Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire. Sermons
I. FROM THE TRUE IDEA OF MARRIAGE. Two individuals unite their lives, and enter into a fellowship the most intimate possible - to what end? Surely that their natures may be raised to greater perfection, and that they may be better enabled to attain the ends of their existence. This implies a certain harmony of disposition, an essential accordance in the views taken of life and its duties. It is a union, as One has said, not merely between two creatures, but also between two spirits. But what communion, it may be asked, can exist in spiritual respects between two persons severed from each other in the deepest principles of their lives? II. FROM A REGARD TO THE DIVINE BLESSING. Where one partner is irreligious, the blessing cannot rest upon the home in the same degree as where both are "heirs together of the grace of life" (1 Peter 3:7). Believers are to "agree" as touching what things they shall ask (Matthew 18:19). Variances even in godly households result in prayers being "hindered" (1 Peter 3:7). How much sadder the case of a home, so-called, where husband and wife stand so far apart that they cannot unite in prayer at all! And who that values God's blessing would willingly enter into a relation which inevitably stints and limits it? III. FROM THE DANGER ACCRUING TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. The danger is not imaginary (1 Kings 11:3). Where spiritual life is not destroyed, as we may hope that often it is not, yet nothing but harm can come from an association in every respect adverse to it. How intolerable to a spiritual mind to endure "the blight of all sympathy, to be dragged down to earth, and forced to become frivolous and commonplace; to lose all zest and earnestness in life; to have heart and life degraded by mean and perpetually recurring sources of disagreement" (F. W. Robertson)! This is the species of living death to which unequal yoking not infrequently leads. The effects on offspring are also to be considered. Yet such marriages are rushed into, and, in the prevalent anxiety to make marriage the stepping-stone to wealth and social position, seem likely to become increasingly numerous. Would that men were wise, that they understood these things l - J.O.
Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold. Showing, as he always shows, a most penetrating mind, Moses points to a very subtle temptation which would arise in connection with the progress of Israel. The graven images of the heathen nations were to be burned with fire. Moses says in the twenty-fifth verse: "Thou shalt not desire...lest thou be ensnared therein." How subtle is the temptation in that direction! Shall we cast in the hideous gods and the valuable gold, and consume them both in the unsparing fire? How much better first to strip the god of his golden coat and then burn the wood or clay or grind the stone to powder! Moses, foreseeing this temptation, and by the very inspiration of God, knowing the mysteries of human nature, said: "Touch not; taste not; handle not." In such abstention is the only possible safety of the Church. The temptation operates today. Men will sustain a questionable mode of earning a livelihood on the pretence that they can gather from the forbidden trade gold and silver which they can melt down and mint with the image and superscription of God; they can allow the devastating traffic to proceed, reeking like the pit of hell, destroying countless thousands of lives, and yet justify the continuance of the iniquity by taking off the gold and the silver and throwing part of it into the coffers of the Church. Missions so sustained are dishonoured. The gold torn from any evil way of getting a livelihood and given to the Church is an abomination to the Lord thy God. He does not want even good gold stolen for His purposes, or gold won by unholy means thrown into His exchequer. Let us give honest money. Let us eat bread unleavened by wrong-doing; there may be little of it, but Christ will break it with His own hands, and it shall be more than our hunger needs. Marvellous, too, is the prevision of Moses when he lays down the only law or principle by which all these abstentions and all these actions can be sustained. Do not let us ascribe these regulations to the prevision of Moses unless we understand by that term the inspiration of God. What is the principle which guarantees safety and protects the soul from the unclean things of heathen nations? That principle is laid down in the twenty-sixth verse. Speaking of heathen abomination Moses says: "Thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it." There is no middle feeling; there is no intermediate way of dealing with bad things. "If thy right, hand offend thee, cut it off"; "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." Thus the Testaments are one: the moral tone is the same; the stern law never yields to time — its phrase changes, its words may come and go, its forms may take upon them the colour of the transient times, but the inner spirit of righteousness is the Spirit of God, without beginning, without measure, without end.(J. Parker, D. D.). People Amorites, Canaanites, Egyptians, Girgashite, Girgashites, Hittites, Hivite, Hivites, Jebusites, Moses, Perizzites, Perrizites, PharaohPlaces Beth-baal-peor, EgyptTopics Altars, Asherah, Asherahs, Asherim, Ashe'rim, Break, Broken, Burn, Burned, Cut, Dash, Deal, Destroy, Engraved, Fire, Graven, Groves, Hew, Holy, Idols, Images, Pieces, Pillars, Poles, Pulled, Sacred, Shatter, Shiver, Shrines, Smash, Standing, Statues, Stones, Tear, Thus, TreesOutline 1. All communion with the nations is forbidden5. for fear of idolatry, 6. for the holiness of the people, 9. for the nature of God in his mercy and justice, 17. and for the assuredness of victory which God will give over them. Dictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 7:5 4366 stones 1310 God, as judge 7258 promised land, early history 6512 salvation, necessity and basis Library God's Faithfulness'Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him.'--DEUT. vii. 9. 'Faithful,' like most Hebrew words, has a picture in it. It means something that can be (1) leant on, or (2) builded on. This leads to a double signification--(1) trustworthy, and that because (2) rigidly observant of obligations. So the word applies to a steward, a friend, or a witness. Its most wonderful and sublime application is to God. It presents to … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Match-Making. The First Covenant That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful. The Sovereignty of God in Reprobation Why all Things Work for Good John's Introduction. The Holiness of God The Covenant of Grace Deuteronomy Links Deuteronomy 7:5 NIVDeuteronomy 7:5 NLT Deuteronomy 7:5 ESV Deuteronomy 7:5 NASB Deuteronomy 7:5 KJV Deuteronomy 7:5 Bible Apps Deuteronomy 7:5 Parallel Deuteronomy 7:5 Biblia Paralela Deuteronomy 7:5 Chinese Bible Deuteronomy 7:5 French Bible Deuteronomy 7:5 German Bible Deuteronomy 7:5 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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