While We Wait

November 17

"When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, "How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.

"You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. "Observe whatever I command you, you shall not add to it nor take away from it,” Deuteronomy 12:29-32.

Our God has gone to great lengths to make His will and His law plain before the face of mankind. He has written it in His holy Word the Bible and He has written it upon the tables of the hearts of men, according to II Corinthians 3:3 which says, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

We who believe in the Living God, we who have received His “unspeakable gift” of eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross, II Corinthians 9:15, must not in any way diminish the preciousness of His sacrifice for our eternal well-being by flagrantly disobeying His law or distorting His truth.

The Word addresses the danger to His ancient people for He knows that as they entered the land He set aside for them, they would encounter people whose loyalty was not to Him. He knew they would be bombarded on every side with practices that are anathema to the Holy One.

He knew that although these modes of worship were abomination to Him, His people would be allured by them; He knew that they would have the proclivity to forsake the way of truth in order to pursue the way of wantonness and dubious pleasure. Therefore, He admonished them that they refrain from adopting the ways of the godless world around them.

These words of caution are applicable to the Christian world today. Believers look around them and see that they are primary targets of unbelievers. They see that although there is evidence of persecution among religions and belief systems that differ from one another, it is those who espouse Christ who are the object of most of the vitriolic venom of other world views.

The Word of the Lord comes to people of faith in the power of His name, “take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them,” take heed that we do not embrace to ourselves the godless and demonic practices of the world around us.

We live in an age when tolerance is the by-word of those who deny the holiness of Christ and disdain His claim to be Savior of the world according to II Timothy 4:10 which says, “We labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.”

May it be our joy to worship our Holy God after righteousness and truth, after the way established through the sacrifice of Jesus who forsook the glory of Heaven in order that we might taste of the heavenly promise while on Earth. May it be our joy to share our “blessed hope,” Titus 2:13, while we await “the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”