ABOMINABLE PRACTICES IN THE CHURCH (PART I)

“The Things the Lord Hates”

By Akin Ojumu

King Solomon tells us about the six things that the LORD hates. In his Book of Proverbs, the wisest man that ever lived shows us the seven things that are particularly abhorrent to the LORD God Almighty. These are abominable practices that often cause the pure and Holy God to retch and throw up in disgust.

Proverbs 6:16-19

“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”

Beyond the seven detestable things described in the above passage, however, there are many other practices mentioned in the Bible that are abominations to the LORD. Among these are the following.

(1) Sexual Immorality e.g., Adultery, Homosexuality, Bestiality, Incest

Leviticus 18:22-23

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.”

Leviticus 20:10,13

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death…If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

(Cross references: Leviticus 18:6-18; Deuteronomy 24:1-4).

(2) Perversion of Justice: e.g., Miscarriage of Justice, Calling Evil Good and Good Evil.

Proverbs 17:15

“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.”

Isaiah 5:20

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

(3) Oppression: e.g., Misusing, Abusing, or Failing to Help the Poor, Needy, or Strangers

Isaiah 1:23

“Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.”

Ezekiel 22:7

“Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you.”

(4) Dishonest Business Practices e.g., Using Unequal Weights & Measures or Unjust Scales 

Proverbs 11:1

“A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight.”

(Cross references: Proverbs 20:10, 23; Deuteronomy 25:13-16).

While all the aforementioned practices are, in no doubt, pure evil, there are even more detestable conducts that surpass them all. What makes these subsequent practices uniquely dark and evil is the fact that they are a direct assault on the sovereignty of God Himself. These are sins that go back to the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. To engage in these practices is an attempt at usurping God.

So, what are these damning practices? Well, they are listed in the Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 18:9-14

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.”

(1) Sacrificing children in the fire; (2) Witchcraft, seeking to determine the will of the gods by examining and interpreting omens; (3) Soothsaying, attempting to control the future through power given by evil spirits; (4) Interpreting omens, telling the future based on signs; (5) Sorcery, inducing magical effects by drugs or some other potion; (6) Conjuring spells, binding other people by magical muttering; (7) Being a medium, one who supposedly communicates with the dead, but actually communicates with demons; (8) Being a spiritist, one who has an intimate acquaintance with the demonic, spiritual world; and (9) Calling up the dead, investigating and seeking information from the dead. These evil practices were the reason the Lord was going to drive the Canaanites out of the land (Source: The MacArthur Bible Commentary).

Of the nine abominations listed in Deuteronomy 18, the one that seems to engender the fiercest debate these days is child sacrifice. Weaponized for political purposes, this evil has become a cudgel wielded by the Conservative political right to beat the Progressive political left to pulp. As far as the former group is concerned, any and all types of abortions constitute sacrificing children in the fire. In turn, the latter camp would remonstrate that the woman retains the right to make decisions about her own body. 

Hypocrisy is the defining characteristic of these two opposing worldviews. The very same anti-abortion activists who are quick to let the world know that they are pro-life and who vow to stop at nothing to put an end to the slaughtering of babies in the womb are the same people who are vehemently opposed to social welfare assistance to the poor and the needy in the society. 

The same time they are waiving their pro-life banner, they are dead set against any government policy that would make healthcare services available and affordable to pregnant women and their children. Their pro-life agitations seem to end the moment the woman delivers her baby. Whether or not she has the wherewithal to care for the child in a healthy and nurturing environment is none of the business of the people who claim they are pro-life. All they care about is that the woman carries the pregnancy to term and delivers the baby. Whatever happens after that is not their cup of tea, it seems.

You are grossly mistaken if you thought hypocritical behavior is limited to the rightwing anti-abortion camp. Personally, I think the cognitive dissonance of the leftwing pro-choice crowd is alarmingly far worse. The same people who are vehemently insistent on the inviolability of the right of the woman to terminate her pregnancy if and when she chooses are the same people you’d find defending the killing of animals. Anti-abortion activists, who are comfortable with the abortion of human babies and see no evil in abortion on demand, are some of the most rabid animal rights advocates you’ll ever meet. These are the people you’ll find with placards in picket lines at slaughterhouses. It’s as though the life of an animal is more precious than human life to these people.

The inconsistency of positions you find in both the rightwing anti-abortion and the leftwing pro-choice political camps is evidence of the wickedness that resides in the soul of man. It doesn’t matter how noble their words or how lofty their ideals, the heart of man is evil through and through.

Jeremiah 17:9

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Romans 3:10-18

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery lie in their wake, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.””

It is self-delusion if, because of your anti-abortion stance, you think you are standing on a high moral ground and have secured for yourself a beeline to Heaven. You are doomed already if you ever thought that spending eternity with God is dependent on your pro-life political views. Unless you are washed and cleansed by the precious Blood of Christ, you are in the same eternal pickle as the most radical leftwing pro-choice advocate who hasn’t seen a pregnancy he cannot abort. 

Isaiah 64:6

“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Rightwing or leftwing, the human heart is desperately wicked. A man’s good standing with God is not dependent on his self-righteousness or politics. What gives a man a right standing before God is the imputed righteousness of Christ which God, in His infinite mercies, has richly and freely bestowed on him by virtue of faith in the finished work of Christ. And even this faith is, in and of itself, a free gift from God so that no man may boast.

We’ll take it from here next time.