Have You Been Influenced by Idol Worshippers? Deuteronomy 13:6-10.

Do you have lost friends? Yes. Do you admire personal heroes who happen to be lost? Yes. Do they influence you? Yes. Anytime you like or admire someone, their choices influence you. It’s as if you were two sheep wandering across a field. If you like or admire another sheep and he takes a certain path, you will be tempted to take the same path. After all, it worked for him so far, right? And now that he walked there, the grass is already flattened out for you. Never mind if there might be a wolf at the other end of the path.

When we watch people make choices, we are ALWAYS influenced. Even when they are FICTIONAL people. As you see the path they take it forms a mental map in your mind. And if you see many, many people (fictional or not) taking the same path, it becomes more like a highway than a trail. Soon a rut forms in your thinking and when you face a similar fork in the road, it will be difficult to choose anything but the choice you have watched everyone else make. An example? Pre-marital sex. If you watch television, you can’t help but think that EVERYONE makes that choice; NO ONE waits. And that is a lie, but it is an overwhelming lie if television is your only source of information about the world.

God says to be careful and shake off the influence of unbelieving idolaters. (And every unbeliever is an idol worshipper, whether the idol is self, money, success, or something else.)

If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” you must not listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him. Instead, you must kill him. Your hand is to be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Deuteronomy 13:6, 8-10.

Could you do it? Could you stone to death your brother, son, daughter, or wife for tempting you with idol worship? Thankfully, we do not face that choice today. But the danger is real. God commands each of us to be vigilant, to be a warrior. Can you do battle with the world’s ungodly influences? Can you destroy the idolatrous lies already lurking in your heart? Do you hate evil? Ask God to help you to HATE EVIL, even when it comes from someone you love.

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