Conforming to the World

[562 words] One of the most horrific crimes in the history of Israel took place in the days of the weeping prophet Jeremiah. The people built “the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal” (Jer. 19:5). How could God’s people have done something this barbaric? The Lord had warned the Israelites hundreds of years before Jeremiah not to “follow a multitude to do evil” (Exod. 23.2). They were not to follow the ways of Egypt where they had been or the customs of Canaan where they were going (Lev. 18:3). In spite of all the miracles they had seen, they were subject to peer pressure. Not long after they entered the promised land the Israelites gave in to the temptation to be like others. When Joshua’s generation died, “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the…