Stop the killing!

Numbers 35:33 is a particularly heady verse, because of something that is implied prior to it, but is explicitly stated here - "for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel". This isn't something particularly remarkable to us - if you're a believer in Christ Jesus, you already know that God is real, and is in every single one of you ... and if you're not, leave a comment on this post. But it must have been a remarkable reminder about one of the primary reasons for all those rules a few chapters ago, the path that the children of Israel were directed to meander about, and the new opportunities for racial growth with their claiming of the land that God had set aside so many generations before - God is with us!

Much like so many other things in the Bible, it is jam packed betwixt other facts. We have the cities of refuge, where murderers are given the option of living there, instead of expressing themselves murderously around everyone else. And it has a really nice ring to it, to me - I've never really had peace about the idea that is embedded in our own court system - that a certain amount of money and time spent can equate to a specific sin. How can you say that murder is worth $5 or $5,000,000? How can you say that someone's "debt to society" is paid for through a lifetime sentence, or public service, or any of those kinds of things? But that is another question for another time. Suffice to say that God's solution is elegant -

"Okay, I'm living with you people. If you murder someone (and here are some examples of what I mean by murder), I want you to move out and go somewhere else. Yes, you get to pick where, but only six cities. And don't come back before the high priest dies, or someone here will greet you in the manner designed by the "revenger of blood". Everyone else: don't kill murderers out of anger - you're just as bad as they are."

It is a really kind thing to do, and we have the space for it - America is huge.

But let us look at this from a different perspective. It is apparent, from Numbers 35, that repentance wasn't a common topic - so much so that the only resolution, prior to these cities of refuge, was to kill the murderer. Likely, this was one of the motivations for these specific instructions (as well as pointing out that killing the murderer out of anger made the people just as bad as who they were passing judgment upon).

Do we do the same thing? Are we claiming the heritage of the children of Israel too much, and responding to a sin we see with a complementary sin?

• If someone lies to you, and you discover it (or through a word of knowledge from God, are just instantly aware of it), do you let their choice to lie to you cause you to sin?


• If someone is prideful and arrogant, do you let their irreverence be justification to judge them harshly, and without guidance from the lord, thereby committing the same sin as them?

Or to use the literal sin


• Have you ever been angry at someone for being angry at you?


• Or impatient at someone for being impatient with you?

Few would answer "no" to all four of these questions.

And so I challenge you to earnestly answer these questions:

- what sin is holding you back? What are you listening to instead of hearkening to God?