R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 50
February 21, 2015
Consequences
Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD’s commands. Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did.” The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua. (Judges 2:16-23)
There’s nothing new under the sun. Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land was incomplete. Before he died, he told the people of Israel that they needed to make a choice about who they would worship. They responded by promising to worship Yahweh. They even ratified a treaty with God. According to that treaty, if the people were not faithful in worshiping Yahweh and treating one another with love, then God would no longer give them victory over their enemies.
So when God stood before the Israelites after Joshua had died he reminded them of the terms of their agreement with him. But, as the generations passed they repeatedly forgot about the treaty, so God repeatedly punished them with foreign conquerors. But whenever they repented, God raised up leaders—the judges—to rescue his people from those oppressors. But as the book of Judges so sadly relates, every time they were rescued, they quickly reverted to their old behavior.
Nevertheless, no matter how often the Israelites turned away from God, no matter how often they sinned, God was always ready to forgive them and rescue them from all their troubles. There was no end to God’s mercy and grace. God gives us never-ending second chances. It’s never too late with God.
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February 20, 2015
Trying to Kill Us
There was no water for the people to drink at that place, so they rebelled against Moses and Aaron. The people blamed Moses and said, “If only we had died in the LORD’s presence with our brothers! Why have you brought the congregation of the LORD’s people into this wilderness to die, along with all our livestock? Why did you make us leave Egypt and bring us here to this terrible place? This land has no grain, no figs, no grapes, no pomegranates, and no water to drink!”
Moses and Aaron turned away from the people and went to the entrance of the Tabernacle, where they fell face down on the ground. Then the glorious presence of the LORD appeared to them, and the LORD said to Moses, “You and Aaron must take the staff and assemble the entire community. As the people watch, speak to the rock over there, and it will pour out its water. You will provide enough water from the rock to satisfy the whole community and their livestock.”
So Moses did as he was told. He took the staff from the place where it was kept before the LORD. Then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. “Listen, you rebels!” he shouted. “Must we bring you water from this rock?” Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So the entire community and their livestock drank their fill. (Numbers 20:2-11)
Once before, the people had found themselves short of water. And just as they had reacted to everything that had ever been the least bit hard—they accused God and Moses of seeking their ruin. Once again, they waxed nostalgic over their prosperity in Egypt—that place from which for generations they had begged God to rescue them.
God responded by satisfying their needs. Never once, when they were hungry or thirsty, did God ever leave them in that state. God always provided for them.
Moses, however, being a human being, had finally had enough. After all the crabbing and complaining, after all the negativity, he finally snapped. He let his temper get the better of him. Despite his disobedience, God still delivered what the people needed. Bringing water out of the rock was something God did. It was not a consequence of saying the right magic words with just the right hand signals.
God will do what he wants to do for us whether we obey him or not. But there are still potentially negative consequences for disobedience. In Moses’ case, he had to die.
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February 19, 2015
Complaints
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
“Speak to the sons of Israel, and get from them a rod for each father’s household: twelve rods, from all their leaders according to their fathers’ households. You shall write each name on his rod, and write Aaron’s name on the rod of Levi; for there is one rod for the head of each of their fathers’ households.
“You shall then deposit them in the tent of meeting in front of the testimony, where I meet with you.
“It will come about that the rod of the man whom I choose will sprout. Thus I will lessen from upon Myself the grumblings of the sons of Israel, who are grumbling against you.”
Moses therefore spoke to the sons of Israel, and all their leaders gave him a rod apiece, for each leader according to their fathers’ households, twelve rods, with the rod of Aaron among their rods. So Moses deposited the rods before the LORD in the tent of the testimony. Now on the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds. (Numbers 17:1-8)
Some people just never learn. After the Exodus from Egypt, after the manna, after losing the Promised Land for a generation, a group of discontented people approached Moses and Aaron. Korah and about two hundred fifty men decided to challenge Moses and Aaron for leadership. In the end, God had the ground open up and swallow Korah and his followers. An additional 14,700 people died in the plague that followed.
But even after God had done all that, there were still those who wondered if Aaron was really the one who should be the high priest. After Aaron’s staff alone had budded, showing clearly who God had chosen to offer sacrifices—the response of the rest of the people was to finally be terrified. At long last they wondered if God might strike them down, just as he’d killed Korah and the rest. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
God’s will is rarely hard to discern. If God wants something done, if he has in mind who is to do it, he will make it abundantly clear. A person must be willfully obtuse to resist God. Too often when we say we don’t know God’s will, it isn’t so much that we don’t know it, it’s just that we don’t like it.
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February 18, 2015
February 17, 2015
Is Unhappiness a Choice?
And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above. Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in. But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection. I the LORD have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.’ ” (Numbers 14:26-35)
Sometimes people just don’t want to be happy. The Israelites never faced a crisis without panicking. Rather than thinking that God would take care of them as he had in all the previous crises, they instead assumed the worst. Rather than embracing the challenge, they rejected hope. As nice as the Promised Land might be, they decided it was simply impossible to get. Surely God had brought them this far just to kill them.
Given that time after time they had responded with the same thought, that they were in the wilderness to die, God finally decided to grant them what so obviously was their fondest desire. They thought they were going to die? Then fine, they could die. They would stay in the wilderness until the last of their ungrateful generation had succumbed to old age. Only then, would their children and their descendents after them get to enter the place God had promised to give them. God would fulfill his word—and he would fulfill their word too.
It is very human to assume the worst when facing a crisis. But it is both irrational and ungrateful to assume that God won’t take care of us.
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February 16, 2015
February 15, 2015
Out Your Nose
So the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their place there with you. I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself. And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wailed in the hearing of the LORD, saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt.’ Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you—because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’ (Numbers 11:16-20)
Consistency is a good thing—unless you’re consistently wrong. The Israelites were consistent in how they responded to every crisis they faced: they blamed Moses, they blamed God, and they assumed the worst motives. When they faced a problem, the people of Israel always believed that there was no solution. They were certain that the only possible outcome was their miserable deaths.
God did not take kindly to their continuing ingratitude. He didn’t like the fact that they always assumed that his goal was to harm them. Pessimism was not the right attitude to have with God. But ever since the first two humans in the Garden of Eden assumed that God was holding out on them, that God didn’t have their best interests in mind, human beings have had a hard time trusting God to take care of them. The Israelites, like all of us, became natural pessimists at the first sign of pain.
And what did God do in the face of the Israelites’ bad attitude? He gave them exactly what they asked for. In fact, he gave them too much of a good thing: he gave them so much of what they asked for that they would finally get sick of it.
God will bless us, even more than we can imagine, and sometimes more than we want.
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February 14, 2015
Swift to Forgive
Every time the Israelites would plant crops, the Midianites invaded Israel together with the Amalekites and other eastern nations. They rode in on their camels, set up their tents, and then let their livestock eat the crops as far as the town of Gaza. The Midianites stole food, sheep, cattle, and donkeys. Like a swarm of locusts, they could not be counted, and they ruined the land wherever they went.
The Midianites took almost everything that belonged to the Israelites, and the Israelites begged the LORD for help. Then the LORD sent a prophet to them with this message:
I am the LORD God of Israel, so listen to what I say. You were slaves in Egypt, but I set you free and led you out of Egypt into this land. And when nations here made life miserable for you, I rescued you and helped you get rid of them and take their land. I am your God, and I told you not to worship Amorite gods, even though you are living in the land of the Amorites. But you refused to listen. (Judges 6:3-10)
God didn’t just punish his people for breaking the terms of the agreement he had with them. He also lectured them, by means of the prophets. When they cried out to him because of the Midianite raiders, he didn’t immediately stop the raiders from taking their stuff; instead, he talked to them about what they were doing. He reminded them of where they had come from, how he had taken care of them, and what he expected from them. Nothing very complicated. It was good that they had finally decided to talk to him again, after abandoning him for the other gods; but they needed to be reminded of just why they found themselves in the circumstances they were in, and what they needed to do to get out of them and to keep it from happening again. The Midianites were the same people who had taken Joseph into slavery in Egypt.
After his lecture, God raised up Gideon to deliver his people. Unfortunately, of course, the people would soon enough revert back to their old ways. But for a time—all the years that Gideon would live—the people would be faithful to God.
God is not one to judge people quickly. He knows how weak we are and he gives us a long time to repent before he begins overt attempts to get our attention. But he is swift to forgive, always, because he loves us so much. All he asks is that we love him and love one another.
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February 13, 2015
Ignorance is not Bliss
Then the LORD said to Job,
“Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
Let him who reproves God answer it.”
Then Job answered the LORD and said,
“Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
“Once I have spoken, and I will not answer;
Even twice, and I will add nothing more.”
Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm and said,
“Now gird up your loins like a man;
I will ask you, and you instruct Me.
“Will you really annul My judgment?
Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
“Or do you have an arm like God,
And can you thunder with a voice like His?
“Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity,
And clothe yourself with honor and majesty.
“Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low.
“Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him,
And tread down the wicked where they stand.
“Hide them in the dust together;
Bind them in the hidden place.
“Then I will also confess to you,
That your own right hand can save you. (Job 40:1-14)
Ignorance is not bliss. Instead, it’s more like sweeping dirt under a rug. Job’s problem was the problem that all humans have: a limited understanding. A teenager may think she is making good choices based on her life experiences, but the adults in her life can easily point out everything she has missed. Likewise, even the brightest, best educated, most thoroughly equipped individual falls far short of God’s knowledge. Job and his friends thought they knew what was going on. Job’s friends were convinced he was guilty of a major sin, while Job was certain that God’s attack on him was without cause. Job was closer to the truth. In fact, God himself said that his suffering was without cause, but only in the sense that he wasn’t being punished for misbehavior. The explanation for Job’s trials was Satan’s belief that people served God only as a means to an end. Satan and Job’s friends believed good behavior purchased God’s blessing. God’s purpose in what happened to Job was to demonstrate that Satan’s position was mistaken. In fact, a human being could remain faithful to God even if he wasn’t getting anything out of it.
Just because we don’t understand what is happening to us, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a good reason for it. We have to decide to love God, to trust him, and to follow him, regardless.
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