Numbers 33:55-56 NIV
[55] “ '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. [56] And then I
will do to you what I plan to do to them. ' ”
There is a cost to disobedience. The context here is the conquest of
Canaan by Joshua and the people of Israel. There are ethical issues here that
many would like to debate, but I will leave that aside for the moment. I just
want to take from these verses the eternal principle found there. This is the
question of obedience to God and the cost of disobedience.
Many think that they have the right to make up their own set of values
irrespective of God. They cherry pick from the Bible so that they end up
finding justification for their preconceived ideas, or the ideas of our
culture. This is the result of the “eating of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil” in the Garden of Eden.
Reduced to its essential meaning, this first sin was the taking to
themselves the right to set their own moral boundaries. God set an absolute
moral framework in place but mankind would not submit to this and instead set
up their own moral framework, which changes over time. Our current age wants to
live by situational ethics, or, on the case of post-modernism, behaviours and
ethics set by the individual themselves without reference to the effect on society
as a whole.
Even talk of an absolute ethic brings derision on the one proposing it.
This is seen clearly on the key issues of today, such as euthanasia, sexuality,
financial ethics, gender issues, religion, and so on. All of these issues, and
many others, are debated within a framework which eliminates God and any
thought of absolutes.
What is the result? We see it all around us in a society which is far
removed from the ideal, and which is changing rapidly. I can barely recognise
the Australia I was born into in the mid 1940s. Some of these changes are
certainly beneficial, but many have led us on a path of insecurity, fear and
aimlessness for many of our youth and other vulnerable sections of our community.
We can say that we reap what we sow. That is certainly true but there
are even more serious effects.
God is unchanging. As He was in ancient times sonHe is today. He has
laid before us clear choices. Near the
end of Joshua’s life he set out the choices before the people now that they
were settled in the promised land.
Joshua 24:15 NIV
[15] But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for
yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served
beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are
living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
This brings us back to the beginning of this blog. God says very
clearly that He cannot be manipulated to serve our changing demands. He knows
the effect of this on society, so He warns all ages, including ours, of what
will happen if we turn from Him.
Numbers 33:55-56 NIV
[55] “ '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. [56] And then I
will do to you what I plan to do to them. ' ”
The “inhabitants” we are to drive out are those strongholds in our
lives which are contrary to the will of God. They are the thought patterns
which violate God’s holy Name. The battle is within. It is not against any
flesh and blood (see Eph 6:12). No human being is our enemy. We need to gain a
new world view, one seen through the lens of the Kingdom of God.
The alternative is clear. God will treat us the way all His enemies get
treated. He can act no other way.
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