Do Not Compromise
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations...nations larger and stronger than you -- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.
...Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones…
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession.
Deuteronomy 7:1-6
Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.
...Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones…
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession.
Deuteronomy 7:1-6
Destroy them totally!
Make no treaty with them!
Show them no mercy!
Do not intermarry with them!
Smash their sacred altars!
The Israelites were God's treasured possession. Out of them were to come a new standard of righteousness and morality. The new righteous ways of God could never be attained if the Israelites compromised and assumed the sinful ways of the Canaanites. So God gave them specific instructions about how to treat the occupants of the land they were about to inherit: completely destroy them.
This might seem harsh to us in retrospect. But the truth is: a little compromise can prove to be rather deadly. A former alcoholic can have a relapse and go down a path of destruction by compromising and sipping one little bit of alcohol. A former drug addict can quickly slide back into addiction with a little compromise. Our walk with God is no different. We have a real adversary, called Satan, whose sole aim is to steal, kill and destroy. A little compromise can give him much room for havoc.
Scripture tells us not to give the devil a foothold in our lives (Ephesians 4:27). In our spiritual journey, we must understand there are treaties we cannot make, relationships we cannot have, altars we must smash and things we must totally destroy for the sake of our relationship with God. Compromising with those things can have dire consequences for us.
May the Lord help us to be steadfast in His righteousness and uncompromising in our relationship with the world. Sure, we are in the world but we are not of the world. We are God's holy people. We cannot afford to compromise.
Make no treaty with them!
Show them no mercy!
Do not intermarry with them!
Smash their sacred altars!
The Israelites were God's treasured possession. Out of them were to come a new standard of righteousness and morality. The new righteous ways of God could never be attained if the Israelites compromised and assumed the sinful ways of the Canaanites. So God gave them specific instructions about how to treat the occupants of the land they were about to inherit: completely destroy them.
This might seem harsh to us in retrospect. But the truth is: a little compromise can prove to be rather deadly. A former alcoholic can have a relapse and go down a path of destruction by compromising and sipping one little bit of alcohol. A former drug addict can quickly slide back into addiction with a little compromise. Our walk with God is no different. We have a real adversary, called Satan, whose sole aim is to steal, kill and destroy. A little compromise can give him much room for havoc.
Scripture tells us not to give the devil a foothold in our lives (Ephesians 4:27). In our spiritual journey, we must understand there are treaties we cannot make, relationships we cannot have, altars we must smash and things we must totally destroy for the sake of our relationship with God. Compromising with those things can have dire consequences for us.
May the Lord help us to be steadfast in His righteousness and uncompromising in our relationship with the world. Sure, we are in the world but we are not of the world. We are God's holy people. We cannot afford to compromise.
Prayer: Lord, please help me to stay on the straight and narrow way. Amen.