On Sunday
nights we’re considering the book of Numbers. Last Lord’s Day evening we looked
at chapter 21, where, for the first time, Israel engages in warfare during
the wilderness wanderings. Some of the ethical questions that rise up when
reading Joshua also come up here.
“When
the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in
the Negev, heard that Israel
was coming by the way of Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took
some of them captive. So Israel
made a vow to the LORD and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver this people into
my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.’ The LORD heard
the voice of Israel
and delivered up the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their
cities. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah” (Numbers 21:1-3).
Too often
we allow the atomistic tendencies of biblical scholarship to govern our reading
of the Scripture. We don’t consider Numbers in its greater context as part of
the first five books of the Bible (I have no problem standing with tradition
and calling them the books of Moses). Numbers 21 does raise ethical dilemmas –
until we consider it as the “continuing story” of a much larger saga. In verses
1-3 the Canaanites are destroyed. Why? The greater epic tells us.
“These
three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. Then
Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became
drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw
the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem
and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked
backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned
away, so that they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke
from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, ‘Cursed
be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be
to his brothers.’ He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and
let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge
Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan
be his servant’”
(Genesis 9:19-27). The curse of Noah on Ham and his descendants begins to come
to fruition centuries later in Numbers 21. The sin of their father is visited
upon them.
What about
the Amorites? “...Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites,
saying, ‘Let me pass through your land. We will not turn off into field or
vineyard; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king's highway
until we have passed through your border.’ But Sihon would not permit Israel to pass
through his border. So Sihon gathered all his people and went out against Israel in the wilderness, and came to Jahaz and
fought against Israel.
Then Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of
his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon; for the
border of the sons of Ammon was Jazer. Israel took all these cities and Israel
lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all her villages...thus
Israel lived in the land of the Amorites. Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and
they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. Then
they turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went
out with all his people, for battle at Edrei. But the LORD said to Moses, ‘Do
not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his
land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who
lived at Heshbon.’ So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until
there was no remnant left him; and they possessed his land” (Numbers
21:21-25,31,35).
Again,
seeing this passage as part of the greater story answers some of our questions.
“God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be
strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and
oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will
serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you
shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then
in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite
is not yet complete’” (Genesis 15:13-16). God’s plan was
declared for this land and people centuries prior to the judgment. If we don’t
consider this, Numbers 21 will seem unfair and even cruel. In light of Genesis
15:16, however, it is the end of an extremely long delay in judgment. What does
the Bible say about this? “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His
kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads
you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you
are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his
deeds” (Romans 2:4-6). Hundreds and hundreds of years of delayed (and
deserved) judgment was a display of “the riches of His...patience,” but
they never repented.
Judgment
may be delayed, but it is never cancelled. It begins to fall in Numbers 21.
One day in
Athens the apostle Paul stands in the Areopagus and speaks to the gathered intelligentsia:
“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven
and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human
hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life
and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind
to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times
and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps
they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one
of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets
have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we
ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an
image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the
times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere
should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world
in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to
all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:24-31).
Why did God
create the nations of people, giving them boundaries and limited times? “...that
they would seek God...” And, after centuries of existence with God’s
patience but no repentance, judgment comes.
“You shall have no other gods before
Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall
not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the
fourth generations of those who hate Me...” (Exodus 20:3-5//Deuteronomy 5:7-9). Unfair? No.
Because each generation not only receives the consequences of the previous
generations’ sin, but embraces this sin and makes the lawlessness its own.
“...through one man sin entered into
the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all
sinned...for as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:12,19).
A nation of people exists in a
certain time and certain place for the sole purpose of seeking God. When they
reject this purpose generation after generation, two things are happening. First,
they are rejecting the wealth of God: His patience. Second, they are
compounding the coming judgment by not only rejecting repentance, but taking
their parents’ sin upon themselves and making it even greater in their
generation.
Too many believers have a low
view of the sinfulness of humanity. They conceive of humanity as full of “good”
or “well-meaning” or even “innocent” people. So passages like those in Numbers
21 shock and disturb us. The Bible teaches a deep and eternally deadly lostness among all of humanity without exception.
There is a sobering application
here, of course. From God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 15 to the fulfillment
of that promise in Numbers 21 is something like 800-1000 years. The U.S.A.
(just to use one example) is 238 years old. Delay is not suspended or
non-existent judgment, especially since two centuries is a very small period of
time compared to the average in human history.
Preach the Law, contemporary
violation of it, salvation from its consequences in Christ, and command
repentance in your preaching, Church (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15; 6:12; Luke
13:3,5; 24:47; ; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). May God’s rich
patience and sweet grace bring revival so that instead of compounding the
coming judgment we pass on an inheritance of blessing: “...I, the LORD your
God, am a jealous God...showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love
Me and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:5,6//Deuteronomy 5:9,10).
This is not just a promise from the
Law, but also of the Gospel:
- “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All
authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that
I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20).
- “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. He
who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who
loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose
Myself to him...if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father
will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who
does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is
not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me” (John 14:15,21,23,24).
- “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also
loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide
in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His
love” (John
15:9,10).
- “By this we know that we have come to know Him,
if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’
and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in
him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been
perfected” (1
John 2:3-5).
- “By this we know that we love the children of
God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love
of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not
burdensome” (1
John 5:2,3).
Judgment is promised and inevitable,
but the blessing of forgiveness, eternal life, and the riches of God Himself
are freely given in His Son. “...the wages of sin is death, but the free
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Repent
and believe today. For those who do, the riches of
delayed judgment today become the song of a rich mercy throughout eternity: “so
that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).
