Day 491: Things we don't want to hear - Deuteronomy 28 vs 53 -57

53 Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the  Lord your God has given you. 54-56 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.  The most gentle and sensitive  woman among you - so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot - will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter  the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. 57 For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities. Deuteronomy 28:53-57 New International Version

I don't believe any person, let alone Christians, can read the verses above without a deep sense of horror. They show the extreme lengths people can go to when all hope has fled. And the terrible part is that a Jewish historian tells us that these things actually happened in times when Jerusalem was besieged. So what should Christians make of a dark part of the Bible like this?

Firstly, we need to reject the accusations of people who aren't Christians that God is cruel. Who was actually inflicting this situation upon the people of Israel? (vs 53 & 57)

It was enemy nations. Nations such as Assyria, Babylon and, later, Rome, all of whom were known for violence and cruelty. God promised Israel He would protect them from such nations if they remained faithful to Him. But if they rejected Him and turned to idols, He would give them up to their enemies. So God used the nations as a judgement on His people, but He did not force Israel to forsake Him, and He didn't force the nations to attack. They chose to do the things they did.

God's people were not immune to the questions that God's dealings with them raised. When the prophet Habakkuk realized God was going to use the cruel Babylonians to punish Israel he cried out: “O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgement. Your eyes are too good to look at evil - you cannot stand to see those who do wrong! So how can you put up with those evil people? How can you be quiet when the wicked swallow up people who are better than they are?” (Habakkuk 1:13) He was saying 'yes, Lord, I know we have sinned greatly and deserve to be punished – but the Babylonians are far worse than us!' But Habakkuk discovered, as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah also discovered, that God would eventually judge the Babylonians too, and nations would do to them what they had done to others.

These are not pleasant things. But the history of the world is a history of many unpleasant things. It’s a history of nations rejecting the God who created them and choosing to invent their own gods. And it's a history of the violence that filled the world as a result of turning their backs on the only one who could give them peace. Even Christians don't like to read or hear of the terrible things going on in the world. But the strange thing is that many non-Christians will write off the Bible for speaking of the evil men do – and then spend hours on TV entertaining themselves with violence and all sorts of wickedness.

I think the important lesson to take to heart from a dreadful passage like this is that God warned the Israelites of the consequences of their choices! Moses said to them: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the  Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him. For He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) Sin can lead men and women into degradation and all sorts of depravity. People can end up doing things they never thought they would ever do. How vital it is that we choose life – that we believe on Christ for salvation and yield ourselves daily to His word and to His will.