How To Maintain Spiritual Purity Series

2. Spiritual impurity should not be responded to with apathy or fanaticism.

Jacob’s sons are anything but apathetic. They are rightfully angry. They recognize that they are a distinct people and therefore spiritual purity must be maintained. They are Israel and they are filled with fury because "Shechem had done a disgraceful thing in Israel." At this point their reaction is appropriate, but we will soon see that they cross the line in their response to Shechem sin. First though, Hamor (Shechem’s Father) wants to make a deal with Israel and get them to accept this moral impurity and compromise peacefully.

Read Genesis 34:8-12

Hamor offers the people of Israel the same proposition the world offers Christians. He basically says, "Relax your standards of purity, don’t be too upset, and I will make it worthwhile. You can have peace, prosperity, and property, etc. but only if you don’t insist on doing the right thing." Christians we need to keep in mind that we’re called to be a distinct and holy People and Satan is always looking for opportunities to entice us to compromise on God’s holy standards, which leads to spiritual impurity. Satan will promise us the world if we only give in a little. It should be noted that everything that Hamor promises to the Israelites, just like everything this world and Satan promise to us, is a lie. (Genesis 34:23)

I think Moses included this chapter in all its repulsiveness to warn God’s people of the danger of becoming assimilated with the world. The nation Israel was about to go into the land of Canaan. The greatest danger facing them was not fighting the giants in the land. It was the danger of being seduced into blending in with the Canaanites. The same is true for us today.

Source: Sermon “Fatal Attraction” by Steve Col. www.fcfonline.org/42797.htm

The Christian today faces the same danger that the nation of Israel faced long ago. We face the danger of not maintaining our distinctiveness and blending in with the world by basically believing and behaving the same as they do. This is why we need to remember how to maintain spiritual purity.

1. Spiritual purity can only be maintained by being fully obedient and alert.

Read Genesis 34:13-31. Briefly expound on text when reading.

2. Spiritual impurity should not be responded to with apathy or fanaticism.

In this section we see another wrong way to respond to spiritual impurity. The sons of Jacob deceived the men of Shechem so that they could punish all of them. This is going overboard. This is fanaticism and it is just as unacceptable as apathy. Circumcision in those days was hardly done with the same surgical precision and antiseptics that are available today. As a result, a man would be incapacitated for several days after the circumcision, so it would have been no problem for Simeon and Levi to kill all the males of the city, which was probably more like what we would call a small village. The main point is that they went too far in responding to spiritual impurity.

2. Spiritual impurity should not be responded to with apathy or fanaticism.