Deuteronomy 13:1-18

Idolatry is a very dangerous sin from which God wants us to take every measure to protect ourselves.  Perhaps the most dangerous source of idolatrous desires comes from our very own hearts.  However, Moses warns the people in today’s passage that there are other sources of idolatry that could very easily influence the people away from the Lord.  Moses calls for the most radical reaction possible in every instance of idolatrous influence; he calls for the death of that person or persons.  In today’s society this solution is not possible, but we must be careful not to tolerate those people or elements of society that encourage us or try to induce us to flame into fire the idolatry that naturally resides in each or our hearts.  We must beware of these dangerous influences and seek to expose them quickly so that we and others will not be deceived.

THE DANGEROUS INSTRUCTION OF FALSE PROPHETS: There are people who are empowered by Satan or who simply have the ability to perform deceitful “tricks” that impress us with their “show” and then try to deceive us with their teachings.  False teachers are a constant threat to the people of God and have been repeatedly used by Satan throughout the history of the world.  They try to convince us through their words to abandon the teaching of Scripture and usually promote some form of idolatry.  Today’s false teaches usually promote the idolatrous notion of self gratification in the name of Christ by proclaiming a message of peace and prosperity.  They also tend to promote some sort of human institution that is designed to take the place of God in our hearts.  Whatever the case may be, we are called by God to take radical steps to protect ourselves and others from this false instruction.  In Israel false teachers were put to death.  We must boldly confront their errors with the Word of God and call for their immediate removal from any form of teaching to God’s people.  We must never be tolerant of false teachers.

THE DANGEROUS INFLUENCE OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS: Another source of idolatry is through the sinful influence of the people who are close to us.  Our family and friends can fall under the influence of false teachers and then try to convince us to come along with them.  No matter how much we love these relationships we must never allow members of our family or friends to lead us away from the Lord.  Once again, Moses warned the people not to try to protect them and allow them to influence others, but they were to be exposed and killed.  Obviously, today we are not called to kill friends and family that try to influence us towards idolatry.  However, we must not simply stand silently by and let them expose the body of Christ.  We must confront them with the truth and if they will not hear us, we must publically rebuke them and expose them for their sinful actions.  It is hard to live with strained relationships within our families so we often choose to ignore false teachings in order to keep peace.  This is a very dangerous practice that places us and other family members at great risk.

THE DANGEROUS IMPACT OF NEIGHBORS AND SOCIETY: Moses called for rumors of idolatrous communities within Israel to be investigated and, once confirmed, exposed and destroyed.  If a false teacher were to succeed in leading a group of people astray; the news of this would begin to spread.  Upon receiving this news, those who were faithful to the Lord were to go and check this out and then destroy the group that was practicing idolatry.  Any group that is permitted to continue to coexist with God’s people will eventually have a major impact on all of the people around them and eventually with society at large.  When we see churches that abandon the truth and proclaim false doctrines, we must recognize how dangerous they are to the cause of Christ.  We must become more zealous in our confrontation of groups who pervert the Scriptures and promote false doctrine or different forms of idolatry.  God calls believers to live in unity with one another and to love one another.  Unfortunately, we have the tendency to divide and fight against one another over frivolous issues while we stand silently as other groups fall head over heels into heresy.