Deuteronomy 13:4 - "You shall
follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments,
listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him."
The last command in this list of commands catches my attention. We're familiar with the commands throughout Scripture to love the Lord and follow Him, fear Him, keep His commandments and serve Him, but this command to cling to the Lord isn't one we often remember, and I'm afraid it's one that too many of us don't heed. This command to cling to the Lord is given in at least three passages in Scripture. As well as Deuteronomy 13:4, it's also found in chapter 10 and verse 20, and in Joshua 23:8. At the end of his life, Joshua is instructing the children of Israel about their interaction with foreign nations and their gods, and he says to them - "But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day." This is kind of a hard concept for us because when we think of clinging we usually think of someone hanging onto the end of a rope for dear life, and when we talk about clinging to the Lord we get the imagery that we're supposed to hold on to Him as tight as we can as if He is running away from us and trying to elude our grasp, but that's the wrong idea. This isn't an idea of one person pursuing another or trying to hold on for life, it's the idea of a relationship between a husband and wife, or a parent and a child. In fact the first time this word is used in Scripture it is used in reference to the marriage relationship in Genesis 2:24 where we read - "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." That's the idea in our relationship with God and our clinging to Him. It's not a matter of holding on for life, it's a matter of relationship. God is completely faithful, and we should want to be completely faithful to Him as a good wife to her husband, forsaking all else and clinging only to Him. This is why idolatry is so serious. Idolatry is committing adultery against God. He has created us for Himself, and to follow after anyone or anything else is to cheat on God.
However, these commandments to cling to the Lord were not heeded by the nation of Israel. Time after time we read accounts of them turning from God to idols and intermarrying with heathen nations. In Jeremiah chapter 13 the Lord gives the prophet an interesting assignment. Jeremiah 13:1-11 - "Thus the Lord said to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water.” So I bought the waistband in accordance with the word of the Lord and put it around my waist. Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “Take the waistband that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a crevice of the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord had commanded me. After many days the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates and take from there the waistband which I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it; and lo, the waistband was ruined, it was totally worthless. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, let them be just like this waistband which is totally worthless. For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.’" This is a great picture lesson. The children of Israel and Judah were made to cling to the Lord, like a waistband is made to cling to a person. But they became so idolatrous that they were worthless for the purpose for which they had been created. We were created to cling to God, to worship the Lord God and serve Him only, forsaking all else and clinging only to Him, but so many of us are becoming worthless for that purpose. Idols come in all shapes and sizes, they're not just graven images. An idol can be a person, a possession, a career or any one of a number of things that pull you away from devotion to God. Would you say that you cling to the Lord? That's your purpose, and if you're not then you need to examine your life and cast out the idols.
There is only one account in the Bible of someone clinging to the Lord. We see it in several people, but that word cling is only used of one, and that is king Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:6 says - "For he clung to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses." Hezekiah is a great example for us. In reading through the events of His life we see what it truly means to cling to the Lord. His father, Ahaz, was king before him, and we're told that Ahaz "Did not do right in the sight of the Lord". During his reign he involved himself so much in the worship of false gods that he was even sacrificing his children in fire before them. On top of that, he took the utensils from the house of the Lord and cut them in pieces, and it says he "closed the doors of the house of the Lord." He basically shut down the temple, disbanded the priests and the Levites, and encouraged worship of false gods by setting up alters to them "in every corner of Jerusalem." So this wasn't a good environment that Hezekiah was taking over, but regardless of how bad things were he set himself to casting out the idols and clinging to the one true God because he realized the seriousness of adultery against God. In 2 Kings 18:3-5 we read - "He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him." He was unique among the kings of Israel. Verse 4 is an interesting verse. We're told that Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. You'll remember back in Numbers chapter 21 that the Lord sent serpents to bite the children of Israel as a judgment against them, but He also provided deliverance from the judgment. He commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and anyone who looked at the pole after being bitten would be healed. This serpent was a type of Christ. The Lord Jesus Himself makes that connection for us in John chapter 3. This serpent was a means of Gods salvation and the people kept it around, maybe as a reminder of what the Lord had done. But by time we get to 2 Kings chapter 18 the people were worshiping this bronze serpent. They forgot the God who healed them and they worshiped the means that He used. So Hezekiah destroyed it. Even with the historical religious significance He destroyed it because he saw that it was a hindrance to clinging to the Lord. It had become an idol. The bronze serpent wasn't bad in and of itself, and actually it had been used for a very good purpose, but it had to be destroyed. I think you see the connection, but I'll say it anyway. Things that keep us from clinging only to the Lord aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves. The idols in our lives are simply anything that pull our focus away from Him, and they need to be destroyed. We need to follow the example of Hezekiah and forsake everything else and cling to the Lord. A wife cannot cling to her husband and an old boyfriend, or even a picture or a memory of him. She needs to forsake all that and cling to him. David said in Psalm 63:8 - "My soul clings to Thee; Thy right hand upholds me." Can you say that you cling to the Lord, or is something getting in the way?
Jeremiah 13:11 - "'For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.'"
The last command in this list of commands catches my attention. We're familiar with the commands throughout Scripture to love the Lord and follow Him, fear Him, keep His commandments and serve Him, but this command to cling to the Lord isn't one we often remember, and I'm afraid it's one that too many of us don't heed. This command to cling to the Lord is given in at least three passages in Scripture. As well as Deuteronomy 13:4, it's also found in chapter 10 and verse 20, and in Joshua 23:8. At the end of his life, Joshua is instructing the children of Israel about their interaction with foreign nations and their gods, and he says to them - "But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day." This is kind of a hard concept for us because when we think of clinging we usually think of someone hanging onto the end of a rope for dear life, and when we talk about clinging to the Lord we get the imagery that we're supposed to hold on to Him as tight as we can as if He is running away from us and trying to elude our grasp, but that's the wrong idea. This isn't an idea of one person pursuing another or trying to hold on for life, it's the idea of a relationship between a husband and wife, or a parent and a child. In fact the first time this word is used in Scripture it is used in reference to the marriage relationship in Genesis 2:24 where we read - "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." That's the idea in our relationship with God and our clinging to Him. It's not a matter of holding on for life, it's a matter of relationship. God is completely faithful, and we should want to be completely faithful to Him as a good wife to her husband, forsaking all else and clinging only to Him. This is why idolatry is so serious. Idolatry is committing adultery against God. He has created us for Himself, and to follow after anyone or anything else is to cheat on God.
However, these commandments to cling to the Lord were not heeded by the nation of Israel. Time after time we read accounts of them turning from God to idols and intermarrying with heathen nations. In Jeremiah chapter 13 the Lord gives the prophet an interesting assignment. Jeremiah 13:1-11 - "Thus the Lord said to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water.” So I bought the waistband in accordance with the word of the Lord and put it around my waist. Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “Take the waistband that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a crevice of the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord had commanded me. After many days the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates and take from there the waistband which I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it; and lo, the waistband was ruined, it was totally worthless. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, let them be just like this waistband which is totally worthless. For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.’" This is a great picture lesson. The children of Israel and Judah were made to cling to the Lord, like a waistband is made to cling to a person. But they became so idolatrous that they were worthless for the purpose for which they had been created. We were created to cling to God, to worship the Lord God and serve Him only, forsaking all else and clinging only to Him, but so many of us are becoming worthless for that purpose. Idols come in all shapes and sizes, they're not just graven images. An idol can be a person, a possession, a career or any one of a number of things that pull you away from devotion to God. Would you say that you cling to the Lord? That's your purpose, and if you're not then you need to examine your life and cast out the idols.
There is only one account in the Bible of someone clinging to the Lord. We see it in several people, but that word cling is only used of one, and that is king Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:6 says - "For he clung to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses." Hezekiah is a great example for us. In reading through the events of His life we see what it truly means to cling to the Lord. His father, Ahaz, was king before him, and we're told that Ahaz "Did not do right in the sight of the Lord". During his reign he involved himself so much in the worship of false gods that he was even sacrificing his children in fire before them. On top of that, he took the utensils from the house of the Lord and cut them in pieces, and it says he "closed the doors of the house of the Lord." He basically shut down the temple, disbanded the priests and the Levites, and encouraged worship of false gods by setting up alters to them "in every corner of Jerusalem." So this wasn't a good environment that Hezekiah was taking over, but regardless of how bad things were he set himself to casting out the idols and clinging to the one true God because he realized the seriousness of adultery against God. In 2 Kings 18:3-5 we read - "He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him." He was unique among the kings of Israel. Verse 4 is an interesting verse. We're told that Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. You'll remember back in Numbers chapter 21 that the Lord sent serpents to bite the children of Israel as a judgment against them, but He also provided deliverance from the judgment. He commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and anyone who looked at the pole after being bitten would be healed. This serpent was a type of Christ. The Lord Jesus Himself makes that connection for us in John chapter 3. This serpent was a means of Gods salvation and the people kept it around, maybe as a reminder of what the Lord had done. But by time we get to 2 Kings chapter 18 the people were worshiping this bronze serpent. They forgot the God who healed them and they worshiped the means that He used. So Hezekiah destroyed it. Even with the historical religious significance He destroyed it because he saw that it was a hindrance to clinging to the Lord. It had become an idol. The bronze serpent wasn't bad in and of itself, and actually it had been used for a very good purpose, but it had to be destroyed. I think you see the connection, but I'll say it anyway. Things that keep us from clinging only to the Lord aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves. The idols in our lives are simply anything that pull our focus away from Him, and they need to be destroyed. We need to follow the example of Hezekiah and forsake everything else and cling to the Lord. A wife cannot cling to her husband and an old boyfriend, or even a picture or a memory of him. She needs to forsake all that and cling to him. David said in Psalm 63:8 - "My soul clings to Thee; Thy right hand upholds me." Can you say that you cling to the Lord, or is something getting in the way?
Jeremiah 13:11 - "'For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.'"
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