Deuteronomy Ch07
V 1-4 You must destroy them totally.
1. Make no treaty with them.
2. Show them no mercy.
3. Do not intermarry with them.
4. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.
V 5-11 This is what you are to do to them.
1. Break down their altars.
2. Smash their sacred stones, for example, gods of the world they worship, or famous heroes they respect.
3. Cut down their goddess image of Asherah.
4. Burn their idols in the fire.
For we are a people holy to the Lord our God. We are His treasured possession. He loved us and brought us out with a mighty hand and redeemed us from the hand of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, king of this world. Know that only our Lord is God. He is the faithful God, who loves those who keep His commands, and keeps His covenant of love to a thousand generations. Therefore, take care to follow the word of God all the time.
V 12-16 If you pay attention to the word of God and are careful to follow them, then:
1. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers.
2. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil.
3. The Lord will keep you free from every disease.
You must destroy all the peoples the Lord gives over to you. Do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. Here I would give you examples about the snare of foreign gods.
Mrs. Wu is a friend of my mother, and she led me to believe in Jesus when I was 14 years old. After I was reborn, she told me that every morning before I spoke to anyone, I must pray and speak to God first. And before I took breakfast, I must read the Holy Bible. Then, I would have a happy and peaceful day without troubles. But at that time, I could only pray at most 2 or 3 sentences, and had no interest in reading the Bible. I said in my heart, “No. I will not listen to that old woman’s words. I don’t like to read Bible.” But strange things happened. Whenever I prayed and read the Bible, just even a little bit, I really felt happy and had no trouble for the whole day. When I did not pray or read the Bible, I always had so many troubles and was unhappy. I was very surprised that this old woman’s words had power. I must not despise her afterwards.
Pretty soon, a young actress of Chinese opera came to our little town. She was only 18 years old, but the whole town got excited about her. Every one went to see her show. My family also went to see her every night. We invited Mrs. Wu to come with us. At first she refused. But finally, she gave in and went with us to watch her opera.
How pity that she did not destroy the idol or image we worshipped at that time according to the word of God. She should have advised us not to waste our lives by watching these kind of worldly opera. She should have stopped us from following the crowd to worship false gods of the world. But she joined us. She fell in snares. After that, she lost her spiritual authority. Her words became powerless, and we did not obey her anymore.
There is also a failure of my own. After I came out from the Labor Camp, I went to visit a friend whom I met in the jail. I preached the gospel to her. She was so happy to hear the gospel. She told me that she would invite many of her friends to hear this gospel. Then she especially cooked for me a famous seafood, crabs. She also turned on the TV for me to watch when I ate the crab. At that time, I did not know how to keep God’s words in my heart. I should have followed the example of the old servant of Abraham. I should have been faithful to God and put His business first. I should have told my friend, “I will not eat anything or watch TV, until I explain salvation clearly to you and your friends.” But I happily accepted it and enjoyed myself about this special treatment. Then, my mouth was shut by the good food and TV that my friend worshipped. I fell into a trap. I became so dry that I could not speak a word of gospel to her at all. This failure gave me a great lesson about the importance of destroying the gods of the pagan when we enter the promised land.
In 1984 my mother came back from Hong Kong to see me in China. During day time, I read the Bible and prayed, then I went out to do God’s works. At night, I came back home and spent time with my mother. We shared a room. Every night she watched TV, I joined her for the world news. But, after the news, we continued to watch. There were some good programs about the stories of good people and of their good behaviors. For example, there was a story about a girl student married to a poor shoemaker. At first, I had no interest in watching TV, it was for the sake of my mother. But gradually I was addict to it. Even when my mother fell asleep, I continued to watch it until the middle of night. This became a hindrance to my close fellowship with the Lord. I usually read the Bible and prayed in the middle of night. At that time because of the TV, I lost sweet fellowship with God. Whenever I closed my eyes to pray, my mind was full of people and things of the world. Though it was not evil things or sayings, it was the voice of the world. If we are polluted by the world, we cannot serve the Lord with godliness and holiness. Though I did not like to watch TV at first, I fell into the trap of TV. It was all because I did not destroy the idol or altar worshipped by the pagan according to the word of God. (I should have told my mother not to watch TV; and read Bible, shared testimonies with her, or prayed with her every night.)
V. 17-24 How can we drive them out? The Lord will drive out those nations before you. The Lord will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. He will give their kings into your hand. No one will be able to stand up against you.
V. 25 The images of their gods. For example, Sarai planned to give her maid to her husband so as to get a son from her. This was a practice of pagan. But when Abram heard her plan, he did not stop her. He listened to her. He did not burn this pagan way in the fire according to God’s words. Therefore, he fell into the trap. Ishemael was born, and this son became a lasting trouble for Abram and the Israelites.
V. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house, or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. In Joshua 7, it teaches us about “Achen”. Achen took a beautiful robe and some silver and gold from things should be destroyed according to God. Later, he hid them in the ground inside his tent. Then, God would not be with the whole house of Israel. Therefore, the Israelites could not stand against their enemies. They must stoned and burned Achen and all that belonged to him. Then the Lord turned from His fierce anger.
We children of the heavenly God must utterly hate wickedness and destroy every idol of the world. Let us pay attention to His words and carefully obey them, and utterly hate wickedness. Then, we will not be trapped by the world. We will be richly blessed by our Faithful God! O, the living and almighty God!