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?
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