Introduction

In the last sermon I pointed out how true monotheism mandates true monoculturalism - where the entire culture orbits around God and His Word. That’s the ideal. You could summarize all of verses 11-40 in three words: Monotheism (one God), covenant (one law), and culture (one religion impacting everything we do). Both Joshua and Deuteronomy declared an all-out war on religious pluralism in the land. And I pointed out that this had nothing to do with a nation being made up of one race. I quoted Scriptures that showed that any Gentile could become a Jew, and even those who did not become Jews were welcome in the land as sojourners - provided that they submitted to God's law and did not try to proselytize believers to abandon the true religion. Such proselytism was a crime. And one reason God made it a crime is that the only way that Israel's liberties could be maintained was if the nation as a whole embraced the Perfect Law of Liberty (the Bible.) So race is not a key word in true monoculturalism. It is the true God, the true law, and the true religion of God that must inform all of a nation's institutions and cultural expressions. So that stands as the background to this paragraph.

But this next paragraph makes it clear that cultures are rarely static. They can easily drift away from their roots. The liberties once enjoyed can easily be lost. This sometimes happens slowly and other times it can happen rather suddenly. So this next paragraph (that we are looking at today) constitutes God's warnings that true monoculturalism (founded on a Biblical worldview) can only be maintained by the citizens pressing into God and His grace.

And I explained last week why this passage is not irrelevant to America's culture wars. I believe that this passage speaks with prophetic clarity to our own cultural moment. We live in a society undergoing rapid transformation—morally, religiously, politically, economically, and socially. And many Christians are naive as to the reasons why, but this whole chapter gives those reasons. The so-called “culture wars” are not simply battles over policy or political preferences. So I am building on what I said last week. I can't repeat all of those reasons. But today let's start with God's prediction of future apostasy and look at the consequences of such apostasy.

Monoculturalism cannot be maintained apart from grace (v. 25)

In verses 25-31 Moses shows that when God's covenant with His people is not zealously guarded, God sees no point in keeping them in the land and continuing to bless them. Verse 25 indicates that when religious freedom is given to all religions, God gets angry. God was not in favor of the "freedom of religion" clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - not at all. Verse 26-27 guarantee that opening the borders in such a way that religious pluralism begins to dominate the land will destroy Israel's freedoms and make the foreign cultures dominate their lives. The logic of these verses basically asks, "Why would Jehovah bless a nation that drifts away from Him and is no longer loyal to Him? Why on earth would He do that?" Since national blessings come from God, God will not bless a nation that no longer acknowledges Him as Lord and Savior. Now, that may seem like radical stuff, but most of the Colonies in early America took it seriously - very seriously. They would not have agreed with the idea of the full freedom of all religions to practice their religions within Israel. A person from a pagan religion could be in Israel if they pledged to abide by God's laws. But the Colonialists would not have considered this paragraph to be radical stuff. In fact, I have read a number of Colonial sermons on this passage, and they were wonderful.

But before we get into the specifics of the text, let me answer an objection. Some might think, "Well, America is blessed! And we are blessed despite our apostasy. So they conclude that God is obviously much more lenient of Gentile nations than he was of Israel back then." But my answer is, "No. Hardly! If you do not see our nation as already being under judgment, then you are blind." I'll just give one example of many examples that could be given that our nation is already under judgment. Our nation is suffocating under so many burdensome and contradictory laws that no one (to date) has been able to calculate the number of laws on the books, which means that no one knows for sure if he or she has violated a federal law or not. The Library of Congress has this on their current webpage: "At the reference desk, we are frequently asked to estimate the number of federal laws in force. However, trying to tally this number is nearly impossible."¹ Well, that piqued my curiosity. So I dug a bit deeper, and I found out that there actually have been a number of attempts to tally the laws, and they have all miserably failed. The most recent one was the “Count the Crimes to Cut Act” of 2024-2025. I love the title of that bill - the Count the Crimes to Cut Act. We definitely have a bunch of purported crimes that definitely need to be cut. But not only did they fail to come up with the number of laws that currently exist, but they cited earlier failed attempts by CRS, DOJ, and the ABA to count the laws. They stated how frustrating it is to know what is legal and what is not. One of the studies estimated that agencies alone (not Congress, but agencies alone) have probably created somewhere between 300,000–400,000 regulatory offenses that have criminal penalties attached to them in the Code of Federal Regulations.² I bring that up because the Bible describes the multiplication of man's laws as one sign that God has given a nation up to judgment. That means we are already under judgment. Acts 15:10 says that Israel's man-made laws constituted a yoke on the neck that their fathers had been unable to bear. Habakkuk refers to that bloated collection of laws, saying, "So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth." Isaiah 10 pronounces God's "woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice." What kind of oppression? Well, punishing the innocent would be one kind. In our own day, millions of babies are being murdered - all by legal decree. America's children are being brainwashed into cultural pluralism via mandates on educational law. But the point is that according to Scripture, suffocating under an unbearable load of man-made laws is one of God's judgments for rejecting His perfect law of liberty. God is basically saying, "You don't like My law? OK, I will let you experience how miserable you can be under man-made laws."

In any case, it is amazing how many times Israel itself fell away from loyalty to God and suffered the consequences. But here is the encouraging thing about the second half of our paragraph. It indicates that those very judgments caused Israel to return to God and to find renewed blessings as a nation. So even though the first half of the paragraph is pretty discouraging, the second half gives hope that families, churches, and governments can once again embrace the liberties and blessings of God's Word.

Drifting can happen because of pressures from the second and third generation (v. 25a)

Let's start with the tendency for nations to drift away from the monoculturalism that we looked at last week. Verse 25 indicates that this drifting can happen very subtly - sometimes in the second and third generation. It says, "When you beget children and grandchildren..." And notice that the first generation can still be alive, because it goes on to say, "and have grown old in the land." Drifting away from God's mandated monoculturalism can happen because of the pressures that come from the children and the grandchildren of the first faithful generation. How many kings of Israel started off well, but over time began to compromise because of pressures from their own family? It's easy to dismiss the temptations of an enemy, but it is much more difficult to stand strong when the pressures to compromise come from your own family.

Apart from grace, moral entropy happens (v. 25b)

The next phrase says, "and act corruptly." Notice that it is the first generation that has grown old that is beginning to act corruptly. Why? Last week I called this moral entropy. Without dependence on God's grace and actively continuing to pursue God with our whole heart, we will tend to slide. Entropy is the natural direction of the fallen human heart — away from order and toward decay. There is no neutrality in a person or in a nation. You are either going forward or slipping backward. And how many kings of Israel started off well and ended up poorly? Solomon is a classic example. He thought it would be smart to enter into political alliances with other nations by marrying women from the leading families of those nations. From a secular perspective, that made sense. But those wives caused him to drift morally. Thankfully, he repented toward the end of His life. But the damage was already done. Never think that this cannot be true of you. If you are not pursuing God with all your heart, something else will capture your heart's allegiance. Our hearts are always going to be loyal to something, and if it isn't God's Word, it will be something else. Just as one example, too many people are passive with social media, just scrolling and letting Facebook, X, or other platforms dictate what they will see or not see. And they get curious - and you know what happens. Take moral entropy seriously.

This in turn can lead to idolatry (v. 25c)

Anyway, the next phrase describes this allegiance as idolatry. "and make a carved image in the likeness of anything." Because you haven't made any literal images, you might deflect any application of this to yourself. But the young men who are studying The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott know better. It's easy for anything to begin to be an idol that captures our devotion, passions, and attention. It can be entertainment, drugs, pornography, etc. He says, "an idol is anything that we consistently make equal to or more important than God in our attention, desire, devotion, and choices" (p. 91). And when that something becomes all-consuming, God no longer is our center around which our lives revolve. And last week we saw some of the ways that these numerous idols form the new “multiculturalism” — a pluralism of incompatible desires, goals, and gods that inevitably reshape law, ethics, education, and daily life.

This provokes God to anger (v. 25d)

But that in turn makes God jealous, and understandably so. So the next clause should be no surprise. "and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God to provoke Him to anger." Again, there can be no neutrality in our relationship with God in any area of life. If we are not experiencing His pleasure in what we think, say, and do, the only alternative is His displeasure. Of course, repenting and union with Christ and His grace automatically restores us to God's pleasure and a good relationship. We can praise God for that! And we will look at that in a moment. But how many times do individuals and nations neglect repentance and just continue in the downward slide of moral entropy? When a nation abandons the Lord, the Lord begins withdrawing the blessings that held that nation together. This helps explain much of the cultural unraveling we see around us.

The Consequences of a nation embracing Multiculturalism (vv. 26-28)

Well, verses 26-28 show the consequences of a nation (like America) embracing Multiculturalism. And keep in mind that this is the inspired word of God.

It guarantees God's wrath (v. 26)

First, it guarantees God's wrath. Verse 26 says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed." And you might think, "Well, Israel was unique. America is not in covenant with God. God wouldn't get angry in the same way with other nations as He was with Israel." But America (however imperfectly) was indeed in covenant with God. Our national motto still is, "One nation under God." On our money we still have "In God We Trust." But even with nations that don’t have that background, God’s covenantal requirements are still true. Over and over Scripture God says that He has gotten angry with Gentile nations and even caused them to be carried away captive. For example, 2 Kings 17:11 says, "There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the LORD had carried away before them; and they did wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger." Notice that phrase, "like the nations whom the LORD had carried away before them." He is saying that what happened to those nations will happen to Israel. In other words, these judgments were not unique to Israel - they had already been happening to other nations. Psalm 79:6 is an inspired prayer that says, "Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You, and on the kingdoms that do not call on Your name." Isaiah 14:6 says that God is "He who ruled the nations in anger." Jeremiah 10:10 says, "But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth will tremble, and the nations will not be able to endure His indignation." Micah 5:15 says, "I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations that have not heard." Habakkuk 3:12 says, "You marched through the land in indignation; You trampled the nations in anger." And the book of Revelation has several references to Jesus not tolerating the rebellion of Gentile nations indefinitely, but will rule them with a rod of iron and strike nations with that rod when they continue to rebel against Him. This principle was not just unique to Israel; it is a universal principle.

I say all this because it might help some of you to prepare for tough times that might come in the future. Proverbs 22:3 says, "A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished." Scriptures like this are given to help the prudent man to foresee disaster and to prepare for it. That's one of the purposes for the preparedness class. And notice the guarantee implied in the fact that Moses calls "heaven and earth" as witness. He is making an oath that this will indeed happen. He is guranteeing that such judgments will happen.

When Israel imitates the idolatry of the nations, they will be subject to those nations (v. 27)

Verse 27 illustrates that when Israel imitates the idolatry of the nations, they will be subject to those nations. "And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you." In effect God was saying, “Fine — if you imitate them, I will make you suffer under them.” Craigie's commentary says,

The principal source of unity among the Israelite tribes, from a religious point of view, was their covenant with the Lord. Thus a breach of the covenant had as an automatic result the effect of undermining the unity of the tribes. When that unity was gone, the people, losing their distinctiveness, would quickly be scattered and lost among the Canaanites (that is, the nations to which the Lord will lead you, v. 27).³

I think he is exactly correct in those comments. So yes, this was specific to Israel, but the principle is universal. When any nation begins to imitate the idolatrous cultures of nations that are under God's wrath, God can easily use those nations that they admire to put them into bondage. In our cultural context, this principle means: • When a nation imitates pagan culture, pagan culture becomes its master. • When we embrace secular morality, secular powers shape our laws. • When we adopt the idols of the world, the world becomes our judge.

Cultural imitation inevitably leads to cultural subjugation. Let me give just one recent illustration to show that this is not just theory. When you see the idolatry that is part and parcel of the United Nations (and you really ought to study the United Nations - it is demonic and idolatrous to the core - and we are a part of the United Nations), it should not surprise us if America gets hurt by the very United Nations that we submit to. And the United Nations mandates have been disastrous for our country. I'll give you one of the most recent examples that could have impacted your own homeschooling. This past September 25, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Culutural Organization (UNESCO) released a report that calls upon all nations who are members to regulate, oversee, and enforce minimum educational standards in all schools, including homeschooling. Actually, it especially targeted homeschooling, but also had independent schools in mind as well. Christian Education Initiative reports,

A recent UNESCO report titled “Homeschooling through a Human Rights Lens” calls for sweeping global regulations on home education. The report, overseen by [get a load of who is in charge - "overseen by"] Gwang-Chol Chang — a former official in North Korea’s education ministry—demands mandatory registration, government evaluations, home visits, and alignment with UN-defined values. It argues that homeschooling must promote “global citizenship,” “respect for diversity,” and avoid reinforcing traditional gender roles.⁴

Thankfully, the United States has withdrawn from UNESCO, but I bring this up as an illustration that there are negative consequences to imitating nations that are hostile to God and entering into league with them. We are still a member of the United Nations, and there are quite a number of other ways in which our liberties are being robbed by that demonic organization. It would be good to pressure our Congressmen and Senators to get out of the United Nations altogether.

The blindness and bondage of serving impotent gods (v. 28)

Verse 28 hightlights the blindness and demonic bondage that can result when we serve impotent gods. "And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell." It takes blindness to put your trust in created works that can't even hear your prayers. But those who trust creation rather than the Creator are inevitably led to such irrationalism. Their trust ends up being in an untrustworthy savior - whether that savior is the United Nations, our federal government, our state, a politician, a political platform, or something else. Idolatry blinds and enslaves.

Of course, there are many other modern idols that Americans have been following - especially in the woke movement. And these idols all promise liberation, but in the end they always bring the opposite; they bring bondage. This is why our culture wars feel so irrational at times. People are defending gods who cannot save and cannot satisfy, and actually end up destroying families and individuals. So that's the bad news in this paragraph.

But this problem can be reversed (vv. 29-31)

But having described the moral entropy that tends to make cultures deteriorate, Moses then goes on to give us hope in verses 29-31. This problem can be reversed. When there is repentance, nothing is hopeless. Never say "never" when it comes to believing that God can turn our nation around. He can. But there are conditions.

If the people turn their hearts to the true God (v. 29a)

For example, the reversal of God's increasing displeasure won't happen by getting politics to be more conservative. That's not going to be enough to satisfy God. It won't be reversed by attempting to upgrade our humanistic constitution, or to attempt to get rid of 1% of the evil that God is opposed to. It can only happen when there is a thoroughgoing repentance over our autonomy and a thoroughgoing faith that God's ways are best. Verse 29 begins by saying, "But from there you will seek the LORD your God..." That's key. The nation must once again seek the God of the Bible since the Bible insists that our monoculturalism must revolve around Him and His Word.

The beauty of God’s covenant is that even in judgment, the door of repentance stands wide open. I love these verses. When a people seek the Lord “with all their heart and soul,” God hears. Cultural renewal begins not with policy changes but with repentance — and repentance begins with the heart. And keep in mind the true nature of repentance. Repentance isn't just saying, "Sorry!" Repentance involves turning away from what we formerly trusted and turning our trust to God alone. As I've already said, God is not interested in conservative politics; He is interested in a nation turning its heart to God. And I know there are skeptics out there who think that this can’t be true of Gentile nations. But they just haven’t read their Bible carefully. Jeremiah 18 says,

7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

Notice that He is talking about any nation - not just Israel. Jeremiah 18 is universalizing the principles we have been seeing in this chapter.

And if they put concerted effort into restoring monoculturalism (v. 29b)

The next clause in verse 29 goes on, "and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." This requires effort, commitment to God, and putting off anything that splits our loyalty between God and something else. If true monoculturalism is ever to be achieved, it can only be achieved when the nation seeks God with all its heart.

And notice that seeking God is not passive. Moses says they must “search diligently.” This means rebuilding all the parts of culture around God again: • re-evangelizing families, • educating children in truth - which means shutting down government schools right? The government schools are brainwashing America's citizens into multiculturalism, and they must be shut down. • re-establishing biblical norms in all of America's institutions, • restoring worship as the heart of communal life.

Thus, monoculturalism (in other words, a shared devotion to Yehowah) must be restored intentionally, not accidentally.

Now, some people think that this is a hopeless vision. They are skeptical that this is even possible in the New Covenant. But that's because they lack a post-millennial eschatology - or what I call an eschatology of faith and hope. If you are a post-millennialist, you will think, "Of course this can happen in the New Covenant. In fact, it is guaranteed to happen." The cross and resurrection of Jesus reverses history. Too many Christians are waiting for the Second Coming to reverse this downward process. And we respond, "Wait a minute. Jesus was already given all authority in heaven and on earth, and He has promised to be with us to the end of the age. We don't need His physical body to be present in order to fulfill the Great Commission. Jesus is spiritually present with us, and the promise is that "of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end" (Is. 9:7). The cross & resurrection is the fulcrum upon which all of history turns. 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, and other passages say that everything resistant to God's grace (with the exception of death) must be conquered by grace in history before Jesus comes back. But this verse indicates that we too must be involved with all of our heart - depending on God's grace and not merely our own human efforts. Ensuring that the church lives by faith is key to a nation’s restoration.

God's judgments are a kind of mercy that produces the above (v. 30)

Verse 30 shows that the distresses that Israel would experience could become a tool of mercy that has the potential of making Israel turn back to God. Another way of saying it is that God often uses cultural collapse to turn hearts back to Him. It says, "When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice..." It is precisely in dark times that people wake up and realize that their humanistic ways don't work and that they need to turn to the Lord. So don't despair over dark times. God uses dark times to make people wake up.

Never underestimate the mercies of God (v. 31)

Nor should we ever underestimate the mercies of God. Verse 31 says to these people who were in total bondage to demonic idols, "for the LORD your God is a merciful God, He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them."

So Moses anchors the potential restoration of true monoculturalism in three things that flow from God’s character: • He is merciful. • He does not abandon His people. In other words, He is faithful. • He does not forget His covenant. In other words, He is a covenant keeping God.

Praise God! Even when the cultural trajectory looks hopeless, it is not beyond God’s power to reverse. And the reason is that God is always faithful to His promises. The question is, "Will God's people have faith to believe Him and turn to Him alone as the solution to our wretched multiculturalism?" Moses is calling us to ditch the counterfeit solutions presented by Stephen Wolfe and others who hate God's law and to really believe that God's ways are best.

God promises restoration when there is exclusive devotion again

Anyway, the upshot of verses 30-31 is that God promises restoration when there is once again an exclusive devotion to God in every area of life.

•	Where loyalty is restored, culture is restored.
•	Where worship is unified, society is unified.
•	God promises to rebuild what idolatry had previously destroyed.

There is nothing that is too difficult for God to reverse.

Further applications

Let me end with a few more applications from all of verses 25-31.

When true monotheism is abandoned, monocultural unity dissolves into cultural chaos

First, when true monotheism is diluted in a culture, the previous monocultural unity will always dissolve into cultural chaos. This means that the chaos we see in the culture wars of today is not ultimately due to politics; it is ultimately a theological reality. Today's chaotic mess in America has come about because of religious pluralism. Religious pluralism leads to cultural pluralism, which eventually leads to cultural clashes. It's an astounding thing that the very city that experienced an Islamic attack on the Twin Towers can now elect a Muslim leader. But in one sense anything is possible in a multicultural country.

A nation that loses its spiritual center loses its cultural cohesion

A second application is that when a nation loses its spiritual center, it loses its cultural cohesion. That should be obvious. Unity is impossible without a shared ultimate commitment. No constitution, policy, or civic ritual can replace a shared devotion to God. When God is removed from the center, fragmentation follows. I love the illustration given in Daniel's vision of the image of kingdoms in Daniel 2:41-43. The feet where made of clay and iron - a very unstable mixture. When Daniel interpreted the dream, he said,

Dan. 2:41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

Rome was a pluralistic culture that attempted to hold itself together by constantly increasing its statist power. But the cultural blending produced a fragile society that was vulnerable to God's kingdom conquering it. And Christianity did conquer Rome. The Roman Empire eventually became Christian. So again, don't lose heart. Multiculturalism is no match for God's people - if (and only if) God's people are sold out to God and His Word.

True monotheism (once regained) reunifies the people's culture

The next application is that true monotheism (once regained), reunifies the people's culture. This is why reformation movements throughout history reshaped entire cultures — not just churches. Again, this is why it is imperative that we constantly press for Biblical civics in our country, not simply conservative civics. It is imperative that our nation once again truly affirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ and seek to follow His laws.

Every reformation begins with rediscovering the exclusive Lordship of Yahweh.

The next application is that every reformation begins with rediscovering the exclusive Lordship of Yehowah - the God of the Bible. Reformation is sometimes top-down, where God's Word impacts the nation's leaders first. This is what happened under Josiah's massive reform. It started when he rediscovered the Book of the Law (or the Pentateuch), repented, turned to God, and was given the zeal of the Lord to tear down idols and to support true worship and devotion to God. And fairly quickly the whole nation was turned upside down and its monoculturalism was restored. You can read about that encouraging development in 2 Kings 22-23. But Reformation can also happen from the bottom to the top, where every citizen repents - as happened in the city of Nineveh under Jonah's preaching. His preaching to the common man in the streets produced Reformation. God is sovereign over whether Reformation happens from top down, bottom up, or both directions at the same time.

Sin and rebellion always has consequences

The last application should be obvious, but it bears repeating. Sin and rebellion always have consequences. There is no neutral ground. Every culture is moving either toward God or away from Him. Every nation is always in the process of reformation or deformation. This is one of the most basic lessons in the Bible. God guarantees that sin and rebellion will always have consequences.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, let me say that our passage gives us both a warning and a hope. • The warning is that culture will drift toward idolatry if God's people are not sold out to Him and His Law-Word. • The hope is that God restores cultures when His people once again seek Him wholeheartedly.

So, in the midst of today’s cultural conflicts, God calls His people to recommit themselves to exclusive loyalty to Him. And He promises that such loyalty is never in vain — not for individuals, families, churches, or entire nations.

May God, by His grace, restore in our time a faithful monocultural people devoted to Him alone. Amen.