At Mount Sinai, Israel entered into a covenant with God to be faithful to Him, to obey His laws, to do His will, and to reject alliances with Canaan and its gods. With the death of Joshua and the following generation, however, the last living link with Mount Sinai was gone, and the result is gross sin-not sin in general, but the sin of covenant violation (Judges 2:11-12). The greatest sin a human being can commit is to turn one's back on the living God and serve manmade gods.

The Canaanites believed in a number of local gods, including Baal, the god of the storm and rains, and Ashtaroth, the goddess of sensual love, fertility, and war. Followers engaged in temple prostitution, fertility rites, drunken sexual orgies, idolatry, snake-worship, homosexuality, and human sacrifice. Everything about the Canaanite religion-its view of God, moral standards, ethics and values, and rituals-stood in total contradiction to everything God had revealed about himself to His people. And yet its appeal to some of our most human drives and urges is obvious.

The Israelites did the unthinkable. They did not forget Yahweh entirely, but borrowed the rites, practices, and idols of Canaanite paganism and grafted them onto their existing worship to create a new, syncretistic religion. Why? How could a people who had witnessed the power of God drift so far from Him? It did not happen all at once.

Assimilation is not an overnight process, but a gradual one. First there is the acceptance of alien ideas, values, and practices. This is followed by the abandonment of certain native ideas, values, and practices in order to accommodate the new ones. Third, there is growing adaptation to the surrounding culture, until finally there is virtual capitulation to what was once completely foreign and alien. How did this happen?

One, they lost fellowship with God by incomplete obedience. When Israel did not drive out the people as God commanded, they sowed the seeds of their own spiritual failure.

Two, they did not consciously remind themselves of the grace of God. They forsook God when they forgot all that He had done for them.

Three, they rejected the Word of God. Israel began to look at life the way the Canaanites did. Instead of being controlled by the truths of Scripture, they were controlled by the desires and impulses of their sinful natures. We too will suffer what the Israelites experienced if we follow in their footsteps. Galatians 6:8 reminds us that when we sow to please the flesh we reap from the flesh; and its harvest is corruption and decay.