(Today's reading - Numbers 32-33; Mark 10:1-31)
In Numbers, we find the children of Israel preparing to enter the Promised Land. They have wandered in the wilderness for a generation, seen their loved ones die along the way and now are on the verge of receiving the reward for their faithfulness. The one verse that really jumped out at me today as I read was this... “‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to
remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns
in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will
live. And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.’” (Numbers 33: 55,56)
As they prepare to begin the final leg of their journey, God gives them a warning. Well, actually two. First, if they allowed some of those that currently lived in the Promised Land to remain there as neighbors, they would "become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble...". And secondly, God tells them that if they don't drive them out, He will do to them what He planned to do to those that inhabited the land. Understand? Get rid of all the people that live there now or they would be a problem to them and if they didn't God was ready to punish them.
So, what does that have to do with us today? Are we on the banks of the Jordan River ready to cross over into the Promised Land? Are we to drive out those that live there? Well, in a way, yes. Let's think about it this way...
When I hear the great news of the gospel. When I learn that God has made a way through the sacrifice of His Son for me to be forgiven and live eternally with Him, we are on the banks of the Jordan. We either choose to cross over or we choose to continue in the wilderness. Our choice. If we choose to get into the water and cross over, then we are confronted with the sin in our lives that must be "driven out". If we don't drive them out, they will be "barbs in our eyes" and "thorns in our sides".
When we make the decision to follow Jesus, we are called to do away with sin in our lives. (of course I know we will always sin, 1 John 1) But, we are to try to live as sinless as we can. I am sure the Israelites stood on the bank of the river and thought about how difficult it would be drive out the inhabitants. They had lived there a long time; they were dug in pretty well. They knew the landscape. It was their home. You get the idea... our way of life before we become Christians is what we knew. We were comfortable there, we even enjoyed some aspects of it. Rooting all that "stuff" out is never easy, but we are called to live rightly.
If we take a casual approach to our sinfulness, most of the time we will lose our battles. If we allow them to remain in the dark corners of our lives, they will come back and attack us when we are the most vulnerable. I know all this because I have done all of this. If you sweep dirt under the rug, it is still in the house and over time it will find its' way back into the room. The last warning is the one we should shake us to our core... "I will do to you what I plan to do to them". The Hebrew writer gives us a stern warning about this... If we deliberately keep on sinning
after we have received the knowledge of the truth,
no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful
expectation of judgment and of raging fire
that will consume the enemies of God.
If we allow those things to be part of our ongoing lives; if we willfully choose to live in the sinfulness of our old lives, God warns that "no sacrifice for sins is left".
I don't claim to fully understand these verses, but I do understand that if I chose to continue in sin, God withdraws His forgiveness and judgment is what I earn. Many will try to explain this away, but I encourage you to read your Bibles and let it say what God intended it to say...
If we deliberately keep on sinning... after we have received the knowledge of the truth, ...no sacrifice for sins is left,... but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God... If you allow sin to remain in control of your lives, God will "do to you what I plan to do to them". Think about it... get rid of the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run
with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)
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