Devotional Messages

Judgement and Love

Today's message will build on the message from Day 48 (The Wrath of God). In that message I concluded that accepting death as the penalty for sin is an indication of acceptance of the seriousness of sin in God's eyes. I argued then, that finding the violent acts sometimes carried out in the Old Testament as a result of God's direction to be 'extreme' was actually showing that we don't have a complete understanding of the seriousness of sin; disobeying God deserves death.

In today's reading from Numbers we again encounter the slaying of many people, this time the Midianites, at the direction of God. In contrast it seems, we read of the meaning of love in 1 Corinthians. I must tell you that initially I found the two hard to reconcile. How could God in one place direct His people to kill a whole race of others (including boys and women, but keeping female virgins for themselves); and in another place direct His people in the meaning of love as succinctly as Paul has put it in 1 Corinthians?

Upon consideration of the matter, I was reminded of the Lord's previous judgements, such as the flood (Gen. 6:1-9:19), Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16-19:29), and the numerous judgements on His own people (including those in the readings from Day 48). First and foremost, we must remember that God does not like judgement and punishment of His creation. After the floods, He promised never again to wipe out the entire earth with a flood (Gen. 9:11); and when contemplating destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, He was swayed by the thought of a few righteous men among the many thousands of depraved sinners in those cities.

So there were reasons for God to direct the Israelites to kill the Midianites; and surely among those reasons must be the care and protection of His people, Israel. The Israelites were to be holy and a witness of God's glory on earth (Ex. 19:6), but the Midianites had conspired to lead the Israelites away from God (31:16), and as such they had to be removed from the earth - even down to the women who had been the tools used to mislead the Israelite men, and to the boys who would grow to be enemies of Israel. In God's judgement, the destruction of the midianites was the best course of action, and certainly deserved.

But what about love? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." (1 Cor. 4-5) "It keeps no record of wrongs" - so how can God's directions in Numbers be in love? We must remember the next verses also: "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (vv.6-7) God's love was shown in protecting His people from evil.

We can praise God also, that now not just the Israelites are His people. With the coming of Christ He announced salvation to the ends of the earth to those who would simply put their trust in Him. But the seriousness of sin as portrayed in our recent readings from Numbers must remain with us. Faith in Christ's death has secured our forgiveness, but in love we must "not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth". Remember that ignoring God deserves death.

But consider this, just as the Lord directed the Israelites to remove the Midianites from the earth and He gave them the ability to do so without the loss of a single soldier (31:48-49); so He directs us to remove the stain of sin from our own lives (2 Cor. 7:1), and He promises to give us the ability to do so (Php 2:13; 2 Thess. 2:13).

Pray now, praising God for His holiness and justice, and pray that He would empower you to seek out your own failings and through His empowering strength to deal with them, to His glory.