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Burn up their idols in the fire. Do not wish for the silver and gold on them. Don’t take it for yourselves, or you will be trapped by it. The Lord your God hates it. Do not bring one of those hated things into your house. If you do, you will be completely destroyed along with it. Hate and reject those things. They must be completely destroyed. Deuteronomy 7.
This text instructs the Israelites to not only turn from idol worship but also what to do with the idols… utterly destroy them and burn them up. But look what else the text says don’t even keep the melted silver or gold that the idol was made of… get rid of it. Probably don’t even sell the gold and silver… just get rid of it.
In fact we see the exact same principle illustrated in the New Testament…
Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. Acts 19.
Some might say… why don’t we take the gold from the melted idols… sell it and give it to the Lord. Or… why don’t we sell these magic books and give the proceeds to the church?
There is a sort of wisdom in that but not godly wisdom… the proceeds from the melted idols and sold magic books would be tainted and not acceptable to God.
What can we learn from these examples and the sin in our lives today?
Suppose you went to the garage sale of a widow and you “beat” her up on the pricing and went home and bragged about the good deal you got and the money you saved. Is the okay to take advantage of widows or the poor? What do you do with the widow’s property that you stole from her? Keep it anyway? Sell it so you won’t be reminded of your iniquity and use the money to buy something else?
What if you had been engaged in “outlaw” hunting on one of the big south Texas ranches and brought home a trophy buck and had it mounted and placed over your fire place. You later realize that you are a thief. What do you do with the deer mount? Keep it and recite to yourself over and over that you are saved by God’s grace? Or do you get rid of the monument to your sin and refuse to even keep or profit from selling it?
God’s people live to a higher standard than the rest of humanity. Part of that is not sinning or even keeping any of the treasure associated with sin. If you’re not ready to do that then you are not worthy of the Kingdom.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27
In this verse Jesus cites the two greatest commandments… loving God and loving your neighbor.
Let me suggest that participating in the Lord’s Supper (properly) fulfills both these commands.
Of course Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper so observing and obeying that directive fulfills the Great Command… loving God because we show that we love God by obeying his command.
When Christians congregate together and observe the Lord’s Supper, they are fulfilling the second great command… loving your neighbor as yourself.
Here’s why… God never intended that the Lord’s Supper be taken individually and privately. It is a communal activity observed when all Christians come together to demonstrate the unity of believers to the whole world. Check out Ephesians 3…
“His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms”
When we don’t assemble to take the Lord’s Supper we are violating God’s great command by neglecting his communal intent and we are violating the second command by neglecting our fellow Christians. In essence, telling our brothers and sisters that they don’t even matter.
Assemble together with your fellow Christians to observe the Lord’s Supper properly and in so doing fulfil the two greatest commandments given by Jesus.
Most of you don’t know this but I bring my own personal song book to church every Sunday. It is a leather-bound “Praise for the Lord”.
As a song leader I like to write the date by every song I have led. That’s one of the ways I know if I am leading a given song too many times. When other song leaders lead and they lead a song that I have never led… I mark that song too. That way I have a record of all the songs that the congregation “knows”.
Sometimes a member tells me something about a particular song. For instance I led the song “Beautiful” on May 2, 2010 and David Smitherman told me that was his grandmother’s favorite song. I mark things like that down.
I’ve gone through my whole songbook and marked all the songs I think I know and also have marked the songs I think look interesting so I can learn them later.
I also mark all the songs that were led at member’s funerals. For instance, the songs…”Seek Ye First”, “Does Jesus Care”, “He Leadeth Me”, How Great Thou Art”, “Victory in Jesus”, “Amazing Grace”, “Alleluia”, and “Blest Be the Tie” were all sung at my Dad’s funeral. I can’t lead those songs without getting a little emotional.
Likewise if I want to make various members cry… I know which ones to lead. You see… it’s all right there marked in my songbook.
My songbook is an old friend and I take a lot of comfort in it. It is in a lot of ways my own personal record and I think that one day when I have passed my children or grandchildren would love to have it as a memorial to me.
I guess that’s why I’m not a big fan of paperless hymnal… I could never leave my old friend on a shelf and sing without him and also neglect one day to pass my old friend to a loved one.
I was talking to my High School Bible class the other day and I asked them what they thought Heaven might be like? I didn’t get much of a response.
When I read descriptions of Heaven it’s like streets of Gold, gates of pearl and walls of precious stones. Plus activities like worship and singing before the throne of God. For me I can’t get too excited about walking on a street paved with gold and although I like to sing after a while I get tired of singing. Plus… I know some people who don’t even like to sing.
I asked my class… what would be the perfect Heaven for you? What would you like to be doing up there?
One said… I would play my guitar every day. Others talked about playing video games all day long. I guess for me it would be playing Volleyball or eating great food or laughing or spending time with loved ones.
Here’s the thing… a lot of those descriptions about Heaven in the scriptures are figurative… not literal. God uses figurative descriptions to describe immeasurable value in timeless terms that humans can understand.
I told my class that all those fun things we like to do now and the enjoyment those things bring us… that whatever God has planned for us in Heaven… it will be 1000 times funner… maybe a million times.
Have faith in God that he knows how to reward his children. The good things of earth are merely a foreshadowing of those things that God is going to surprise us with in Heaven
“If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.
The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.” Deut 13
Usually we know if a Prophet is truly from God because his prophecies come true. Obviously if a Prophet’s prophecies don’t come true he is not from God. Makes sense right? Not so fast…
This passage appears to tell us that God can inspire a Prophet to give a mixed message as a test for us.
So imagine this… God inspires a prophet to tell us that God will raise up a T. Rex who will rise up out of Corpus Christi Bay and smash up the Selena Auditorium. Of course we all laugh but then one day a big old T. Rex does exactly that.
The next day the prophet says we must all become Muslims.
The true follower of God will say… I know that T. Rex tore up Selena’s Auditorium and I can’t explain it but I cannot reject my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and will wait for God to explain it all in Heaven one day.
Same thing with Preacher’s today… some of them may look good and may sound good and may do a lot of good but they could just be a test from God to see if you are going to follow a man or God’s Holy written Word… the Bible. How are you going to know what to do and who to follow if you don’t know the Bible?
“Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.
But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.” Deut. 14
The above passage explains the Old Testament instruction of tithing. Of course remember that Israelites were commanded to give back 1/10 of whatever their blessings were to the Lord. There was a problem though… they were to carry their 1/10 of grain, wine, oil, etc. to Jerusalem (for instance). That could be a potentially very long way to freight those products and the Lord understood that. He instructs them to sell it… take the money to Jerusalem and use it to buy things worth their 1/10th tithing so they could fulfill the tithing commandment.
Of course we’re not required to tithe in the sense of Old Testament tithing today. Rather we give free will offerings… as we have prospered. So it might be less than 1/10th and it might be greater than 1/10th. Some would say that since we live under a better covenant that it should be more than 10%
The Israelites had a problem giving due to distance. What kind of problems might we have today? I can think of two things off the top of my head.
- We might “love” our money too much and get real sad and have a hard time saying goodbye when the collection plate is passed around.
- We might “love” things that money can buy too much and have bought so many nice things on credit that our money is tied up and we can’t give much to God.
Since we know that we have an obligation to give and that God will hold us accountable what kind remedy might God suggest for our monetary problems?
God might say… don’t live beyond your means. If you can’t afford to pay cash for it don’t buy it.
God might say… why are you buying expensive things for yourself and giving me nothing?
God might say… it’s better to live frugally and give bountifully than to live bountifully and give frugally.
I look back at my life and see that he has blessed me every step of the way. The reality is that if he asked me to give Him everything I have… how could I say no? Surely Heaven is worth “all”
When I was in Veterinary School they taught us that as diagnosticians we lived in a world of probability not possibility and they illustrated it like this…
If you were standing on one side of the barn and heard some hoof beats what would you expect to see? A Tibetan Ox? A Giraffe? A Camel? An Oryx?
Those are all possibilities but are any of them probabilities? No they are not. Don’t be surprised to see a cow or horse come around the corner.
When we consider the testimony of nature we can clearly see that the earth had a beginning and has a complexity to it that cannot be duplicated by the smartest of humanity and cannot be reasonably explained by being an accident.
So as diagnosticians what do we conclude? There are a lot of possibilities but the probability is that the earth and all the life on it were created by an intelligent being. Are the Big Bang theory and specific evolution possibilities? Yes they are but they are not likely or probable.
It’s then that we turn to the Bible record to find that intelligent being that was responsible for it all.
Someone told me one time that if you sat a monkey down in front of a type writer and gave him enough time that eventually he could type out the Declaration of Independence. That’s ridiculous… I know monkeys… they would tear the typewriter up and defecate all over it.
Don’t waste your time and life chasing after every little possibility that exists. Follow after probabilities and keep your eyes open for the rare possibility that might pop up.
Examine nature carefully and carefully investigate the Holy Scriptures it's possible and probable that you will find God.
