Wednesday, April 10, 2024

day no. 16,606: you cannot tolerate abominations without being taught by them

Deuteronomy 20:17-18
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee: That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the Lord your God.

We pick up on where we plop down. We observe and more often than not absorb the habits and customs of our surroundings. In fact, without intention, this will happen. No one can resist the current they are caught up in without, uh... resisting it. 

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."  G.K. Chesterton

You cannot tolerate abominations without being taught by them. The presupposition of God's command to utterly destroy pagan culture is that it will serve as a schoolmaster if it isn't. It will instruct even if it is not institutional. 

How much more so then should Christians hear this warning? If being around abominations is dangerous, how much more so to be deliberately taught by them? If their presence is accidentally instructive, how much more their intentional instruction? If there is a danger in living near Sodom, how much more is there a danger in sending your sons to Sodom State University?

Hebrews 2:1
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

If we ignore what we've heard, we will slip into what the world is saying. If we stop paying attention to God's eternal Word, we will spend our attention on the advice of the world. Heed will be given. It is inescapable. If you do not heed to God on purpose, you will heed to the world by accident. How much more so if you teach your kids to heed it and send your kids to be taught by it? If there is a danger in failing to provide a Christian education, how much more is there a danger in intentionally receiving one from the Antichrist?

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