Deuteronomy 2.16-18 16 Now when the last of these
fighting men among the people had died, 17 the Lord said to me, 18 “Today you
are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar..."
God’s time is not our time – or better: God’s timing is
not our timing. It blows my mind that all of the comings and goings amongst mankind
is all under God’s control and direction. Some might think then that God is
responsible for both boon and bane;
that He is the Author of military victories and the vast genocidal actions of
men. The issue for me is not His Authorship, but His omniscience: His
all-knowing mind. God knows everything.
God knows the coming and goings of nations. God, right
here in Deuteronomy 2, takes responsibility for allowing some nations to settle
where they would, while driving other nations out – often at the expense of
their lives (some were wiped out completely). It’s not that God did the
massacring it’s that He knows all and sees all and uses all for His holy and loving
purposes. Some find that very hard to swallow. Some will only see God as a
genocidal tyrant with anger issues.
And even if He is, let’s think about this: God, in
perfect goodness and pleasure created the heavens and the earth, created
mankind, and placed men graciously in creation’s midst. And the arrangement was
that God and mankind would become friends and live graciously together forever.
And mankind, spat in the Creator’s face. Hmmm, how’s that working for you?
You would think that the party’d be over, and God would
go back to His drawing board and sullenly defeated, start all over again. But
God didn’t because God said: Even though they hate Me, some will love Me; some
will see Me as the only Answer to all of mankind’s problems. And they will all
be weak and fragile and some will act in the most heinous ways toward the
others but I will offer My redemption to them all – right down to the very last
one; to the last fighting man.
God knew all of this would happen but He didn’t give up
on His plan – He simply looked forward to the next phase of His operation: the
full redemption of man and fixing man’s sad habit of spitting in God’s face. Some
will somehow by God’s grace and mercy, buy into this redemption thing. Some
will insist their ways are not good enough and only God’s ways will see them
through. God looks for those who will believe in Him and believe Him. And those
who refuse will perish, right down to the last fighting man. It’s not because
God is mean; it’s because man refused.
If we can believe it, there are those (somewhere) who are
betting against God and His whole redemption experiment. There are those who
cynically claim, mankind will never get it and the whole experiment is a
colossal failure. In ancient Israel, there were those who thought that way and
they died, right down to the last fighting man. And when the last ones die God
looks to the next ones and says, now it’s time to move. I want to move and I
want to help the next generation to move as well…right to where God wants us to
be: in the very center of His love.
Father, help me, help us to believe in You and to believe
You that You will take us and place us right where You want us to be that we
may serve You and reach others who will hear the message and believe as well –
Amen.
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