The first two thirds of the chapter detail the punishments for sacrificing children to foreign gods and for sexual immorality. There is a list of infractions followed by the appropriate punishments – almost all of which are death. The conclusion is God’s summary of why the commands should be obeyed.
” ‘You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. But I have said to you, “You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.’ ” (v22-26)
God was very clear that the practices of the foreign people (eg. Canaan) were an abomination to Him and He would not tolerate His people keeping those practices. The two main types of practices listed in this chapter involve idolatry (sinning against God) and sexual immorality (sinning against people). Both types of sin are detestable to God and are punishable (by death in most cases, with only a few exceptions).
Despite the fact Jesus paid the death penalty for our sin, idolatry and adultery are still detestable sins today. We are to avoid these sins whenever possible, and confess those sins if we commit them. This includes committing the sins in our hearts (“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” [Mt 5:27-28])
What this means for me today is an increased desire to resist the temptations of our culture. Just as God commanded Israel “you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you”, we too should try to avoid the customs of this world.
An example of this would be a new TV series that just came out and looked really good in the previews – before watching it I read a content review and discovered it has a strong focus on depicting intimate relations between the characters. I am choosing not to watch this show, no matter how interesting it looked, because I don’t need to fill my mind and heart with these things, even if the world says it’s acceptable to do so.
Father God, we come before you today grateful for Your loving forgiveness, grace and mercy. Father please cleanse us of any unconfessed unrighteousness. Please help to guard our hearts and minds against the allure of this world, no matter how appealing it is. Please help keep our hand from sinning against us, lest we have to cut it off (Mt 5:29-30). We need Your strength and deliverance in our lives, for this world offers us so much and it’s hard to avoid the temptations of the land. Please Father, deliver us from the evil one and keep our feet on the straight and narrow path Jesus blazed before us. Amen.
~ Conqueror in Training