Of Obedience and War

Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof; (Judges 3:2)

From studying God’s word, you will realise that from the perspective of a loving God, the opposite of obedience is not punishment, but war.

I am not talking about rebellion, though disobedience may lead to rebellion.

Rebellion leads to trashing like we see with the generation that refused to cross over to the Promised Land.

Sin opens us up to war.

Allow me to give us another verse. Whether you think it is related or not is your problem.

Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. (2Samuel 12:10)

David’s sin opened him up for unending war in his generations.

And that is what we see with the verse in Judges.

But why war? I know someone is wondering.

War creates uncertainty. War raises anxiety. War opens us to fear.

You can’t build or develop anything worthwhile in a state of war because war always unsettles.

Getting married is a risk because you know that any day may be the last.

Even farming is a big challenge because you are not sure you may live to reap what you have sown, or whether your enemy will enjoy your bounty.

The book of judges demonstrates that.

That state creates in someone a yearning for rest. It creates a reaching out for anything or anybody who may offer security.

That is where God aims for us to get to; a point at which we will reach out to Him for rest.

God does not release war on us when we sin to punish us as He trashes those who rebel. He does it so that we may seek and reconcile with Him so that He may offer us rest.

He does it so that the discontent it creates will spur our spirits to seek Him.

When you look at the panorama of the Bible, you will see a clear correlation between repentance and rest as you will see between sin and war.

Sadly, many times that unrest and war spurs the sinner to rebellion through seeking rest the wrong way or in the wrong places.

Many, instead of turning to God in repentance turned to the gods their oppressors served.

Others turned to their own inventiveness, thus furthering their sin, graduating it into rebellion.

Asa is a case in point.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. (2Chronicles 16: 9, 10)

By inventiveness I mean what he had done before God had sent the messenger to confront his sin. Yet this king had been a very good king, full of faith in his earlier encounters.

The same happened with Uzziah, Hezekiah and several other kings who had had sterling testimonies before their fall (pride?)

Sadly, there are very few instances of repentance like David’s after their sin was confronted, probably because they had become too successful to care for God’s solution. Or they had sunk too deep in their sin to care for God’s simple solutions. Or they actually knew God’s solution but were not ready to go the full hog in taking it.

When we look at Jonah, we see a very clear case of rebellion, simply going exactly opposite God’s order.

But looking at the book’s conclusion we can see that he really was so much like us; He just didn’t want God dealing with his prejudices. The fact that he wrote the book tells us that he finally agreed with God, completely. And it happened because God put him in a very uncomfortable situation.

As I have said, war creates discomfort; a yearning for rest.

That is our faith

It is interesting to note that most profound faith experiences are products of crises, whether in the scriptures or in our histories.

Most of our explosive testimonies were also borne of impossibly difficult situations.

I hope you are getting what God wants you to understand.

But the conclusion of this is that sin invites war in its many forms; war whose purpose is to draw us back to God in repentance.

It is sad that many fight to end those wars by looking elsewhere for rest.

Some deal with remorse instead of repenting. They seek to correct their sin instead of abandoning it. They want to rectify their sin instead of asking for pardon and the requirements for reconciliation from the offended.

They refuse John the Baptist’s instruction concerning repentance, allowing it to bear fruit.

What state are you in?

Are you in any kind of war?

Is the war against the forces of evil or is it originating from God to draw you to seek Him?