The Poison of How: God's Exclusive Worship Text: Deuteronomy 12:29-31
Introduction: The Snare of Syncretism
We live in an age that prides itself on being open-minded, inclusive, and eclectic. Our cultural tastemakers tell us that the highest virtue is to create a customized collage of beliefs, a spiritual grab-bag assembled from the world's religious buffet. You can have a little bit of Jesus, a dash of eastern mysticism, a pinch of therapeutic deism, and a heaping scoop of secular materialism. This approach is not seen as confused; it is celebrated as authentic. It is the religious equivalent of a food court, and everyone is encouraged to be their own chef.
But the God of Scripture is not a participant in this religious potluck. He is not one option among many, and He most certainly does not allow us to write the rules for how we are to approach Him. The central issue in all of life, and therefore the central issue in worship, is authority. Who gets to decide? Who sets the terms? Is it God, in His holy Word? Or is it us, with our creative impulses, our cultural sensitivities, and our itching ears?
This passage in Deuteronomy strikes at the very heart of this modern syncretistic impulse. As Israel stood on the precipice of the Promised Land, a land saturated with centuries of demonic worship, God did not give them a lesson in cultural engagement and contextualization. He did not tell them to find the "felt needs" of the Canaanites and adapt the worship of Yahweh to their existing forms. He gave them a radical command, a command for total, uncompromising separation. He commanded the destruction of their altars, the smashing of their pillars, and the burning of their Asherah poles. And then He gave them this warning, a warning against the subtle poison of religious curiosity.
This is not just ancient history for a tribal people. This is a foundational principle for the church in all ages. The temptation to look over the fence at the world's worship, at their methods, their music, their motivations, and to ask, "How do they do it?" is a perennial snare for the people of God. We think we can borrow their techniques without importing their theology. We think we can use their fire on God's altar. But God has specified the kind of fire He will accept, and as Nadab and Abihu learned, strange fire is a consuming fire.
The Text
"When Yahweh your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and inhabit their land, beware lest you be ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and lest you inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’ You shall not do thus toward Yahweh your God, for every abominable act which Yahweh hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods."
(Deuteronomy 12:29-31 LSB)
The Danger of Victory (v. 29-30a)
We begin with the context of the warning. It comes on the heels of victory.
"When Yahweh your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and inhabit their land, beware lest you be ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you..." (Deuteronomy 12:29-30a)
Notice when the warning is issued. It is not when Israel is weak, wandering, and beleaguered in the wilderness. It is for the moment of their triumph. It is when they have dispossessed the nations, taken their cities, and settled in their land. This is profoundly counter-intuitive to the way we think. We assume that the greatest danger is in times of trial and weakness. But Scripture consistently teaches that one of the most perilous spiritual moments is the moment of success. It is when the pressure is off, the enemies are defeated, and the blessings are flowing that we are most susceptible to pride, complacency, and compromise.
Prosperity is a greater test of character than adversity. When you are in the foxhole, you know you need God. But when you are in the suburbs, driving a reliable car to a respectable job, it is easy to forget. Israel was being warned that after God had given them the victory, a subtle snare would be laid for them. The military threat of the Canaanites would be gone, but a more insidious spiritual threat would remain, like a contagion in the soil.
The word "ensnared" pictures a trap, a net that falls on an unsuspecting bird. The devil doesn't always come with fangs and a pitchfork. Often, he comes with a plausible suggestion, an intriguing idea, a "new" way of doing things. The snare here is not the worship of Baal outright. It is the temptation to follow the patterns of the defeated. The nations were destroyed, but their cultural ghost remained. And God warns His people not to be haunted by it, not to be entangled in the remnants of a culture He had judged and condemned.
This is a direct warning to us. When Christianity triumphs in a culture, or when we experience seasons of blessing and peace, that is precisely when we must be most vigilant. The world, even a defeated world, is always trying to catechize us. It wants to teach us its songs, its methods, its values. And the moment we let our guard down, the snare tightens.
The Poisonous Question (v. 30b)
Verse 30 pinpoints the precise nature of the trap. It begins with a seemingly innocent question.
"...and lest you inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’" (Deuteronomy 12:30b)
This is the deadliest question in the life of the church. It is the root of all syncretism. Notice the subtlety. The question is not, "Should we worship Baal?" It is not, "Is Chemosh a viable alternative to Yahweh?" The question assumes the object of worship is settled. We are going to worship Yahweh. The question is about the method. "How do these nations serve their gods?" The implied thought is this: "Those pagans were really committed. They were passionate. Their worship had energy, it had relevance, it drew a crowd. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from their techniques. We will, of course, direct it all to the true God. We will just borrow their 'how'."
This is the operating principle of the modern church growth movement. It is a pragmatic, market-driven approach to worship. We look at the world, we see what is successful, what is entertaining, what people want, and we ask, "How do they do that?" Then we attempt to baptize it and bring it into the sanctuary. We want to worship God, but we want to do it in a way that is palatable to the world. We want God's message, but with the world's methodology.
But God slams the door on this. He is not just concerned with the "who" of worship; He is intensely concerned with the "how." This is the essence of the regulative principle of worship. We are not at liberty to invent forms of worship, no matter how sincere our motives or how successful the results seem to be. We are constrained to worship God in the way that He has commanded, and in no other way. To ask "How did they do it?" with the intention of imitation is to have already abandoned the sufficiency of Scripture. It is to say that God told us who to worship, but He left the important details of how up to us and our marketing consultants.
The Divine Prohibition and Rationale (v. 31)
God's response is absolute and the reason for it is stomach-turning.
"You shall not do thus toward Yahweh your God, for every abominable act which Yahweh hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods." (Deuteronomy 12:31)
The command is blunt: "You shall not do thus." There is no room for negotiation. You cannot take a pagan method and sanctify it by redirecting it toward Yahweh. You cannot take a vessel from a demonic temple, give it a quick rinse, and use it in the service of the Holy One of Israel. Why? Because the methods are not neutral. The forms are not empty containers. They are shot through with the theology and worldview of the gods they were designed to honor.
Pagan worship is not just misguided; it is an abomination. The word "abomination" (to'evah) is one of the strongest words of disgust in the Hebrew language. It refers to something that is ritually and morally repulsive to God. He doesn't just disagree with it; He hates it. It is foul in His nostrils. And God says that the worship of the Canaanites consisted of "every abominable act which Yahweh hates." Their worship was a comprehensive portfolio of everything that God detests.
And then He gives the ultimate example, the pinnacle of their depravity: "for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods." This is where pagan worship logically ends. When you worship false gods, which are ultimately demonic powers, you become like what you worship. You worship gods of chaos, lust, and death, and your society will inevitably become chaotic, lustful, and death-dealing. The worship of Molech was not an unfortunate excess; it was the truest expression of their religion. They believed they could secure their future prosperity and security by sacrificing the fruit of their own bodies. They were giving their ultimate treasure to a demon in exchange for a promise of comfort.
Modern Molech Worship
It is easy for us to read this and feel a sense of civilized superiority. We recoil in horror at the thought of ancient child sacrifice. But we have no right whatever to do so. Our culture has not abandoned the worship of Molech; we have simply industrialized it and draped it in the language of clinical privacy and personal autonomy. We have built our gleaming, sterile abortion clinics on the very same theological foundation as the high places of Topheth.
We sacrifice our children on the altar of convenience. We sacrifice them for the sake of a career, or a higher education, or a lifestyle unencumbered by responsibility. We sacrifice them to the god of "not right now." We do this over a million times a year in America alone. The Canaanites, for all their wickedness, would be staggered by the sheer scale of our industrial child-killing. We have perfected the abominable act. We have made it efficient, legal, and commonplace.
And the logic is the same. We are told that our societal peace and prosperity, our economic stability, and our personal freedom depend on this "right." We are told that we must have this sacrament of death in order to secure our way of life. This is nothing less than the high worship of Molech. And just as with ancient Israel, the church is constantly tempted to make its peace with this. We are tempted to soften our language, to treat it as a tragic social issue rather than a blood-soaked abomination that cries out to Heaven for judgment.
The warning of Deuteronomy is therefore a piercing word to us. We are not to look at our pagan culture and ask, "How do they do it?" How do they manage their lives? How do they arrange their priorities? How do they define freedom? To do so is to be ensnared. Their entire system is built on a foundation of abominations that God hates. You cannot borrow the architecture of a pagan temple and expect to host a Christian worship service inside. The whole structure is corrupt.
Our task is not to imitate the world's worship, but to confront it. Our task is not to learn from their methods, but to tear down their altars by the preaching of the gospel. The gospel declares that there is only one sacrifice that pleases God, and it is not the sacrifice of our children, but the sacrifice of His only Son. Jesus Christ was offered up on the cross to atone for every abominable act, including the shedding of innocent blood. He is the only way to be cleansed from the bloodguiltiness that stains our land.
Therefore, we must worship Him, and we must do it His way. We must come to Him on His terms, according to His Word. We must reject the poisonous question of "how do they do it?" and ask the only question that matters: "What has God required?" For He is a holy God, and He will not be served with the leftovers from a pagan feast, or with the strange fire of human invention.