Passage #1:
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go ahead.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”
--Exodus 2:5-10 NASB1995 [emphasis mine]
This is the first time the word “pity” is used in the NASB1995. Here it has a positive connotation of compassion and nurture. This is an example of godly pity, which is how the word is often used throughout the Scriptures, even as a characteristic of God.
Passage #2:
The Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you. 16 You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. 17 “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’ 18 you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
--Deuteronomy 7:15-19 NASB1995 [emphasis mine]
Verse 16 shows how pity can have a demonic counterfeit. There are times when having pity will be a snare to us that destroys us and that actually hinders love. Imagine you see a baby coral snake or rattlesnake writhing in pain outside in the rain. You can see the pain in its eyes and you feel sorry for it. You sincerely have pity for that baby snake, so you pick it up, take it into your arms and into your home, bandage its wounds, give it your loving nurture, and raise it as your own.
However, imagine that you also have your own young child living under your roof, and/or that you have a sibling or other family members who occasionally bring their own children to visit your home. You’re not one of those “uptight, outdated, religious, overbearing, uncool” parents who imprison your children with rules and restrictions. Rather, you let your coral snake roam free throughout the house so that it will not be oppressed or have its freedom suppressed by the shackles of a cage or the walls of a terrarium.
Is this true pity and compassion? What if such actions demonstrate a lack of nurture and pity and compassion for the human children in your family? If that coral snake bites and kills one of those children in the living room, bathroom, or kitchen floor, might you be responsible through your negligence masqueraded as pity, compassion, and love?
The same kind of thing is happening in this passage. The giants and the Canaanite nations under their influence were like that coral snake. (Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that the Canaanite people themselves were like vipers, but like the religious leaders in the New Testament whom Jesus called a "brood of vipers," the Canaanite people of that time were influenced by toxic, poisonous attitudes and mindsets originating from "serpents" in the invisible spiritual realm--Luke 10:19, Ephesians 6:12). God even gave them 400 years to prove themselves innocent, kind, loving, and responsible enough to cohabit with the Israelites so they could all live together as one big happy family in the Promised Land.
However, the giants and the Canaanite nations (of whom the giants had made their disciples, teaching them their ways, values, beliefs, and lifestyles) had the nature like that of a coral snake. Just as the coral snake would not or could not be tamed to cohabit safely with human children without biting, poisoning, and killing them, the same was true at this point in human history concerning the promised land.
The Canaanite nations would not submit to God’s ways of love, joy, peace, reconciliation, kindness, grace, mercy, justice, forgiveness, pity, compassion, goodness, faith, humility, self-discipline, wisdom, etc., but rather submitted to the giants who instilled in them the ways of war, bloodshed, violence, murder, rape, molestation, human sacrifice, human rights violations in slavery/employment, oppression, bitterness, unforgiveness, depression, self-contempt, strife, envy, fear, genocide, cruelty, unhealthy addictions, codependency, narcissism, retaliation, and things like these.
God was not being a cosmic killjoy, but acting as a loving father who tells His kids the following:
“You have a choice to make. You can get rid of that coral snake, getting it out of your home, or you can cohabit with that snake and face the consequences of death in your family when it inevitably bites, poisons, and kills your own children. You can’t blame Me when the coral snake bites and kills your children. You will have no one to blame but yourself by not listening to me and following my directions for your own good, happiness, welfare, and the lives and destinies of your kids.
Your eye shall not pity the coral snake, but you must crush its head if you want to live at peace in your home without fear of death by snake poisoning. You can choose life or death, blessings or curses. You’ll be blessed beyond measure if you listen to My wise instructions and blueprints for thinking and living. Trust Me--I engineered the universe and know the spiritual, natural, and physiological laws that govern everything, so I know how everything works better than anybody else in existence.
Or you (the automobile) can think that you know better Me (your ‘Manufacturer’) regarding what you need for optimum happiness and life performance, and you can be disappointed when you’re experiencing your ‘car problems’ and your own contrived solutions don’t seem to be working. Which is it going to be? I’m not saying any of this to be mean, but to lay out the sobering reality of what is at stake here.
I love you and am only telling you these things because I don’t want you and your kids to needlessly suffer and die from snake poison, but to live a long and happy life. I know you love this coral snake, but this coral snake doesn’t love you back in the same way. I know it’s hard, but you know what you have to do. I’m not going to force my will on you by killing the snake myself while you cry out 'Bloody murder!' in pained horror and devastation. This is something that you have to decide and do for yourself, because I love you and will not violate your free will choice to either keep the snake or to kill [or get rid of] it.”
Passage #3:
“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him. 9 But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10 So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such a wicked thing among you.
--Deuteronomy 13:6-11 NASB1995 [emphasis mine]
This passage occurred under the “dispensation of Law'' in the more drastic “dog-eat-dog world” of ancient times and is not to be applied so literally during God’s current “dispensation of grace.” That is, for the Jewish people under the Old Covenant before Jesus came to fulfill and to render the Old Covenant obsolete (see Hebrews 8) through His death, resurrection, and example as He demonstrated what love, acceptance, respect, and social justice looks like practically, there was a death penalty for various physiologically deadly and relationally crippling practices and lifestyles.
Under the Old Covenant of Mosaic Law before the arrival and sacrifice of the Messiah (see Isaiah 53), the Jewish people were commanded to bring family members who brazenly enticed them to worship various demons (“other gods”) before the local judges for an investigation and judgment, resulting in death if proven guilty on the basis of sufficient evidence from a minimum of two or three witnesses. Historically, this fear of punishment was not enough to deter the Israelites from these practices, and the results were family breakdown, societal breakdown, disease, poverty, oppression from enemy nations, etc. When God’s spiritual laws were put into practice again through obedient trust, His blessings of health, prosperity, happiness in relationships, etc. would result for as long as God and His Word was trusted before and above any other person, possession, or identity outside of God’s engineered design.
Under the New Covenant inaugurated in Jesus’ blood, if a family member were to secretly entice you to worship various demons and is unwilling to change their thinking, perspective, or habits, then we are commanded to show them their error in a loving, gracious manner. If they are unwilling to stop their destructive lifestyle of unhealthy addictions and are unwilling to listen to reason and to be reconciled to God and to receive His love and plan for their lives, then more boundaries may be put into place for both our own good and their’s. We may simply stop hanging out with or associating with them to the same extent until they are willing to be open-minded and open-hearted enough to be honest about what is really going on in their lives and to consider changing their perspectives and actions. (See Matthew 18, Galatians 6, 1 Corinthians 5, 2 Timothy 2, etc.)
Why did the Old Covenant have such drastic measures incorporating the death penalty to loved ones who rebelled against God? Considering this question, let’s think about the advancements of medical science throughout history. In the following analogy, imagine that Jesus (“the Great Physician” who healed all the sick who were brought to him expecting to be made well) represents modern medical science with the advanced knowledge and technology that was lacking hundreds of years ago:
Hundreds of years ago, certain medical conditions might require the amputation of a limb in order to save the person’s life. Now, however, our advanced medical knowledge and technology can cure such conditions without the need for amputation. “The Law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (see John 1:17). Jesus came at just the right moment of time in human history. Although this blogpost may not have the time and space to go into more detail, if Jesus came from heaven down to earth earlier than he did or later than he did, the best possible outcomes for the human race could not have actualized.
During the dispensation of Law that was given through Moses, the best possible outcomes for preserving the maximum amount of lives and happiness long-term for the human race in light of the destructive forces on the earth would require more drastic measures akin to the “amputation” of a limb in order to preserve the life of the person. Such an “amputation” is comparable to publicly stoning to death the loved one who would entice a family member to worship demons.
Long term, this fear of punishment from the Mosaic law would serve as a “stick” to keep the Israelites’ selfish, rebellious, hardened hearts in check, resulting in less family and societal chaos until Jesus came to more fully demonstrate God’s love and to pour out the Holy Spirit to empower people to break addictions, depression, fear, guilt, shame, narcissism, anxiety, and empower us to be overcomers over all these things as we live to the fullest potential available to us in the context of a trust relationship with God. As someone has said, “Jesus uses the least severe means, to reach the greatest number of people, at the deepest level of love, without violating our free will.” (1)
Only after the fuller revelation of God’s love, grace, compassion, and power was manifested through the life, miracles, ministry, teachings, death, burial, resurrection, and heavenly ascension of Jesus, could mankind be more fully equipped, empowered, and transformed by a personal relationship with God by the influence of His Holy Spirit. Certainly many Old Covenant heroes of the faith lived lives of faith, love, compassion, power, and miracles, but Jesus said that whoever is least in the kingdom of God is greater, more blessed, and has a higher level of revelation than all the saints of the Old Covenant (see Matthew 11:11-12; Luke 10:17-23; John 14:12; 16:7ff).
Worshiping those demons would bring great disease, misery, poverty, and death to a family, community, and to the entire nation. At that time in human history, “amputating that limb from the body” by stoning that person would better preserve the life and long-term happiness and well-being for the family, community, and entire nation than allowing that rebellious family member to go on living, for "a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." (See Galatians 5:9) Left undealt with, the rebellion and unhealthy behavior would spread like bitter poison throughout the entire family, community, and nation (like a coral snake biting its host.)
Now that Jesus came with grace and truth, however, stoning that family member is no longer necessary, but in fact would do more harm than good in light of the “advanced medical knowledge and technology” introduced by Jesus to the planet. Amputation is no longer necessary, because now there is a better way to preserve the human family. Love is more empowering to change a human heart than the fear of punishment (see 1 John 4). The necessary “amputation of the limb” in the Old Covenant was to put the irredeemably hard-hearted family member to death.
Now, however, Jesus provided the Solution and no person’s heart has to remain as irredeemably hard-hearted because of the grace available to the rebellious, hurting, confused, demon-worshiping, addicted person. “Amputation of the limb” in the New Covenant does not require literally stoning a person to death, but simply requires not associating with the rebellious family member unless and until that person is willing to engage further about Jesus and what God wants to do in the person’s life.
As long as the rebellious person is unwilling to give God a chance, there isn’t room for going deeper in trust with that person, since they are unwilling to humble themselves, deal with themselves, be honest, and to receive the love and healing that God wants to bring them. The truth will make us free from the lies that keep us in bondage. Jesus is the truth we need, the only way to the Father who alone has the right information and the words of eternal life.
Why take pain killers to remove some symptoms of a disease when there is one cure that removes the entire disease at the root? We don’t accuse physicians of being intolerant, arrogant, and narrow-minded when they prescribe only one cure for various diseases or conditions. In fact, wouldn’t we be intolerant, arrogant, and narrow-minded when we assume that the physician doesn’t know what he’s talking about and get mad at him for having the audacity to be so “exclusivistic, insensitive, and narrow-minded” that there is only one cure for a particular strain of virus, cancer, or other disease?
If Jesus is the great physician who healed every disease and sickness among the people when the religious community couldn’t do that (which filled them with such envy that they persecuted Jesus and plotted his death on the cross), then might we be the arrogant ones if we infer that Jesus is lying, arrogant, insensitive, and wrong when he claims to be the only way back into a love relationship with God the Father (see John 14:6)?
In a sense, a doctor is being exclusivistic by prescribing only one antidote for a particular virus, but doesn’t that “exclusivity” give us hope that when we apply that antidote, we will be cured or healed? Whether the physician sounds arrogant or humble when prescribing that antidote, why should his attitude affect whether or not we will take him at his word and make arrangements to receive that antidote, whether it is a "vaccination," "pill," "operation," "diet change," lifestyle change, etc?
To learn more about what it looks like to have a relationship with God, I recommend my post “Knowing the God who Fights for You.”
https://twitter.com/mikebickle/status/951533157316202496
Commentaires