Oh look, I've been impaled

For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  --Hebrews 4:12

You may know that the fictional character "Dracula" was loosely based on a real person.  Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431 - 1477) was a member of the House of Draculesti.  As a Romanian ruler, Vlad fought to protect his people and Christianity from the invading Ottomans.  However, he is not remembered as a Christian hero.  Because of his excessive cruelty, he is known as Vlad the Impaler, because he was known to have driven posts or poles into the ground and impale his enemies on those poles, leaving their bodies suspended for all to see.  One can easily see how this blood-lust led to the naming of a fictional character who consumed the very life-blood of his enemies.

You may not know that impaling people in this way was pretty common.  In fact, it is found in the Bible. The story is pretty cool.  Let me summarize it for you.  The nation of Israel had been disobedient, and had been driven out of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and carried into exile.  But in the middle of the 5th century B.C. a man named Ezra was given permission by Darius, the Persian King, to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple of God.  Ezra took a contingent of Jews with him, and together they started clearing the rubble left by the invading armies.  Darius had even told his treasurer to give back the gold and silver items that had been plundered, so that the Jews could begin worshiping at the Temple again.

In the middle of the rebuilding process, a new king ascended to the Persian throne.  His name was Xerxes. This new king sent governors and overseers to the land where Ezra and his friends were busy rebuilding the Temple.  One of Ezra's friends, Zerubbabel, rebuilt the altar, and started sacrificing on it.  This made the enemies of Israel kind of nervous.  Some of them came to Zerubbabel, and offered to "help" in the rebuilding process.  Their offer to "help" was rebuffed, because Zerubbabel knew that they would more likely sabotage the rebuilding effort, or else start sacrificing to their own gods on the very altar he had made.  The enemies of Israel went back to Persia and sent this letter to the king:

"The king should know that the Jews who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem and are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city.  They are restoring the walls and repairing the foundations.  Furthermore, the king should know that if this city is built and its walls are restored, no more taxes, tribute, or duty will be paid, and the royal revenues will suffer.  Now since we are under obligation to the palace and it is not proper for us to see the king dishonored, we are sending this message to inform the king, so that a search may be made of the archives of your predecessors.  In these records you will find that this city is a rebellious city, troublesome to kings and provinces, a place of rebellion from ancient times.  That is why this city was destroyed.  We inform the king that if this city and its walls are restored, you will be left with nothing in Trans-Euphrates."  (Ezra 4:11-16)

When Ezra found out about these lying trouble-makers, he sent his own letter to the king.  He, too, urged the king to search the records and the civil documents.  In them, he said, the king would find that the Jews had, in fact, received permission and encouragement to go back to their homeland and restore their Temple to their God.  Sure enough, when the records were reviewed, they showed that Ezra and the Jews were right, and their enemies were wrong.  The king sent this letter:

"Let the temple be rebuilt as a place to present sacrifices, and let its foundations be laid.  It is to be 90 feet high and 90 feet wide, with three courses of large stones and one of timbers.  The costs are to be paid by the royal treasury.  Also, the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; they are to be deposited in the house of God."  (Ezra 6:3-5).

The king also said, by royal decree, that the governors and overseers in that region, the same enemies of Israel that had harassed them before, should help them: their expenses should be paid; they were to provide bulls, rams, and lambs for sacrifices, and they were to provide wheat, salt, wine and oil to the priests in Jerusalem--"daily and without fail."  In this way, the king hoped that the Jewish priests could offer sacrifices to the living God, and would pray for the well-being of the king and his sons.

"Furthermore, I decree that if anyone changes this edict, a beam is to be pulled from his house and he is to be lifted up and impaled on it. And for this crime his house is to be made a pile of rubble.  May God, who has caused His Name to dwell there, overthrow any king or people who lifts a hand to change this decree or to destroy this temple in Jerusalem."  (Ezra 6:11-12)

Okay, so we know that the Persian king was not a full fledged believer in the God of Abraham.  His threats to punish Jewish opponents was proof enough of that.  More likely, he was hedging his bets--hoping that the God of the Jews, along with the gods of the pagan lands, would bless him and his house for being so generous.  We would never be so cruel and barbaric today, would we?

The God we serve would not condone such violence.  He would not ask us to fall on our swords, as Saul did when his enemies overtook him.  But He did allow His only Son to die a violent death, being hung on a wooden cross, held there by nails in His hands and feet, with thorns in his brow and a sword thrust into his side.  He, too, was put on display, just as the enemies of Vlad III had been, held up in a public execution for all to see.  And God's word does use symbolic language, such as piercing and dividing (cutting out), denoting that in a spiritual sense, we are to "separate the sheep from the goats", and to "put to death all the deeds of the flesh."  In a sense, he calls us to be spiritual surgeons, working not with a sword or battle-ax, but with a scalpel.  We should "take every thought captive" and cut out evil from our hearts.  In this way, we can present ourselves pure and holy to the One who knew no sin, who became sin for us so that we could be called children of God.  "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13).

The best way to handle sin, my friend, is to kill it before it multiplies.