Background Story: The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for over 400 years and then God delivered them. When they left their life of slavery, God gave them instructions in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy about how His people were to live.

Read Deuteronomy 13

If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.

⁶ If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, ⁷ gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), ⁸ do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. ⁹ You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. ¹⁰ Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹¹ Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

¹² If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in ¹³ that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), ¹⁴ then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, ¹⁵ you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. ¹⁶ You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt, ¹⁷ and none of the condemned things are to be found in your hands. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you. He will increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your ancestors— ¹⁸ because you obey the Lord your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.

Big Idea: God is holy and calls His people to be holy.

When God called His people out of slavery in Egypt, He was setting a people apart to His own. His own people, made in His image, to display His righteousness to the world. These people were called to be a reflection of Him so that the nations around them would see that God is the true God. Because of this, He called them to holiness which means they were called to set apart. He said in Leviticus 11:45 for them to, “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Let’s look deeper at this passage to see what God was calling them to:

• To pursue holiness, them must: love Him with all their heart and soul, following Him, revere Him, keep Him, obey Him, serve Him, hold fast to Him, turn to Him

• To stay set apart involved: not listening to those around us, not yielding to them, purging, not being enticed, destroying completely meaning “irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord”

God is still calling His people to live and walk in holiness and there are amazing principles we can learn from this passage. Jesus used similar language in Mark 9:4-47 when He taught us the extreme response to sin. He wasn’t instructing His disciples to physically cut their arms off or pluck their eyes out if they sinned. Otherwise, literally every Christian would be blind and lame. Jesus was giving them a principle about holiness, that to follow Him, it requires us to live an irrevocable life where nothing is off limits to Him. Like the people of Israel, we have been delivered from the slavery of sin and we are now, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

So where do we go from here? We aren’t going to be perfect and we are going to still fall short, so how do we live this way? Sometime today, read over Colossians 3:5-15 and pray a very simple but powerful prayer, “Search me.” David prayed this in Psalm 139:23-24 when he said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” Allow the Holy Spirit to shine His light onto any area of your life and respond in turn to His leading.

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