Our Sins Have Natural Consequences

Judges 2:3-4 -  And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snaresto you.’” When the angel of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.

Before Joshua died…an angel of the Lord visited the camp of the Israelites. We aren’t told how they came to be in one place...but we are told that the angel spoke so harshly to the people that they wept about their sin…..offered up sacrifices…even renamed the place where the angel had come.

The core of the angel’s message was there failure to follow through on their commitment to God to clear the land of all other people…to cleanse the land of those that worshiped other gods. Instead…they allowed many of them to stay…under the pretense at first of controlling them for servitude.  But exactly what God had warned them about came true.  The gods of these people weakened and diluted their faith in the one true God…and they became like them…many of them adopting the wicked practices of the many gods that existed in Canaan before they came to claim it.

The tears did not change the natural consequences of their sin…God allowing the sins they chose to participate in…over worship to him…to be the natural consequences of their behavior. These people became their enemies…and God did not fight for them anymore.  He allowed them to be overtaken and live in the sin they had created around them for some time.

What a great reminder that many of our actions reap natural consequences.  God allows them to play out in our lives till our tears of repentance cause a total change in our hearts. Sometimes God allows the consequences to continue even after we have repented and ask him to cleanse of what we had fallen into. They become tools of learning...just how important it is to make holy choices…to follow his will instead of our own.

Father…thank you for the reminder that my sins can sometimes create pockets of consequences in my life that you allow to play out until they teach me the important lessons about faith in you that are vital to my growing in understanding of being more holy. Forgive me for the choices I made that put me in those compromised positions of faith. Give me the strength…wisdom…and courage to see these situations through to the end…so you can use them to glorify your kingdom when I have come through the other side with a deeper faith in you.   Amen.