Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20000305.htm

GENESIS: THE SOURCES OF GOOD AND CALAMITY IN OUR ORIGINS
Part III - God's Ongoing Program Of Countering Man's Apostasy At Babel
Y. Round Twenty-Four - Learning To Avoid Even CASUAL Fellowship With Apostates
(Genesis 34:1-31)
  1. Introduction
    1. God calls His own to leave circles of fellowship characterized by evil darkness in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18.
    2. Well, just how far the believer should go in avoiding even CAUSUAL fellowship with apostates is a question that rages in Evangelical circles. Some feel casual fellowship is fine where others totally abstain!
    3. Genesis 34:1-31 is a lesson learned a very hard way on avoiding even casual fellowship with apostates:
  2. Learning To Avoid Even CASUAL Fellowship With Apostates, Genesis 34:1-31.
    1. God told Israel not to intermarry with apostate Canaanites lest it produce apostasy in Israel, Ex. 34:14-16.
    2. This prohibition , though not commanded to the patriarchs, was nevertheless practiced by them as a discretionary precaution against their falling into idolatry themselves, cf. Genesis 24:2-4; 26:34-35:
      1. Abraham commanded his servant to seek a wife for his son, a bride who woulde decidely not be from the pagan Canaanites, Genesis 24:2-4. This effort fit Abraham's tendency to avoid an entangling relationship with the evil king of Sodom in refusing to keep any of his recovered spoil, Gen. 14:22-23.
      2. Thus, when Esau married Hittite women, it brought grief to his parents, Gen. 26:34-35; 27:46; 28:8-9.
    3. Well, Dinah, Jacob's daughter, unlike Esau sought just casual fellowship with the Canaanites, Gen. 34:1:
      1. Dinah, Jacob's daughter, did not seek interaction with Canaanite men so as to flirt with an errant marital union, but merely to converse with fellow young WOMEN in Canaan, Genesis 34:1.
      2. Accordingly, she left her circle of safe fellowship with the upright and ventured out to have casual interaction with these Canaanite women, Genesis 34:1.
    4. Dinah's effort for CASUAL fellowship with Canaanites led to long-term, multiple tragedy, Gen. 34:2-34:
      1. In going out to form a casual fellowship with Canaanite apostate women, Dinah encountered an apostate man who lusted after her and straightway raped her, Genesis 34:2.
      2. Then, this man, Shechem, sought to marry Dinah, and made plans to arrange to do so, Gen. 34:3-4.
      3. Shechem's crime infuriated Jacob's sons, so they planned revenge against Shechem and his kin, 34:5-17:
        1. When Shechem's father sought to arrange for the marriage, Dinah's brothers were infuriated at the unjust crime that had led to the marital offer, Gen. 34:5-7, 8-12.
        2. However, Jacob's sons were so angry at the injustice that had led to this marital offer, they planned by trickery to entrap Hamor and Shechem's people out of a spirit of revenge, Genesis 35:13.
        3. The plan included making the mass circumcision of all of Hamor's men a condition to the dowry for Dinah, an agreement if followed would leave Hamor's people vulnerable to defeat, Genesis 35:14-17.
      4. When Hamor and Shechem agreed to this idea, they practiced this mass circumcision, Gen. 35:18-25a.
      5. Simeon and Levi, Dinah's full brothers (cf. Gen. 29:31, 33-34 with 30:19, 21) were so full of anger that the two of them attacked and killed all the males in the city where Hamor and Shechem lived, 24:25.
      6. This included killing Hamor and Shechem and retrieving Dinah who was then in Shechem's house following the sexual consumation of their wedding, Genesis 24:26. The plan of Dinah's brothers included the repeated sexual exposure of Dinah to the man who raped her, a horrid thing on their part!
      7. Also, Jacob's sons spoiled the city and added to human suffering by taking the city's wives captive to be wed to other men, further multiplying Shechem's initial crime's suffering many times over, 34:27-29.
      8. When Jacob found out about the massacre, he became worried that there would be reprisals as his sons had made himself odious to the Canaanites, Genesis 34:30. However, he couldn't turn the tide back as his sons were already still upse t at the crime done to Dinah to the harm of their pride, Genesis 34:31.
      9. Long-term, Simeon and Levi who had carried out the massacre were left out of Jacob's blessing in a punitive way, cf. Genesis 49:5-7. All Dinah's initial contact had done was bring out the worst in them!
Lesson: Dinah's effort to obtain just a CASUAL fellowship with the apostate daughters of Canaan opened the door to multiple abuses and suffering which brought out the worst in GOD'S people!

Application: We should not allow for even CASUAL fellowship with apostates! (B.K.C., O.T., p. 83)