The Danger of Distorting the Word

One thing reading the Bible does is teach you about history. And what you learn is that history is very dark. The ancient world, segregated to life in the dark before the light of Christ shone in men's hearts was a place of unbelievable evil. When you read Jeremiah you see that this evil found it's way into the heart of Israel's community. 

Jeremiah 7:30–31 (ESV) “For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. 31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

Imagine this picture - burning your children in sacrifice to "gods". That is what Judah took part in. And God specifies - this did not even enter his mind! He did not even consider this to be a thing for them and yet they did it. 

Leviticus 18:21 (ESV) You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
    
What are we to learn as "modern" people? The heart of man is desperately wicked. People are bound by darkness that if left unchecked with do unconscionable things to other people. Even after Christ came into the world we have seen this and continue to ask how it is possible. How do children shoot each other in school? How do members of terrorist groups murder civilians and rape their women before stabbing them to death? How does a mother kill her own children? The sin nature is beyond understanding. 

This is the infection of humanity. And God has set about to bring it under judgment. He judged Judah for their sins. The valley in which they offered their children would become their own grave. 

Jeremiah 7:32–33 (ESV) Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. 33 And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.

In the very place of child sacrifice, they would be victims of the Babylonians. Now the question is... How did they get here? Jeremiah explains that the people did not know the Lord. 

Jeremiah 8:7 (ESV) Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the LORD.

How did they not know the Lord? The very next verse explains:
Jeremiah 8:8 (ESV) “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.

The scribes - the very people who were entrusted with transmitting God's Word were actually taking license to reinterpret the Word as they saw fit. They distorted God's Word just like the serpent did to Eve. This led to spiritual blindness and unrepentant sinning in the life of the people... and THAT led to destruction.

We must understand the devil has no new tricks. The twisting of the word that happened in the Garden of Eden happened in the time of Judah and happens still to this day. The Leader God looks for trembles at His Word, believes it, preaches it and gets out of the way of what God wants to do in the heart of the hearers. 



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