In the midst of a long and significant sermon, Moses said in Deuteronomy 12:8-9, “You shall not do at all what we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes; for you have not as yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.” (NASU) Despite that clear warning the congregation of Israel did exactly what they were warned against. Judges 17:6 and21:25 are identical, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (NASU) The Israelites failed to trust God and thus they failed to obey Him. Specifically they failed to root all of the Canaanites from the Promised Land. That resulted in the Israelites participating in some of the sinful practices of the Canaanites. Furthermore, it led them to engage in some of the Canaanites’ idol worship.
The Israelite experience is supposed to serve as a warning and instruction for you and me. Sadly, we usually miss the point or ignore the principles gleaned from their failure and discipline. Rather than obeying the clear command of God the Israelites “did what was right in their own eyes”. Rather than rooting out that which was offensive to God and detrimental to them, they tolerated it. Because they listened to some of the Canaanites who begged to be spared, the Israelites allowed them to remain in the land. Because the Israelites tolerated the Canaanites, the Israelites would eventually intermarry with the Canaanites. The Canaanites were a much greater danger when they became friends with the Israelites than when they had been their enemies. These marriages led to incorporating Canaanite religious practices into the Israelite worship. This syncretistic religion involving idol worship was repulsive to the one true God. I am a fool if I believe that my sin is any less odious to God.
We do exactly the same thing that the Israelites did. We fail to obey God in completely rooting sin out of our lives. We make a little progress in going on with the Lord. We get a little self-confident. We come up against a sin that seems small, at least in our eyes. We disobey God and tolerate that sin. We reason, “Surely it can’t be that bad, it’s such a small thing”. We come up against a sin that is a deeply ingrained habit, one of those sins that begs to be spared. “Surely it will be o.k. if we spare this one; surely we do not have to be so ruthless as to root out that sin.” We are masters at rationalizing and excusing our sin. However, a greater danger lurks just ahead. Just like the Israelites, if we tolerate sin in our lives, we will sooner or later marry that sin. That which we once only tolerated will soon take a much bigger place in our lives. The sin we tolerated may one day dominate our very existence. No one wakes up one day and makes a conscious decision to be a glutton, a gossip, an alcoholic, a gambling addict, a drug addict, a thief, a pornography addict, a child molester, a sluggard addicted to gaming, or anything of the like. Instead, under the cover of darkness we simply tolerate a little of it, eventually we marry it. Make no mistake about it; if we do not methodically, meticulously, ruthlessly root these sins out of our lives, we are ensuring that our fellowship with God will be broken. Furthermore, God has promised to discipline His children.
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