Cleansed and Curse Free

In Jeremiah 51, God called idols falsehoods because they had no breath in them.  Craftsmen carved the appearance of a mouth on images people worshipped that could not speak, had ears that could not hear and feet that could not walk anywhere.  Psalm 115:8 reads, "Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them."  Those who make idols are as powerless and spiritually lifeless as their images, and so is everyone who trusts in them.  As idols are unable to prevent being looted or destroyed, those who bow before idols will find themselves powerless to protect or save themselves.

While Moses was on Mt. Sinai and received the 10 Commandments written by the finger of God, a very different scene played out in the camp.  The high priest Aaron was compelled by restless people to make a graven image he set up as the god who brought them out of the land of Egypt--and violated the 1st and 2nd commandments.  They were to have no God but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the creator of all things.  They also were never to craft a graven image and worship it.  These people had been miraculously delivered from slavery in Egypt, yet they had not been separated from their depraved hearts and minds smitten by idolatry.

At God's command, Moses descended the mount and smashed the stone tablets on the ground when he witnessed their idolatrous worship.  Exodus 32:20 says, "Then he took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it."  Moses explained his actions in first person in Deuteronomy 9:21:  "Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain."  The Puritain John Trapp said, “Sin is the excrement of the soul."  After Moses destroyed the idol and ground it to powder, he made the people drink water from the brook where he scattered it.  Dust of the destroyed idol would enter the people's bodies and in time exit them, a practical demonstration of the unclean, corrupt and disgusting nature of sin.

Being made to drink of the water where the pulverised idol was scattered reminds me of an elaborate ritual found in Numbers 5:11-31.  A husband who was provoked by a spirit of jealousy, who believed his wife had been sexually unfaithful to him, could have the matter settled by the priest before the LORD after she agreed to drink bitter water.  If she was innocent of wrongdoing, she would be free of the curse.  If she was guilty, however, she would face lifelong physical infirmities.  God is a jealous God, and in this life even God's people can face awful consequences for sin.  After the children of Israel were spiritually unfaithful to God, 3,000 died in the camp and Exodus 32:35 says, "So the LORD plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made."  Unless our sins are atoned for, they will rightly be forever held against us by the holy, eternal God.

How blessed we are under the New Covenant that Jesus (who is the Way!) has made the way for our sins to be forgiven and remembered no more, for we all stumble in many things (James 3:2).  If we say we have no sin we call God a liar, but 1 John 1:9 says concerning those who are born again by faith in Jesus and repent of sin:  "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  When we are unfaithful, God remains faithful to His promise.  Christ has redeemed us from the curse of law so the blessing of Abraham might come on us through Jesus so we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14).  Praise the LORD, for we who deserved to drink bitter water are now filled with the Living Water of the Holy Spirit that flows from us.