“Do not make a covenant with the people living in the land. It will cause you to go astray after their gods and sacrifice to their gods. Then they will invite you to join them in eating their sacrifices, and you will take their daughters as wives for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves to their own gods and make your sons do the same!”-Exodus 34:15-16
In spite of the Lord’s many warnings to NOT enter into a covenant with the people of the land, we’ll see Joshua and others doing exactly that once they entered the Promised Land.
They will end up making peace treaties with several of the Canaanite tribes.
What was the reason behind such blatant disregard for the Lord’s instructions?
The answer is simple.
They ignored the Lord’s instructions in favor of what their natural minds assumed was a superior course of action.
Sound familiar?
This pretty much describes every liberal church in America and to be fair, it describes ME every time and I mean every time I have sinned.
One no-no the Israelites committed when they entered Canaan was making treaties with some of the local kings that would allow these Canaanite rulers to continue in power if they paid taxes to Israel.
Heck, who doesn’t want a little extra side income?
And besides, this was how the whole world operated at the time.
The general practice was if it was profitable, a conqueror would often opt for keeping a king in power.
Another reason Israel disobeyed the Lord is because they assumed they were showing love and mercy by not removing the people from the land as the Lord had commanded.
Certainly the Lord would understand and even applaud their sincere desire to want to be kind and loving, right?
WRONG!
The results of that mindset have proved disastrous and the whole Middle Eastern crisis we are experiencing today is because Joshua and the Hebrews he led did NOT remove or exterminate the people from the land like they should have per the Lord’s command.
Boy, if there ever was a call to the Lord’s people to NOT compromise, this section of Exodus is it.
The God of the Bible is NOT a god of sentimental maple syrupy religious tolerance.
The Lord does NOT compromise or rule based on democratic consensus.
And let’s get something straight.
He does NOT honor our sincerity or our earthly definition of love above His commands.
Verse 14 makes it clear that the Lord is a JEALOUS God and will NOT under any circumstances tolerate the worship of a false god or gods.
There is an important reason why the Lord stresses not mixing themselves with the pagans.
It is because doing so is a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to wanting to enter into relationships with those people and compromise.
Here’s another thing you should know.
The intensity of what the Lord is saying is here is actually watered down quite a bit by those cultivated and refined folks who originally translated the Bible for us.
The truth is, in the original Hebrew tongue, the Lord uses EXTREMELY strong language in His warnings to Israel to not mix with the people of the land they will be entering.
He call the act of accepting their heathen gods as “whoring”.
Unfortunately, the modern world has fallen for the satanic principle that says that every person on the planet today falls into one of two categories: either “tolerant” or “hate-filled”.
This is NOT a Godly principle.
If you have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel via the shed blood of Messiah, you are NOT to be tolerant of false gods.
You are NOT to participate in what God has already declared as evil just for the sake of getting along.
I’m talking about pagan holidays like halloween, Christmas, and Easter.
I’m talking about the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality.
On the other hand, unlike the Muslims, our response is not to be one of hatred or violence.
Nor am I saying we are to go out of our way to create strife and upheaval.
We are to be like Yeshua.
Gentle yet firm.
The only light we have is the Light of our Savior.
If we tolerate, compromise, participate, accept or even respect the ways of the enemy, how can we expect the Lord to glorify and bless us?
The answer is we can’t and the Scriptures make it clear what happens when we compromise with the world.
The Lord removed His presence from Israel, stopped dwelling among them, and eventually stopped leading them.
If you are a believer, the one point you need to deeply embed into the deepest recesses of your cranium is that PEACE WITH THE WORLD IS NOT PEACE WITH GOD.
This is especially true in the times we are living in today.
When ancient Israel entered the Promised Land, the Hebrews had to choose between obeying the Lord or compromising with the Canaanites.
They had to choose one or the other.
The SAME CHOICE lies before us today.
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