Exodus 22:18-20 – The call to sanctified living

God, as we have said, is pure. And He demands purity in our conduct and action. He is the only One whom we can trust absolutely. He alone has our best interest at heart. It is foolishness not to give Him our total allegiance. When our vertical relationship with Him is aligned, our horizontal relationship will be aligned. The Ten Commandments, when rightly viewed and observed, help us in our moral living. After giving the moral laws, God took each one and showed His people how to apply them in their everyday living. Exodus 22:18-20 give us three odious and abhorrent actions that are revolting to the Lord. So repulsive were they to God that He demanded the death penalty for those who practised them. Each of these disgusting actions violates the purity of worship.  

The first had to do with witchcraft. Though in verse 19, God only mentions sorceress, elsewhere in the Bible He also condemns a sorcerer. Whether one who practises witchcraft is a male or female, God has no tolerance for him or her. In Leviticus 20:27 He told His people, “Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.” A sorcerer or a sorceress is a person who would resort to demonic influence to gain spiritual power. They used the power of the dark to cast spells and gain control of others. Such practises included fortune telling, communicate with the dead and occultic rituals. People who indulge in such practises would become tools of the devil to deceive and mislead. Using such means to seek to know God’s will for one’s life is an attack on His sovereignty. Any form of sorcery is a sin. It is seeking to manipulate God and is a clear indication of a lack of trust in Him.   

The next practice is commonly known as bestiality. This is a human being having sexual intercourse with animals. It is disgusting even to think of it. Yet there are those who would engage in such a flagrant perversion. Such a practise degrades the dignity of a human being created in the image of God. It was also an act that was part of pagan worship. Pagan worshippers would seek physical union with their gods by having sexual relations with animals that depict their gods. Baal was depicted as having sex with a cow by the Canaanites. Bestiality is a heinous act that truly violates all human decency. To God, the seriousness of such an act warranted a death penalty.

The third practise that God condemns is idolatry. Any sacrifice made to any false god other than the LORD alone constitutes idolatry. To offer a sacrifice to any god other than to God alone constitutes a rebellion. A person who does that has installed something or someone to a position that God alone deserves. It is installing something infinitely lesser than God and make it equal to Him. How ludicrous can it be! God would not share His glory with other gods. This is a serious misjudgement and had to be dealt with severely.  

The appalling fact is that in the world today, these three practises are not uncommon. People are still fascinated by witchcraft. There are scores of thousands who still consult a medium, fortune teller and spiritist, seeking to know their future. Then there are those lowdown perverts who still indulge in bestiality. Idolatry is also a common phenomenon among people in the world today. The idols Christians venerate may not be a pagan deity. They can be in the form of a career, a hobby, money, a car and etc. All these three acts are scandalous because they oppose the very nature and character of God. No one should equate the power of darkness to the sovereignty of God. No one should violate the sanctity of the God-image in him 0r her by behaving like an animal. No one should offer worship to any other gods except the one true God. Though we in our 21st-century civil society, the death sentence is not applied to these practises, what we see in these verses tells us how odious such acts are to God. Therefore, seeking to stay connected to God and faithfully respond to His initiatives in our life, is a great way that can keep these practices out of our life.  Let us seek to embrace His purpose and allow it to shape our path in life. He alone is worthy of our worship!