When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. Deuteronomy 18:9
Moses is revealing and proclaiming the Law of God to Israel--laying down God's instructions about how they are to live in the land of Canaan which they are about to enter. This is but a foreshadowing of the New Covenant. Israel's entering into the land of Promise to inherit it and possess it is an antetype of the entering in of Christ's people--not into heaven as is so commonly but mistakenly believed--but an entering into and taking possession of the entire earth.
Christ's servants have been called and redeemed out of slavery and commanded to go forth and disciple all the nations. Israel's entering into the land and taking it as their possession and inheritance was but a pale foreshadowing of the great inheritance of the whole earth. The work of going in and taking possession of the entire earth is what Christ's people are engaged in now.
Moses's instructions continue to have relevance to us, the heirs of the Old Covenant, the Church as we go forth to take possession of the earth. Our text requires that as we do this, we do not imitate the nations in their detestable practices. We must at all times remain separate, holy to the Lord. Under the New Covenant with the full revelation of our Lord and His death and resurrection into which we are all baptized, we no longer require the scaffolding, the supports, the props, the protections, and the "spoonfeeding" of infancy, required by ancient Israel. Full and final atonement for sin has been made, we have died to sin in Christ, we have risen with Him to the heavenlies, He has been enthroned upon high, and His Spirit has been poured out upon His people and Christ goes forth to conquer, not with a sword, but with His holy Word. These realities allow the Old Covenant scaffolding to be removed; the types and shadows are no longer needed.
These great realities and forces allow Christ's people to be insinuated amongst Unbelievers and not be overcome; they enable us not to conform to Unbelieving practices that surround us; they free us from an otherwise inevitable conformity to the world.
Deuteronomy 18:9 commands that we not learn to imitate the detestable practices of Unbelievers. Not learning implies that Unbelievers and the cultures of Unbelief stand willing and ready to instruct and teach us in their beliefs and ways. Unbelief stands ready always to instruct us in its version of truth, knowledge, power, and control over the world. In Moses's day, the dominant "power-word" of the nations was witchcraft and divination. Engage in rituals to get the gods to reveal their secret knowledge to you. Then cast spells and engage in sorcery to manipulate and control the world around you. (Deuteronomy 18: 10-11)
The Lord says that whoever does these things is detestable to Him; he who practises them will be driven out from before the Lord. (Deuteronomy 18:12) As they are driven out, God's people enter in, occupy and take over in their place--but only if they themselves remain blameless to the Lord. (Deuteronomy 18:13).
It is at this point that we need to confess that many of Christ's people in our day do not realise that the dominant culture of Unbelief in which we live and move is just as pagan and detestable as the Canaanite culture of Moses's day. It, too, has its false version of truth, knowledge and power. Its culture of Unbelief has matured into even more detestable and despicable forms than ancient Canaanite paganism. Now the hubris and arrogance of man has emerged into full-throated Unbelief. There are no demons, spirits, witches, or gods--whatsoever. The power-word is impersonal nature itself, and its lord and god is man, and man only. With the faculty of Reason and its prophetess of Science, man can plumb the deep things of reality and determine his own truth. He can then weave his knowledge as a form of spell-casting to manipulate and control the world.
God says, "do not learn to imitate these detestable things". How intolerable and completely unacceptable, then, it is to send our children to be taught in these false beliefs, these divinations and sorceries. To send our children to be taught in pagan-controlled schools, which are officially forbidden to acknowledge and teach God alone as the source of truth and knowledge, is equivalent to the Israelites sending their children down to the local temple of Baal to be taught there by Baal's prophets and priests what the real truth about things is, and the way things really are.
When Israel actually did do this in later years, it provoked the Lord to a terrible anger, resulting in the destruction of Israel. Israel itself was driven out from before the Lord, as one of the pagan nations of Canaan, because what they were doing was so detestable to Him. Do we think, for a moment, that it is any different now. Did Christ come to make us more amenable to idols? Has He come and died and ascended so that we can be free to give our children up to the instructors and instructions of Unbelief? Has He sent forth His Spirit upon us, so that we would send forth our children to be taught detestable things? May it never be.
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