“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are greater and more numerous than you. When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters, for they will lead your children away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and he will quickly destroy you. This is what you must do. You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols. – Deuteronomy 7:1-5 NLT
Warrior;
God has many roles in our lives. He is our Savior, our Portion and our Provider, He is our Redeemer, He is also our friend, He is our Creator and He is our Daddy, our Father. Those roles merge and machinate in many ways as unique as the set of fingerprints on His creation called Man. His role as Creator and Abba blend in a unique way. As our Creator He knows our frame, He knows our weakness, our potential and our failings. As God told the Prophet Jeremiah, ““I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born, I set you apart.” As our manufacturer God understands His creation. This is why the 2 most given commands in the Bible are; REMEMBER, and Do NOT FEAR. Yahweh understands how easily distracted we become, and how FEAR can make us change, our focus, our commitment, and our activity. As our Father, He trains us up and He teaches us. He guides us with His word, and He leads us with His wisdom, foreknowledge, and omniscience. As our Daddy, He warns us and gives us consequences. As a GOOD FATHER He doesn’t remove the consequences, but He walks with us, in love, through the valleys of the ‘shadows of despair’.
Leader, there are many who seem offended by what some consider the brutality of the “God of the Old Testament’. God knows His creature and God knows how easily man succumbs to sexual temptation. He knows the passions of man can be easily directed to appease the desires of the flesh. One of Israel’s great transgressions is called the “Baal of Peor’. This event is written about in the book of Numbers starting in Chapter 22, It is a famous story in the Bible about Balaam and Balak. There was a talking donkey, and much money involved, all so that the Moabite King could curse the Israeli Army and defeat this “invading” force. With multiple attempts, and all the riches he could muster, King Balak was unable to get God to curse the Israelites. So Balaam instead devised a plan to get the women of Moab to seduce the men, and then God would surely punish them, thus accomplishing the same results as the curse. Numbers 25 is labeled: Moab Seduces Israel. Hear the Word of the Lord; While the Israelites were camped at Acacia Grove, some of the men defiled themselves by having sexual relations with local Moabite women. These women invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, so the Israelites feasted with them and worshiped the gods of Moab. In this way, Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the LORD’s anger to blaze against his people. The LORD issued the following command to Moses: “Seize all the ringleaders and execute them before the LORD in broad daylight, so his fierce anger will turn away from the people of Israel.” So Moses ordered Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death the men under your authority who have joined in worshiping Baal of Peor.” (ibid v1-5)
Conduit, in Numbers 25, we find that the women of Midian began to seduce the men of Israel to sexual sin and to sacrifice to their gods. Since the gods of the pagans were often fertility gods, the “worship” often involved sexual acts. God knew that the sensory based worship of the pagan gods will lure them away from the worship of the ONE TRUE GOD. The word ‘Peor’ means “opening”. God knew that this would be the OPENING that other elohim would use to entice His children away from Yahweh’s glory, and His worship. Baal means “lord,” “master,” or “ruler.” Baal became a generic name for the gods of the Canaanites. There was not just one god named Baal, but there were many Baals. The Bible references this abomination in multiple books of the Bible. In addition to the firsthand account of this in the book of Numbers this incident was also referenced in Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Hosea, and Joshua speaks of the “sin of Peor”. Baal Peor stands out as the first of many times that Israel fell into immorality and idolatry, and it also serves as a warning to Christians today. God Never wanted us to get comfortable and accepting of people who are sexually immoral, and who worship other gods. Yet in today’s church we are supposed to be accepting, tolerating, and even condoning, of behavior that God says is not natural, and not pleasing to God. We are called to be HOLY, that means set apart, to be DIFFERENT! Remember, DO NOT FEAR- “For you are a holy people, who belong to the LORD your God. Of all the people on earth, the LORD your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure”. (Deuteronomy 7:6)
Way of The Warrior- A Daily Devotional 