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Song of Moses -- Part III -- The Very First Sacrifice was not Abel's -- our study Deuteronomy 32:15-18 continues.
Moses' song to Israel (and to us) continues.
15. Israel is referred to here as Jeshurun. According to Wikipedia, this is a poetic name for Israel used in the Hebrew Bible and it is generally thought to be derived from a root word meaning 'upright'. But Israel didn't stay that way. It became fat, thick, and sleek, and it kicked. Jeshurun (the personified name for Israel) didn't take long to forsake the God who made him. Jeshurun scorned the Rock that saved him.
How can we miss the application for ourselves? If we are honest and willing to face facts, we can't. God is our Rock, He is our salvation. But as believers we have become fat. Maybe we're lazy or maybe we just have too much. We have become sleek - taking corners out of real worship and our commitment to obey His commandments, His direction of our lives, and even the basics when it comes to life (just think of many a Christian's view on abortion today). We individually, or perhaps as a family, or a church family may well have forsaken our God who made us and blessed us.
Let's go on and see what the rest of this portion of the Song has to say to us.
16. Israel made God jealous when they pursued and followed other gods. Did you ever stop to think that each time we pursue "another god" other than God -- be it sports, wealth, politics, sex, cars, entertainment, you name it -- by putting them ahead of God and His commandments and His presence with us, you and I are making God jealous. In many spots in Scripture, starting with Exodus 20:5, God tells us and warns us that He is a jealous God.
The rest of verse 16 here says that with our abominations (the practice of idolatry and immorality primarily) we have provoked Him to anger.
Many of us may have heard of the phrase "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". William Congreve, an English author of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries has a line in his play The Mourning Bride which gave us the proverb "no one is angrier than a woman who has been rejected in love". Well friends, you ain't seen real fury until you have seen or felt the fury of our God when He gets jealous and stays jealous because we have not repented of our sin of going after other gods. He may take time to get His revenge, but He will. The only thing that holds it back often is His love for you and me because He loves us so much that He so desperately wants us to ultimately seek His forgiveness and hopefully never stray again.
17. We have sacrificed to demons who were not God, and we didn't even know those demons and gods as they are new and continue to be new with the age. They are gods that our ancestors could not even imagine. I can't say enough about this -- whether we make sacrifices to other gods as the ancients did or whether we live to serve other gods (see below) as we do today -- we are sacrificing to demons. Think of that next time you put someone or something ahead of God. Let me be clear and use an example. There is nothing wrong with playing hockey or enjoying it -- it's a great sport, good exercise, and can teach us a lot. But when we put hockey ahead of our responsibilities and affection for God, we are sacrificing to demons. (You pick your own example -- ask God, He'll provide some more relevant to your life.) The apostle Paul makes that abundantly clear in I Corinthians 10:20 where he writes to us,
"No, but I say that things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become partners with demons." You don't want to be part of that. It's time to make some real hard choices about how we live.
Wow. Does that ever hit home today. First of all, think of who it was that constituted 'sacrifices' in the beginning. Many of us have always been taught to believe that the first record of sacrifices in the Old Testament came in Genesis 4:4 when after Cain offered God the fruit of the ground, Abel then presented a sacrifice of the flock to God.
I was recently led to an earlier verse. Take a look at Genesis 3:21. This takes place after Adam and Eve had sinned. It reads, "And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them." Guess what, I believe God had an animal killed or sacrificed to make those coats and to cover the first sinners, who were also His beloved creations. He instituted the concept of sacrifices, no one else. The rest are just copycats and evil at that. You can read much more about this here from the Abide in Christ website. God's Grace provided a sacrifice for Adam and Eve. And God's Grace provides a sacrifice for you and I in the person of Christ Jesus.
So for us to offer sacrifices to other gods is indeed a humongous insult to God. Matthew Henry calls it a great affront to God. Yet we do it with our time, our money, or love, and our bodies. And we do it in ways that our parents and grandparents never knew off -- our cellphones, our tablets, our drugs, our gyms, our entertainment, our sports and much more. When we put any one of those things above our service for God, our worship of God, and our time and companionship with God, we are sacrificing to other gods.
18. And in doing so, we don't just invite God to come along. No, the Scripture here actually says we "neglect God" who created us and forget that He and He alone made it possible for us to have breath and life. Are you neglecting God today?
Whoever thought we would get this much out of the Song of Moses? And we've only just begun. But here's the question for you and I today: Have we forsaken our Creator? Have we worshipped or are we worshipping other gods? Do we really want to have to deal with God's jealousy? Can we really withstand His ire or fury? I hope not. And in case we have, I hope we know what we need to do.
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