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“When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee…take heed…that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise” (Deuteronomy 12:29-30).
This verse from the Old Testament contains a good lesson for us at any time. When the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan, they were not to inquire about the way the Canaanites served their gods. The Canaanites worshiped idols, and had all kinds of evil and disgusting practices. The Lord did not only want His people not to do those things; He did not want them even to know about them. He knew that if they knew about those evil things, they would soon want to do them.
Today you and I, as Christians, may be tempted to learn all about the evil in this world, and perhaps we think that knowing all about it will help us to avoid it. But often this is not what happens. Because we still have an old sinful nature, knowing about all those evil things only excites our sinful nature, and then we may think, “I would like to try that!” It is far better to learn only about the good things we should be doing, and then there will be no room for evil things. We can avoid the evil in this world by walking with the Lord; we do not need to know the details about the evil.
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