As I scroll through Facebook at the pictures and verses it strikes me how we as people are drawn to
the encouraging, loving verses and shy away from the ones that we consider harsh or scary. I am no different, so I get it, life is hard and we are looking for hope, joy and inspiration. That’s why romantic comedies and Sci Fi movies do so well at the box office, they take us away for a little while from the daily grind and pain we deal with in life. There is a part of this that worries me, or at least makes me wonder. Do we do the same thing with God and in doing so if we lose a little of the incredible awe inspiring greatness of who God I. we have to deal with all of God. The God of the Old Testament did not go away when Jesus came to earth. Jesus and God are one (John 17:22) and He still hates sin, He is still jealous, He still has an intense and righteous wrath towards these things. Jesus fulfilled all the requirement of the law that had been broken, in our place, since we were unable to do this on our own. Without his payment we like the Israelites would still require constant sacrifices to keep our debt paid, and not be under wrath (Galatians 6:7, Romans 8:1). Jesus paid our debt once and for all and put us in right standing with God, but His character did not change, He did not begin to tolerate sin, He paid for it. The God who can speak the universe into being is an all-powerful, perfect, holy being, that sacrificed all he had to be in relationship with us.
We must accept or reject this grace through faith in humble gratefulness, knowing that we deserve punishment we will never receive.
In Numbers 31 we see a piece of Israel’s history that displays God’s wrath toward the people of Midian for evil. These were the people that Balaam advised to defeat Israel by corrupting them from the inside instead of going to war with them. It worked. This is the Balaam who blessed them in Numbers 25 when he tried to curse them. The Midianites took his advice and the Israelites became entangled by temptation. God required that there be no traces of the Midianite encounter left in the camp. It is a brutal chapter, but we must deal with the Bible as a whole to fully understand God’s position toward sin, separateness and the redemption we have been given through grace.
TIDBITS FROM NUMBERS 31:
God wanted to be sure that there would be no future issue with seduction from the Midianites, even the spoils of war were to be cleansed.
DIG DEEPER:
Read Numbers 31;
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