"And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals."
This is Judges 2:11....ESV....but the phrase....or a phrase very similar to it....occurs dozens of times in the Old Testament. At times it boggles the mind....as in the case of Gideon....after he had through most dramatic means....saved the people from the yearly plundering of the Midianites....but no sooner was he gone than the people turned to the gods of the Midianites again! Time and time again we read that Israel was saved from enemies....and then again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD!
I'm writing from personal experience of forty-plus years of reading these verses....that I tended to view the people of Israel as some strange ancient people that obviously had a problem remembering what God had done for them....and then....incredibly....they followed the gods of the peoples around them....and even wound up sacrificing their children to these demon gods!
I lived a fairly normal life in American evangelicalism....not realizing that I had also forsaken the God of our fathers in the faith....and followed the Baals! No....there were no little statues that I prayed to....nor did I find a tall sturdy tree under which to set up an altar to one of these gods....indeed I continued to read the Old Testament....and the testimony of the history of God's people....and set myself above them....until I over time became saturated with the preaching of men from the past....Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and the like....and men today who preach like preachers from the past....MacArthur and Sproul and Piper and others....and the Word of God as presented from these men....cut deep....and I then could see my own idols that I had set up!
We are known as pro-life....anti-abortion....an abomination that is the same as sacrificing our children to pagan gods....but as the frog in the kettle was slowly boiled....we came to sacrifice our children in different ways....through entertainments primarily. There is an old and purposely comical fundamentalist phrase....certainly not heard any more....'I don't drink....smoke....or chew....or go with girls who do.' Well that's kind of like what we have become. We don't do drugs....or use foul language....or gamble....or steal from others....or lie or curse others....and we go to temple....(church in our case)....and offer sacrifices of doves and lambs....(everyone has a ministry of some sort)....and we keep the ceremonial laws of Advent and Easter....and rally around the flag....and have our regular Bible studies....but we have our own....and numerous they are...idols that we worship. The little religious figurine became the trophy....and the high hill under a terebinth tree became the megachurch....or the denomination....or our church with a pastor that would never offend anyone by actually telling us that we are sacrificing to idols and have forgotten the old paths of our fathers.
We have found a way today to defend ourselves....vicariously....by defending our church or our pastor. It makes us appear humble....when in fact we are anything but. So....the Midianites and the Amalekites are here again....plundering....and we are crying out to God. There is no Gideon....and God has taken away most of those men who preached as preachers from the past....but we are not left as orphans....for we can still cry out....Abba Father....have mercy upon our backslidings....and restore us....not as a Christian nation of which we never were....nor as a glorious church....of which we never were....but for Thy glory and Thy namesake alone!
