We have moved from sorcery to sexual sin, and now to sacrifice. Underneath them all is one very important question: who is your God?
“Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed” (Exodus 22 v 20)
We have had sorcery, bestiality, and today, sacrifice to other gods, and it all comes down to the same question: who is your God?
The Hebrew word behind “destroyed” is herem, meaning devoted to destruction. It applies to someone who gives another god what belongs to the Lord alone. This is the first commandment with a penalty attached: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
Why so serious? Because Israel was not simply a religion. It was a nation in covenant with God as its King. Sacrificing to a rival deity was not a private spiritual preference. It was treason. It broke the marriage bond at Sinai and took your worship, and your loyalty, to another bed. Time and again the people drift to other altars, and time and again it ends in ruin.
The principle has not changed. Paul tells the Corinthians they cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons (1 Corinthians 10:21). John closes his first letter with a short, urgent word: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).
Anything we trust, fear, or serve more than God has become a rival to Him, whether it is money, success, approval, or comfort. And the altar of our attention is never empty.
We have all sacrificed at other altars.
But the One who was herem, devoted to destruction, was not us. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). The penalty for covenant treason fell on the faithful Son, so that unfaithful people could be brought home.
One Lord, no rivals. And one Saviour who paid for every time we forgot it.
