, this is a good time to point out that the term “demon” here is actually not quite accurate.
The Hebrew word from which we’re getting the word “demon” is SHED or SHEDIM in the plural and doesn’t just mean demons.
Rather it is a general term referring to all the spirits of the dead.
For instance, Scripture will refer to the SHEDIM of SHEOL which literally translates to “spirits of the underworld”.
Recall from our previous studies that from Hashem’s perspective, death is the ultimate uncleanness.
So to consort with or attempt to contact a spirit of the dead is put yourself in contact with literally the most evil and worst sort of spiritual entity imaginable.
This brings to mind the fact that in our day and age going to spiritual mediums to try to contact the spirit of a former family member has become quite popular.
Heck, every once in a while an ad advertising “psychic services” pops up on my Facebook feed and there are a lot of popular Youtube channels dedicated to the topic of communing with spirits of the dead.
And you know what’s even scarier, it would appear by all accounts that these attempts to contact the dead have succeeded.
I know the temptation to want to maybe reach out to a former loved or dear family can be great.
So let me make this clear.
Deuteronomy 32:17 is specifically calling out this practice and letting us know in no uncertain terms it is forbidden for anyone who would call him or herself a follower of the God of Israel to try and contact the dead.
I plead with you to never go to a spirit medium or psychic to attempt to contact a spirit of one who has passed away from this plane of existence.
From God’s perspective, it is one of the the most offensive things you could ever do in your whole life.
Attempting to contact a spirit of the dead is equivalent to abandoning Hashem Himself.
You’re playing with your salvation if you engage in such activity.
I’m not kidding.
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