Friday, August 31, 2007

Glad to be An Abomination

Genesis 46:33-34 KJV
And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?
That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

Israel had gotten so comfortable in Canaan that there was little to no difference between them and the Canaanites. Genesis 38 tells us that Judah left the company of his brothers to dwell with an Adullamite named Hirah and that he was his friend. He took to wife a Canaanite woman and when his firstborn son was old enough, gave her a wife presumably of the Canaanites as well. If Er, who was only half Israelite, had lived to have children with Tamar, their children would have only been 1/4 Israelite. Judah went into Tamar, who was pretending to be a prostitute as if prostitution was no sin at all. Israel was in a terrible moral condition. As a people they were practically no different than the wicked Canaanites, whom God had purposed to displace with the Israelites.

God brought circumstances about that Israel moved to Egypt where Joseph told his father and his brethren to claim they were shepherds "for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians."

It was, in this case, a good thing to be considered an abomination. Israel must remain separated from Egypt. By declaring plainly that they were something the Egyptians despised, the separation was assured.

One of our great troubles today is that we no longer want to be an abomination to the world. We tend to want them to accept us. We want to be welcomed in to their cities and into their circles. And in doing so, rather than winning them to Christ, they are winning us and our children for the world.

Oh that we would once again be an abomination unto the world!

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