When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations you are entering to dispossess, and you drive them out and live in their land, Sermons
I. BALEFUL SUPERSTITION. The ground of these inquiries about the gods of the place was a lurking belief in their reality. There was a superstitious feeling that the woods, hills, streams, etc., must have their deities, whom it would be well to propitiate and worship. The country as a whole, and special districts of it, had gods, and, Jehovah notwithstanding, the superstitious part of the community stood in dread of them. Superstitions are hard to eradicate. We have examples in the survival of the belief in witches, fairies, charms, omens, lucky and unlucky days, etc., among ourselves. Till a recent period, it was the custom in parts of the Scottish Highlands to sacrifice bulls to local saints. And the practice of burying a live cock for the cure of epilepsy is said to survive till the present hour. Born of ignorance, and acting as a check on all enlightenment and progress, superstition is the parent of innumerable evils, besides debasing and enslaving mind and conscience. Its influence should be combated by every legitimate means. II. PRURIENT CURIOSITY. The superstitious motive did not act alone. This itching desire to hear about the gods of the place, and how the nations served them, was symptomatic of a prurient disposition. There was, unfortunately, too much in the way in which these nations had "served their gods" to excite and interest the passions of the dissolute. It is a dangerous token when those who ought to know better begin to manifest a prurient curiosity about what is evil. It leads to prying into matters which had better remain hidden, to inquiries at persons whose very society is dangerous, to the reading of obscene books, the visiting of bad places, the keeping of immoral company, etc. At the bottom of such inquiries there is invariably a secret sympathy, which is bound, as time advances, to yield fruit in evil practices. III. SERVILE IMITATION. The idolatry of the Israelites was signalized by a strange want of originality. They invented no gods of their own. They were content to be imitators. The nations before them had gods. The nations around them had gods. They wanted to be like the rest, and have gods too - hence their inquiries. A curious illustration of the force of the principle of imitation. It is one of the ruling principles in human nature. Imitation is easier than invention. The tendency invariably is to "follow the crowd." It matters nothing that it is "to do evil." The fashion of the time and place must be observed. There are people who would almost rather die than be out of the fashion. Yet what a weakness is this, and how opposed to all true and right manhood! "Be not conformed to the world" (Romans 12:2). - J.O.
That it may go well with thee. Though salvation is not by the works of the law, yet the blessings which are promised to obedience are not denied to the faithful servants of God. The curses our Lord took away when He was made a curse for us, but no clause of blessing has been abrogated. We are to note the revealed will of the Lord, giving our attention not to portions of it, but to "all these words." There must be no picking and choosing, but an impartial respect to all that God has commanded. This is the road of blessedness for the father and for his children. The Lord's blessing is upon His chosen to the third and fourth generation. If they walk uprightly before Him, He will make all men know that they are a seed which the Lord hath blessed. No blessing can come to us or ours through dishonesty or double dealing. The ways of worldly conformity and unholiness cannot bring good to us or ours. It will go well with us when we go well before God. If integrity does not make us prosper, knavery will not. That which gives pleasure to God will bring pleasure to us.( C. H. Spurgeon.) And with thy children after thee God is concerned for posterity. We may mock the suggestion, and put foolish questions concerning the generations yet to come, but the Book of God is as careful about the child unborn as about the old pilgrim born into the higher spaces. God does not insulate Himself by the little present; He contemplates the end from the beginning. All souls are His. He also puts it into our care to regard the welfare of our successors. There is a sense in which we all have a posterity — some in a narrower, some in a larger sense; but we all have a succession: we are influencing tomorrow by our spirit and action today. How mad are they, and how guilty of the cruellest murder, who go on indulging every desire, sating every appetite, satisfying every wish, forgetting that they are involving the yet unborn to pain, weakness, incapacity, and dooming them to lifelong suffering and distress. Here is the greatness of the Bible, the noble condescension of God, the infinite solicitude of the eternal Father. His speech runs to this effect: take care: not only are you involved, but your child and child's child, for generation upon generation: your drunkenness will reappear in the disease of ages yet to come; your bad conduct will repeat itself in a long succession of evil-minded men; your behaviour appears at present to be agreeable, to have some aspects that might be called delightful, but things are not what they seem: actions do not end in themselves; every bad thought you think takes out some spark of vitality from your brain — robs you, depletes you; be careful; have some regard for those who have to succeed you; learn from those who went before you how evil a thing it is to have sown bad seed, and by what you have learned from them conduct yourself aright; if you are true, wise, pure, generous, well-conducted altogether, generations will arise to bless you; if you take care of the poor, if any of your succession be doomed to poverty, with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you and them again; blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged. Life is one: touch it where we may, we send a thrill, a vibration, along all the vital lines. The law is two-fold: sow evil, and reap evil; sow good, and reap good. This is no partial law, dealing with penalty and shame only: it is an impartial righteousness, dealing with reward and glory, and promising delight vast and tender as the heaven of God.(J. Parker, D. D.) People Levites, MosesPlaces Beth-baal-peor, Jordan RiverTopics Cut, Cuts, Cutteth, Dispossess, Dispossessed, Dispossessest, Driven, Dwell, Dwellest, Dwelt, Goest, Hast, Invade, Nations, Possess, Possessed, Possession, Presence, Settled, Succeedest, WhitherOutline 1. Monuments of idolatry to be destroyed4. The place of God's service to be kept 15. Blood is forbidden 17. Holy things must be eaten in the holy place 19. The Levite is not to be forsaken 20. Blood is again forbidden 26. and holy things must be eaten in the holy place 29. Idolatry is not to be enquired after Dictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 12:29-31 8764 forgetting God Library The Eating of the Peace-Offering'But thou must eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto.'--DEUT. xii. 18. There were three bloody sacrifices, the sin-offering, the burnt- offering, and the peace-offering. In all three expiation was the first idea, but in the second of them the act … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Exposition of the Moral Law. The Promise in 2 Samuel, Chap. vii. The King --Continued. 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