Daily Thoughts from Numbers: Sin Like Weeds

And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”  (Numbers 33:50-56 ESV)

God can’t be more clear that Israel’s future depends on clearing out all the enemies of Canaan in obedience to Him.  He is using Israel as the tool of His judgment on these nations.  The issue is idolatry.  Israel must destroy all their idols and elevated shrines for worship and all the idolaters.  Otherwise their influence will become an irritant that Israel will be unable to ignore and she will fall into the same sin and receive the judgment God had reserved for the Canaanites.

Our greatest problem is being caught up in the thinking of the world, its idolatry, and succumbing to viewing God as just one among many sources of life, or no source at all.  We must “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we [must] take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  If we nourish any sin in our thinking it will demolish us.

It is said that many years ago the small farmers of Scotland were a very superstitious people. They would leave a corner of their fields uncultivated in order to pacify certain evil spirits. They believed that by sacrificing this one corner to the spirits, the remainder of the field would be left undisturbed and yield good results.  But what happened, in fact, of course, was that the uncultivated corner produced a crop of weeds and when the wind blew, it scattered those weeds across the whole field.  The whole field suffered because of weeds in one corner.  And so with the Christians life. One sin which is allowed to dominate can infect a man’s whole life, ruin his character, and negate completely his witness for God.  The Hidden Hand, International Bible Encyclopedia, Thomas

Daily Thoughts from Exodus: What Makes God Angry

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” But the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made. (Exodus 32:15-35, ESV)

The consequences of idolatry are severe. Moses’ destruction of the tablets of stone is symbolic of the way the Israelites, with Aaron’s help, have destroyed the covenant. Moses’ anger reflects Yahweh’s anger.  Oh that our anger burned as hot in regards to idolatry, in our own lives and the lives of others.

Aaron attempts to deflect blame from himself but his explanation is ridiculous. The path to restoration from the sin is fully owning up to or confessing one’s guilt, not trying to minimize it. The other Levites, on the other hand, stand with Moses against the idolatry and slay those at Yahweh’s command who have been guilty. Yahweh sends a plague to slay the rest who were guilty. Moses is willing to sacrifice himself for the people, another example of his humility, but God wants justice for those to whom justice is due.

Nothing must stand in the way of our worship of the true and living God. No false representation of who He is must be allowed in our worship. He is the sovereign God whom we cannot control and He will be worshiped in truth only.  How dare we offer up what we call worship to a God as we have perceive He ought to be and expect anything less than His wrath.

Daily Thoughts from Exodus: Your Promised Land

“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

“But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

“When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.” (Exodus 23:20-33, ESV)

The word “angel” means “messenger” and Yahweh says here that this messenger who is going to accompany Israel and guard them on the way has His name, Yahweh, in him. The nation must be careful to obey this messenger and if they do they will have complete victory over all enemies. It is quite likely that this messenger is the Son, the pre-incarnate Jesus (before he took on human nature), the second person of the Trinity.

Yahweh promises that in Canaan, if Israel worships Him alone and makes no covenants with any in the land, that He will remove all their enemies and make them supernaturally prosperous, with no miscarriages, abundant supply of food, and eventually a homeland that stretches from the Red Sea that He miraculously enabled them to cross, to the Euphrates River in the north. Though Israel’s record of obedience will be quite spotty, in the day of Solomon Yahweh will nevertheless give Israel a time of prosperity much like this and land dimensions like this.

Yahweh also acknowledges the mutual dependence of the ecosystems He created and explains that He will not immediately drive out the current inhabitants lest the land get overrun with wild beasts.  God is the ultimate ecologist.

There is so much God wants to do for us and so little we trust Him for. In our covenant with Him He has not promised perfect prosperity, despite the teachings of prosperity gospel preachers, but He has promised to use us to spread the kingdom message to the whole world and see the powers of the kingdom irrupting into this present age.  He is not immediately bringing the kingdom but using us to “conquer” territory from the devil little by little.  And there is always the need to maintain the conquered land.  Where do you see idolatry rampant in your sphere of influence?  What is your plan under God for taking it in His name?  May we trust Him for our Canaan victories, our promised land.

Daily Thoughts from Exodus: Second Command addendum

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (20:5, ESV).

God is a jealous husband. His wife, His people, cannot “hate” Him and not suffer consequences. God will see to it that the natural consequences of parents building false values into their children’s lives will continue to the fourth generation. This is not to say that He may not sovereignly save individuals from among those generations, but there is no promise that He will. When men reject the true image of God as sovereign in their lives, He exercises His sovereignty in judgment.

“…but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (20:6, ESV).

This is the promise to those who obey the second commandment. God will bless their generations with the grace to come to the knowledge of the true God. No amount of godly training alone can bring a person to Christ. Only God can turn hearts toward Himself. No idol of man’s making, no God fashioned in man’s image has such sovereign control.

Even if we don’t worship a fashioned likeness of God, we may still be operating with a purposely distorted image of Him. The Pharisees fashioned a God of rigid standards (true to an extent) that they believed they could keep and therefore expected certain rewards from Him. What false images of God have you constructed?

Daily Thoughts from Exodus: Second Command

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below” (Exodus 20:4).

Whereas the first commandment was a prohibition against worshiping anyone other than God, this commandment focuses more on how one is to worship God. It deals with the habit in fallen man of seeking to make God into an image he can cope with and feel some control over.

The original sin of Adam was to want to be God and rule his own life. Ever since that fall, we have sought to rid ourselves of God’s authority. Our most subtle technique for doing so is refashioning our image of God. By viewing God as someone who is more like a human we can now think of ways to manipulate Him. This soon devolves into magical thinking, believing that if we can figure out the characteristic of this God and make an image like that characteristic, we have somehow captured God in the image. Having an idol of one’s god is therefore having a way to control Him. That tangible object becomes for us a sacred relic which binds us to our god and our god to us.

This is why Protestants have always been suspicious of relics and statues and icons used by Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Though they can be told over and over that such things have no special power, it is most easy for us to begin to invest them with special power.  But vestiges of this wrong perspective can be seen in superstitions about how to get God to hear us or objects we invest with “magical” power.

Our most subtle idolatry consists, however, of distorted views of God that shape our practice of our faith.  For example, the wrong belief made most obvious in Job is that God will always reward in this life our obedience or punish our disobedience.  Job, his friends believe, is suffering because he has been disobedient.  If this is true it enables believers to determine their future and the way God must respond based on our behavior.  A version of this is the prosperity gospel with its belief that God is most concerned about our prosperity and if we have enough faith in Him He will honor all our requests for healing, riches and success. Psalm 73 gives expression to this view and the corrective Asaph, the psalmist, learned when God would not be controlled by his requirements of God and Asaph nearly then lost his faith.

God will not be controlled by any human.  No image can capture Him.  He is the incomparable sovereign of the universe before whom we must always bow and worship in truth.

Daily Thoughts from Exodus: Resistance Is Futile

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, behold, the hand of the LORD will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. But the LORD will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.”’” And the LORD set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the LORD will do this thing in the land.” And the next day the LORD did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.” So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.”’” Then whoever feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the LORD left his slaves and his livestock in the field.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man and beast and every plant of the field, in the land of Egypt.” Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail.

Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Plead with the LORD, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.” Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s. But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God.” (The flax and the barley were struck down, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud. But the wheat and the emmer were not struck down, for they are late in coming up.) So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh and stretched out his hands to the LORD, and the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured upon the earth. But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses.  (Exodus 9 ESV)

The plagues are told in more rapid fashion now as Pharaoh is unwilling to submit to Yahweh.  The goddesses Hathor (depicted often with the head of a cow), Isis (goddess of healing) and Nut (goddess of the sky) could not prevent Yahweh’s work.  First “all” the livestock (“the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks”) would die from a plague.  Here, “all” cannot mean every single one, because after this the plague of hail kills beasts left in the field.  It likely means some or many of each kind of livestock died.

When Pharaoh disobeys, Yahweh sends boils and even his magicians are afflicted so that they cannot remain in Pharaoh’s presence.  After this Moses goes into more detail about the coming hailstorm plague.  He predicts its severity and even gives a suggestion that those who know this is coming can save themselves and their herds by bringing them under cover, which some do.  The hail destroys people, animals and the flax crop.  At this Pharaoh seems to repent and Moses stops the storm, but immediately Pharaoh hardens his heart.

Moses knew this was coming.  “I know that you do not yet fear Yahweh Elohim,” he says.  Yahweh says through Moses, “for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”  God’s plans and purposes involve every living being on earth and even the most powerful among us is not exempt from God’s will.  If we submit to His will we are rescued, but if we resist we are punished.  Once again in these plagues God shows His favor to those who know Him.

Acts 7:51 – “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

Daily Thoughts from Exodus: Insufficient Magic

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed. Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.”’” And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’”

Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile.

Seven full days passed after the LORD had struck the Nile.  (Exodus 7:14-25 ESV)

The Egyptians believed that the god Osiris was drowned in the Nile and that his body annually caused the flooding of the Nile which brought fertilization of the land.  This annual flooding was needed for them to prosper and the regularity of this was known as Ma’at, the orderliness of the world.  The Pharaoh, a god in their view, was responsible for maintaining Ma’at and the flooding of the Nile.  So too was the god Hapi.  Everything depended on the Nile’s annual flooding and life giving properties.

For Yahweh to turn the Nile and all other waterways into blood was a powerful demonstration of His sovereignty over all nations and the impotence of Egypt’s Pharaoh and Egypt’s gods.  And even though the magicians’ ability to turn a small amount of water into blood was obviously insignificant compared to what Yahweh did through Moses, Pharaoh hardened his heart.  For seven days the Egyptians were forced to dig for pure water.  The danger could not be more obvious, the nation could not be more close to collapse.  Simple reason told them they should listen to Yahweh.

People have a knack for ignoring the obvious, and according to Paul (Romans 1:18-26) the most obvious fact we ignore is God’s existence and who He really is.  We repress the truth about God so that we don’t have to submit to Him as He requires.  We shape an image of the God we want to serve, one we can control.  That is at the root of all idolatry.  Egyptians had gods they could manipulate to fertilize their land.  We have a god who is supposed to take care of our every need and be most concerned about our happiness.  We need a Moses to show us how insignificant our magic is.

Romans 1:25, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

Setting Aside the Counterfeits (Theology for Living from Philippians)

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.  For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.  But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, verses 17-21)

One of Paul’s responsibilities, and a responsibility of all spiritual leaders, is to identify counterfeits to the true gospel.  Given the rebellious nature of human beings and the very active influence of Satan, there should be a high expectation of distortions to the message of life.  Paul leverages his own example of orthodox living and orthodox doctrine, then he begins to describe those in particular, the Judaizers, who are threatening all of Paul’s church plants.

Not everyone is agreed that these are “the enemies of the cross” to whom Paul is referring.  To some it looks like Paul is describing a group who seeks to push the limits of godly morality.  “Their god is their stomach” sounds to them like those who eat greedily. “Their glory is in their shame” sounds like taking pride in their willingness to push the boundaries ethically.

But in the context Paul has only identified one group of false teachers.  These appear to be people who teach the Jewish law as the standard of holiness and focus on the requirements of circumcision for males and kosher food laws for all.  With that in mind, “their god is their stomach” means their focus on keeping kosher has become their idol; “their glory is in their shame” means they rest confidence in circumcision as their badge of honor.  In all this “their mind is set on earthly things.”  What God designed as a picture of ultimate spiritual truths to be revealed when the new dispensation arrives, these false teachers are still clinging to and giving saving power to instead of looking at faith as the basis for salvation.

By way of contrast, Christianity, God’s new revelation in Christ contained in “new wine skins” (Matthew 9:17), is focused on heaven.  Though the Philippians might take pride in their Roman citizenship, the real reason to boast is their heavenly citizenship.  As citizens of heaven we need no longer be enslaved to earthly elements.  We are people of the last age, the age of the resurrection.  When Jesus comes He is going to resurrect us, make our bodies like His, with all the attributes of a body made suitable for the kingdom.

Focusing on the coming resurrection when Jesus returns to rule on earth helps us stay moored to the true gospel.  We are not trying to muster our own law obedience in order to earn God’s love.  We are operating in God’s already abundantly outpoured love.  We are depending on what Jesus can work in us (the willing and the doing of His good will, 2:13), something He is able to do as the resurrected one.  We are free from the earthly elements that so many have clung to as a means of earning God’s love.  We are in training to recognize the false so we may more readily embrace the true.

Lessons From the Old Testament: God and Terrible Marriages

Image via Wikipedia

Yahweh has had one of the worst marriages possible!  Jeremiah 3 chronicles some of it:

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again?  Would not the land be completely defiled? But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—would you now return to me?” declares the LORD.  During the reign of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 3:1,6-10)

Things got so bad between Yahweh and Israel, the northern part of Israel that split from Judah and formed its own kingdom, that He divorced her.  The practical import of this is that He allowed a foreign nation, Assyria, to take Israel captive and exile many of her inhabitants in Assyria’s other conquered territories.  The real penalty for adultery was death, but Yahweh instead divorced Israel and then was ready to go against His own prescription for healthy marriages in Israel (found in Deuteronomy 24:1-3) and remarry her.  The same offer was available for Judah, the southern part of the once unified kingdom of Israel, but it had no affect.  Jeremiah is told to prophesy her “divorce” as well.  This did indeed happen in Jeremiah’s lifetime when Babylon conquered Judah and exiled many of her residents.

So God has had a terrible marriage to Israel/Judah.   And we may suppose that His current wife, the Church, hasn’t been a complete blessing to Him either.

How has God responded?  Well, in one case, Israel/Judah, things got so bad He felt the necessity of divorcing.  God is a divorcing husband!  He didn’t want to do it.  He gave numerous opportunities for his bride to repent.  And I would suggest that this is what any husband or wife ought to do upon discovering unfaithfulness in one’s spouse.  This process would be greatly helped by loving counselors being involved and the prayers of loved ones and friends.  But there may come a time when the unfaithfulness cannot be stopped or it is so egregious or flagrant that divorce is best worst option.  God believed so.  This still did not preclude the possibility of restoration, but only God can make an erring spouse repentant, and His grace is desperately needed should restoration be a consideration.  Jesus does not require restoration (Matthew 19:1-12), but He certainly desired it, if possible (Matthew 18:15-17).

As for the church, Paul warns that individual churches can be spit out of his mouth (Revelation 3:14-22).  It seems, however, since the Church, as a whole, is now living under the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31; Hebrews 8), that we are no longer susceptible to divorce.  Though it seems the Church has been allowed to languish in idolatry for long periods of time, God has always called her back and brought her to repentance and restoration.  Individual congregations may, however, lose their “lampstand” (Revelation 2:5).  There is the promise, however, in such a church, that one who is willing to open the door to a knocking Jesus may usher in the restoration of this church under Jesus’ loving direction (Revelation 3:20).

What does this mean for our terrible marriages?  We must look to God for the same power to love that He has displayed toward his erring spouse.  We must love the way He loves even when, especially when, what we are getting in return is so painful.  After all, what does it mean to love someone if you don’t love them when they are giving you nothing but pain in return (Matthew 5:43-48)?

Related Articles: 

Four Views on Divorce and Remarriage (The Counseling Moment) ; The Truth About Divorce (The Counseling Moment); A Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage (The Counseling Moment); I Stayed (The Counseling Moment); Does God Want Me in a Bad Marriage? (The Counseling Moment); Lessons From the Old Testament: Passionate Marriages (Thimble Full of Theology for Daily Living)

Lessons From the Old Testament: Our Greatest Temptation

While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the LORD’s anger burned against them. (Numbers 25:1-3)

When the  Moabites failed to get Baalam to curse Israel, they came up with this alternate plan of seducing the men, suggested, it seems, by Baalam (Numbers 31:16).  We may imagine that Yahweh was not happy with the men of Israel committing sexual immorality with the Moabite women.  But what really seems to have raised His ire the most was their willingness to embrace the Baal of Peor as well.

What is our greatest temptation?  We really struggle to say whether it is sexual sin or idolatry.  But inevitably the one seems to lead to the other.  What do we do when we are faced with a sexual temptation and want to give in to it?  We rationalize that God’s law regarding sexuality is in need of reinterpretation.  And when we decide that we can go against His law and indulge ourselves regularly, we find our hearts growing cold toward God, the true God who wants to rule our lives, and we substitute a petty god who allows us to feel less guilty but who at the same time steals our hearts from the living God, our true husband.

Israel’s downfall throughout the Old Testament is idolatry.  Try as they might, the prophets, priests and kings of Israel cannot wipe out this proclivity to idolatry.  God tells the Israelites through Moses that they will give in to idolatry to such a degree that He will exile them from the land:

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you…. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. (Deuteronomy 30:1-3,6)

And though God deals with idolatrous Israel’s ups and downs in faithfulness for 700 years, His patience finally reaches an end and He sends them away from the land.

Why are we so drawn to idolatry?  Why are we so willing to make God in our own image?  It is because we are unwilling to trust Him and His direction for our lives and more willing to trust ourselves to get our needs met.  We tell ourselves that our sexual urges are paramount to our existence and so we must disobey God’s leadership in this area.  We tell ourselves that we can’t take a chance on God to provide our sustenance so we look to other means as well to cover all our bases, including asking other gods to feed us (in our day this takes the form of getting assistance from our government, or get rich quick schemes, or credit cards leading to bankruptcy).  We feel confident in our own ability to earn our living and maintain a merely socially acceptable relationship to church and God.  But our lives are not totally sold out to the Creator God who demands our all and provides the means to give our all.

So it seems the Old Testament teaches us that our greatest temptation is idolatry.  It is the one thing that ultimately moved God to divorce Israel (Jeremiah 3:1-13).  This level of unfaithfulness on our part is not only our greatest temptation, it is our greatest downfall in our relationship to God.  It is marked by a failure of gratitude for what God has already done in our lives and a failure of trust in God’s goodness.  How are you being tempted to substitute a lesser God for the One who saved you?

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