Worshiping God to the Dictates of Our Conscience
Deuteronomy 12:29-31
“When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, beware that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’ You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.”
Does it really make any difference how we honor God? Does it really matter the way in which choose to worship God?
It certainly matters to God! It was because of the inhabitants’ religious practices that God drove out the inhabitants of the land, before the Israelites. He did not want His people to get caught in the process of judgment and punishment that results from broken law! He does not want His people, today, to practice, participate and adopt the methods used by the religions of this world. He wants to be honored and worshiped in the methods He has outlined for our good!
Notice that God says “that you are not ensnared.” In the Bible, a snare is a figurative expression of destruction through deception (Psalm 124:7; Proverbs 27:8; Proverbs 6:5 and Hosea 7:12). The snare itself does not destroy, but it leads to destruction. The Israelites heard these words in the last months before going into the Promised Land. God had set the land aside for them, but the people who inhabited it were still there. It was a ready-made nation for their use.
We are born into a ready-made society. The world was here when we came into it, and because we had no alternative, we accepted it without resistance. We absorbed the culture. However, with our calling God now has us moving in the other direction, away from this world. We must reject the false practices of those who have inhabited the land before us (Jeremiah 10:2-4).
God tells us that He will not accept that kind of worship, even though intended in His honor. To Him, it is offering what is abominable to Him, and therefore it honors, not Him, but false gods. Jesus says, “God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). God’s Word is truth (John 17:17); and the Bible says God will not accept worship when people take a pagan custom or manner of worship and try to honor Him with it.
