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Lately I have been trying to reread through the old testament and obviously there is way too much there for my puny mind to comprehend. I have actually been able to finish up through I Samuel and still trying to understand all the things I read. In particular was the Book of Judges. Wow there is some amazing stuff in there. Towards the end of the book, in the last chapters, there are some strange things that occur. The people of Israel began to make some really harsh decisions. They have rebelled against God and they have made vows to wipe our people that they weren't supposed to wipe out. In fact, they decide that because one of their own groups of people didn't help them, they would wipe them out. Which they almost do. Then they take a covenant not to let any of the tribe have wives from their daughters. Then they feel bad about what they did but it was too late. So after looking around it dawns on them that now they have almost wiped out this group of Benjamin, and that what few remain can now no longer have wives from other tribes. And since it would be a sin to get wives from heathen people...Guess what? Benjamin is about to be wiped out. So then the group comes together and decides that the answer is for the Benjamites to sneak down and wait until some of the young women from a tribe who wasn't there to take the vow of not giving daughters over to Benjamites. Their reasoning was as follows: hey guys, you can take the women off and make them your wives. That way you still have proper women. Plus we will tell the men of the tribe that since they didn't give their daughters, they haven't broken any oaths. And everyone will be happy. Well everyone that is except the girls who apparently had not say in the matter. But even more importantly, everyone except the LORD. But hold on to that for a minute.
So what's the deal? It goes like this: I don't get why GOD was allowing all of this. At least not at first but then the key comes in two parts and one of the parts is the very last verse of the Book of Judges. And the verse basically says that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Get that? Everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes. They were the standard bearer...Not GOD. And then think of this...Everything that is in the Bible is of the LORD in that it is true. But that doesn't mean that everything that occurred was ordained by God. The Bible tells us that Satan, still called Lucifer, rebelled against God. That was truth but not what God wanted Lucifer to do. The bible says that Stephen was stoned for speaking the truth of God, but that doesn't mean that God desired Stephen to be stoned. We can deal with all of the but "why" later. Before you get to the why, you have to understand the "what". The what is plain and simple....When people do what is right in their own eyes....There is only tragedy and sin. There are rash oaths, great rebellion, and people being hurt. Welcome to the 21st century where nothing has changed. The people do what is right in their own eyes and reap these very things. Now ask the question why. Why did all those crazy things happen? Because the people did what was right in their own eyes. As we do today. Why does God let it happen? Well it gets down to freedom of choice. You see, God punishes idolatry more than anything else because HE alone is God, yet gives us the choice to acknowledge this. If we don't, then we reap the punishment therein. Without choice, then there really is no love. But because there is choice, the people can choose to do what is right in their own eyes. And many years from today, if the LORD tarries..And if everything in our lives was written for another generation to read about...I wonder if they would look at our lives and messes and see the verse "and _______did what was right in his/her own eyes" and then say to themselves, "see that's why ________had so many problems and messes in life.
posted by Darol at 1:41 PM