Deuteronomy 32:15-18 -

Jeshurun.

I. A GOOD NAME BELIED . Jeshurun, equivalent to righteous. An honorable name, but sadly falsified by the conduct described. How many Jeshuruns have thus forsaken the God of their early vows! Notice, a good name is of no account without the good character. Balaam praised Israel's righteousness, and wished to "die the death of the righteous" ( Numbers 23:10 , Numbers 23:21 ); but it is the being righteous, not the being called so, which makes the happy deathbed.

II. As EVIL EFFECT OF PROSPERITY . "Waxed fat—kicked." How common! The effect foretold or warned against in earlier chapters ( Deuteronomy 8:12-18 , etc.). Prosperity, then pride, then stubborn self-willedness. The self willed heart refuses to submit to God's government; throws off the memory of past obligations, and treats God with ill-concealed indifference and dislike; turns from the true God to gods of its own choosing. Two steps in the great apostasy—forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out broken cisterns, etc. ( Jeremiah 2:13 ). Such conduct is

III. RESULT OF AS ITCH FOR NOVELTY . ( Deuteronomy 32:17 .) The newness of the gods was a chief attraction. The worship of them was a change, a novelty. It pleased them by variety.

1. When God has been abandoned, men are at the mercy of the most trivial influences. "Itching ears"—"every wind of doctrine" ( Ephesians 4:14 ; 2 Timothy 4:2 ).

2. When God has been abandoned, novelty is greedily accepted as a substitute for truth, in theories, in creeds, in styles of worship, in religious nostrums.

3. Apostasy from God means transference of the affections to that which is degrading. In this case to "destroyers," so the word means; devils, malignant deities. But we worship devils, or the devil ( Matthew 4:9 ), when we bow in spirit to the world's modes and shows; when we serve gold, or fashion, or the opinion of society; when we are slaves to lust of power; when we bow to a false ghosts , etc.—J.O.