Most will remember that the Israelites left Egypt under the command of God’s servant, Moses, who led them through the wilderness forty years until they finally reached the Promised Land.
At that point, Moses died and Joshua took charge, leading the people into battle to take control of their land. Because Jehovah’s religion was to have one Lord and be free of idolatry and superstition, the faith of the heathen was a great danger. God commanded that they should be eliminated, but they weren’t.
Today, our strategy in dealing with the world around us involves conversion rather than extermination, but immersion in this life affords us the same opportunities to influence for good or to be influenced for evil. What are the dangers when we mingle with the Gentiles?
In Psalm 106, the writer recounts the long history of his nation and the leadership of Moses through the wilderness. We know that the journey from Horeb to Kadesh-Barnea should only have taken about eleven days, but was extended to forty years for two reasons. At first, God foresaw that the people’s hearts would melt if they came near the fearsome Philistines, and so he detoured them away from certain war. Later, the people become so ungrateful that their faith in God failed and he punished them by extending their tour until almost every adult should die for his disbelief.
Psalm 106, however, looks backward at all these events and focuses upon some of the reasons for Israel’s ultimate downfall at the hands of the Assyrians and Chaldeans (verses 34-40). Key among these reasons was the fact that they disobeyed God and permitted the idolaters to squat in the land of promise and exert influence over the kingdom and its citizens, who should have known no other God but the one of heaven. Gradually, Israel learned their superstitious ways and were defiled by imitating evil.
God’s will seems harsh today; most would probably think it incompatible with the law of Christ and surely it bears all the marks of an earlier time (see Deuteronomy 7:1-8, 16). The revelation of the scheme of salvation required that this nation tend a bloodline that could lead to Jesus Christ, but the presence of idolatry all around made that task more challenging and so God commanded them to rid the Promised Land of false deities and their servants.
It was a crooked and perverse generation, though, that had not the heart to execute God’s will and permitted the idolaters to remain and even persist in their false worship (Deuteronomy 32:15-18). The lingering presence of idols and idolaters added bitterness to the farewell speech of Joshua (24:14-24). Ever since Rachel stole her father’s household idols (see Genesis 31), Israel had struggled to break free from their seduction, bowing before molten calves and passing their own children into the fiery arms of Molech. Now as the psalmist thinks back, he realizes that Israel had played the harlot with those false gods, compelling God to divorce the nation and seek to be espoused to a purer bride yet to come.
The lesson we must learn today involves both the power of false gods and the influence that takes place between us and those around us, either for good or evil. We are commissioned for conversion rather than extermination, but the same dangers exist in that we may mingle with the lost in such a way that we receive more negative influence than we ever give positively.
Our Relationship to the World Around Us
Jesus described the apostles as being men chosen out of the world so that they would be of an entirely different character (see John 15:19). During his ministry and especially after his resurrection, that distinction became very evident, so that his prediction came true–the world began to hate the apostles who exposed its evil deeds and called on reluctant sinners to change or be condemned. Even the religious establishment in Jerusalem persecuted the apostles, whose survivors were imprisoned and beaten also by the Gentile authorities in the empire.
Because people call America a “Christian nation,” we tend to expect that persecution has been eliminated and the costs of being a Christian have all been paid by our forefathers. That false paradise only belongs to those willing to compromise their convictions and walk in the path of the majority, the same kind of corrupt religious establishment that ruled Jerusalem.
In dealing with the world around us, including the prevailing religious sector of it, we have to remain aware of our distinctiveness or else we will gradually lose it just like the Hebrews did. That is the challenge of being in the world, but not of the world, set apart by truth (see John 17:16). The form of this world is passing away and it is misused by those who stake all their happiness and hopes in its soil (see First Corinthians 7:31). Our boast, our hope, our anchor must be planted beyond this dying world (Galatians 6:12-15).
It comes down to learning to be content and even excited about that distinctiveness that makes the morality and personality of the Christian stand out without shame. It is eschewing conformity to majority opinion and the religious establishment (Romans 12:1-2). It is being driven by higher ambitions than the selfish and fleshly (First John 2:15-17). It is undeterred by the objections of those who prefer ecumenical conformity (First Peter 4:1-4).
Conquest
Israel was commanded to tear down the false religion in the land of Canaan as they conquered its soil, but Joshua recognized the Hebrews did not have the heart to do it. All the kings of Israel and Judah either supported idolatry or fell short of eradicating it, beginning with King Saul who could not bring himself to execute wicked King Agag.
Honestly, when the soldiers of Christ look at this wicked, lost world, conquest is also on our mind, but not in terms of a military conflict ending in bloodshed. Rather we are commissioned to arm ourselves with the mind of Christ and the sword of the Spirit in the hopes of bringing souls willingly and gratefully into submission to Jesus Christ (Second Corinthians 10:3-6). The Crusaders of the Middle Ages sought and the Muslims of today seek to conquer the world religiously at the end of a literal sword, but the army of the Lord uses reason and persuasion instead. The result is a conquest for Christ that is willing and industrious, rather than under compulsion, but if we make no such effort, we find ourselves little different from the Hebrews who weakly walked through Canaan without the heart to conquer.
Influence for Good
One of the most powerful weapons in our arsenal is example–exemplifying the blessed life that every unbeliever should covet (Matthew 5:13-16). We cannot afford to mar that example by behaving hypocritically, by matching the low moral standards of the world around us or by acting miserable when we have to pay the inevitable costs of faith (Philippians 2:12-18).
Hypocrites give unbelievers room to criticize the church and make headway against it. Complaining tells the seeker that the life of faith is unrewarding and burdensome, rather than hopeful and worthwhile. If we are going to influence others for good, we have to be on guard and at the ready all the time, so that we are studied and prepared to shine (see First Peter 3:15, Second Timothy 2:15).
Influence for Evil
The world will always contain the modern version of Gentiles–the lost and unbelieving–among whom we will be forced or tempted to mingle; example and evangelism will conquer by conversion only a relative few. As the psalmist recalled, so we are warned not to learn their works or serve their idols. Demas forsook Paul, having loved this present world and it can seem an easy thing for us to do the same when the lost world and religious establishment around us seem so much easier and more physically rewarding (see Second Timothy 4:10).
If you have any vestiges of a worldly lifestyle left lying around your house, mingle with them no longer, but destroy them as surely as the Ephesian magicians burned their magic books in a penitent fire–alcohol, tobacco, pornography, whatever (see Acts 19:18-20).
The world goes on with an attitude about Judgment that it will never occur, and that even if it does, most will be saved any way on the basis of dead faith or works of charity and merit, so they “eat and drink” as if tomorrow does not matter. Paul warns, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals’” (First Corinthians 15:33, NASV).
At some point, Israel stopped influencing the Gentiles and the whole process reversed, just as the church at Corinth stopped influencing the city and the city infected the congregation. That is the battle of which we must remain conscious and vigilant.
The Consequences
Think back to the consequences enumerated in Psalm 106:34-40. The Hebrews learned the idolatrous ways of the Gentiles and eventually adopted them, so that they were defiled by their own works, became as harlots before God and sacrificed their own children in the process. Aren’t the same dangers before us as we navigate a world we must hold at arm’s length?
How easy is it to learn the ways of the world when it comes to language, attire, habits, entertainment, etc.? What results is divided loyalty, pleasing to the devil, but unbearable for God who says that we cannot serve him and mammon (James 4:1-4). And this is all our children will see, so that we will lay their bodies in the burning arms of a modern Molech who consumes their minds and bodies with destructive ways.
Conclusion
Will God abhor his own inheritance? Don’t say it can’t happen, because it already did in ancient Israel. It happened because they hated him, choosing the passing pleasures of sin over the eternal blessing or holiness. Which will you choose?
