SCRIPTURE: Numbers 31
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Although I do not like this chapter – people as plunder, kill the boys, save the virgins – in an odd way I see Jesus in this passage. The mess of sin is our responsibility, but God does not abandon us to it. He does not snap His fingers and end it all (He came close with the flood), but He ‘roles up His sleeves’ and digs in. He enters the mess, and directs it to His purpose.
Why doesn’t God just end all sin and misery? Why does He allow it to continue, even work with it? The answer to this may be that this is the only way, the best way, to save us and the world, while working with us, allowing us to respond. Of course we prefer God to help us by eliminating the consequences of sin, while forgiving us, giving us a clean slate. But God cannot ignore evil. He has to work with our sinful choices and consequences, in order to free us from them.
God in Christ enters this world. His love does not grow cold because of the increase of wickedness. Where sin increases, grace increases. And Jesus urges us to follow the same path: : “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” [Matthew 24:12-13] Don’t quit, don’t give up. Stand firm, step in, be the difference!
I do not like this chapter. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a Midianite boy, or mother. But then I think of what God sees, what God knows, all the horror and violence and cruelty and abuse and torture and misery that He sees, that He endures. One thing for sure, He is not the source of this, we are. We may be bothered by the fact that He works with it, but let us be bothered more by the fact that we cause it. At least He is doing something about it. At least He is paying a huge price to fix it. At least His love did not grow cold, but stood firm by us even when we reject Him.
Once again, when it comes to difficult passages like this, I give God the benefit of the doubt. We certainly haven’t proved ourselves worth trusting, while He has: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” [John 3:19-21]
PRAYER:
Lord, forgive me for doubting Your love. Thank You for Your amazing grace!