Flee Idolatry, Don't Fight It! 1 Corinthians 10:14-22

In 1 Cor. 10:14 we see one of several “flee” commands in the New Testament (1 Cor. 6:18: sexual immorality; 1 Tim. 6:11 where it refers to the love of money; 2 Tim. 2:22: youthful lusts).  The sense of this command is that these are things we are not to make war with; we should just run far away from them.

The idea behind this method of dealing with idolatry is well illustrated in the experiences of Israel and tells us why God commanded them to annihilate the Canaanite nations.  These nations were steeped in their religion which had the potential to be quite tempting (they involved sexual immorality, love of money, youthful lusts).  Their continued presence in the land would be a continual problem for Israel if not eradicated.  Here is what happened after Joshua died.

·        Judges 1:1: Israel sought the Lord as to who should be first to go against the Canaanites who remained in the land.  Great start!

·        Judges 1:2: The answer from the Lord was, “Judah shall go up.”  Wow, that makes sense.  Judah was expected to be and eventually would become the leading tribe (Gen. 49:8-12).

·        Judges 1:3-11,17-19a: Things started well.  Judah got Simeon to help.  They won some battles and utterly destroyed some cities.

·        Judges 1:19b: But then things got a little tough.  The Canaanites in the lowland had iron chariots.  So they could not drive them out, much less annihilate them.  The Benjamites couldn’t clear out their part of Jerusalem (1:21).  The house of Joseph and others couldn’t or didn’t drive out the Canaanites completely.

·        Judges 1:28,30: So then they opted for a different approach.  Rule over them.  Let them stay in the land but collect taxes from them.  In other words, benefit from the presence of idolaters, and thus permit idolatry.

·        Judges 1:32-33: But then, unwilling apparently to do the hard work and pay the price, the children of Israel began to dwell among the Canaanites.

·        Judges 1:34-36: And sure enough, the time came when the Israelites themselves ended up being chased off by the idolaters.  

Idolatry came to be a constant recurring problem for Israel and eventually was the reason they were evicted from the land by God (2 Chron. 36:14).  The only way this was going to be avoided was if idolatry was completely eradicated.  Many people take exception to the killing of entire cities, men, women and children.  And our purpose here is not to answer that question, other than to say that it is a perfect picture for us today.

What we need to do, what we must do, is to completely remove the temptation.  We are not to seek to co-exist in our churches with heresy, the teaching of idolatry (worshiping a false Christ, another God).  Nor are we to make a place in our hearts for any other Master.  The old word was mortify (e.g. Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5) which doesn’t mean scare it to death; it means put it to death!