Five Steps To Destruction

Five Steps To Destruction 

As God renewed the covenant with Israel in the land of Moab, He gave the people a choice of blessing or cursing (Deuteronomy 29-30). If they would love the Lord, walk in His ways, keep His commandments, statutes, and judgments then the Lord would bless them. Then He says, “But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish” (Deuteronomy 30:17-18a). When people reject the Lord they follow the five steps outlined in this passage.

The heart is the first thing that is turned away. The wise man said, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Jesus taught the heart is like soil that is either hardened with sin, filled with stones that rob nutrition, crowded out with the cares of the world and deceitful desire for riches or the good ground who hears the word of God and understands it growing thereby (Matthew 13). The heart is the first thing Satan seeks to destroy (Acts 5:3) and if he can gain control of the heart then he will have his way.

When the heart is hardened then the ears become dull of hearing. Desire comes from the heart and as the heart turns away from God the ears no longer want to seek the will of God. Paul warned Timothy of those who would “not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Even at this stage many go through the motions of worship but their heart is far from God because their ears are closed (Matthew 15:8).

As the heart hardens and the ears close the feet begin to draw away from God. This is a progressive action as the psalmist described. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful” (Psalms 1:1). Drawing away from God goes from walking to standing to sitting with Satan. This drawing away takes place in the heart. “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:14-15).

The final two stages happen because the heart no longer seeks holiness or the ears righteousness and the feet walk after other gods. Jehovah God is not the object of worship as man begins to reverence himself and his own desires. Worship is the focus we manifest in our lives and the object of our worship is where we find our service. The final stage of destruction is when man serves his own needs and desires rejecting the will of God (Romans 1:16-32; Luke 21:34).

The gods we worship are not carved in stone but in our hearts. Our love is for this world and the charms of temptation that fill our lives with useless pursuits. Some ‘gods’ are good in and of themselves but they are evil gods because they keep our hearts from serving the Lord. Sometimes Satan destroys us not with immorality but with the trinkets of life that keep our eyes off of Jesus. What destroyed the third soil in the parable of the sower was the “desires for other things” (Mark 4:19). There are five steps to destruction and only way for salvation (John 14:6). Which way are you headed?