No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. --Matthew 4:10-12

Most Christians seek the blessings of God in their lives.  Only their definition of "blessing" is wrong.  Some teach that God wants you to be rich.  Others teach that He never wants you to be sick, and that by exercising your faith you will always be healed.  The world has heard this message, and has created a skewed definition of "God".  They say that God is love, and that He loves everyone, so everyone is blessed.  If you aren't rich, or aren't healed, or you aren't otherwise "blessed" in big ways, then you can look at small things in your life and count them as blessing.  I woke up today, I am blessed.  You had a hot meal today, you are blessed.

I am not saying that God cannot bless you with food, or with life, or with healing, or even with riches.  I am saying that God blesses us in ways we don't always think of as blessings.  At least not at first.  In keeping with my current theme of "Lies the Enemy Tells Us," I want us to look at Numbers chapter 14.

You remember the story.  Moses sent twelve elders, one from each tribe, to scout out (some translations say "spy out") the land of Canaan, which God had promised to them.  After 40 days, the men came back carrying a cluster of grapes so heavy that they had to hold it on a pole propped on two men's shoulders.  They described a land "flowing with milk and honey."  The land was not just good land, it was incredibly good.  "Nevertheless," they said, "the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large."  We saw very tall men there, they said, "and we were like grasshoppers in their sight."

However, two of the men that had spied out the land believed God was bigger than their fears.  Joshua and Caleb both said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it." (Numbers 13:20).  Unfortunately, the two men of faith were shouted down by the other ten scouts.  "It is a land that devours its inhabitants," they said, "and the people there are all gigantic."  The facts were overshadowed by their fears.  No longer content in giving a true report, they began to embellish their story.  Earlier they had said it was a good land; now, it was a land that eats people whole.  Before it was very tall men; now it was filled with giants.

So convincing were their lies, that the people of Israel raised their voices and wept, "and the people wept all night." (Number 14:1).  They began to say evil things against Moses.  Eventually, they took a vote, and decided to go back.  "They said to one another, Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt."  Better to be a slave to Pharaoh than to face giants in fortified cities, even if the land did have great produce.  They looked past the milk and honey, and all they saw was cow dung and stinging bees.

Moses and Aaron stepped up and fell prostrate before the people.  Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes (a sign of mourning.)

The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.  If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it to us--a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey.  Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them. --Numbers 14:7-9

Now watch what happens next.  I have read this passage for years, and do not remember seeing this next verse at all.  "But all the congregation said to stone them with stones." (Numbers 14:10)

Stoning was a form of capital punishment.  God had commanded them to stone people who had broken the Law of God in the worst way.  It was reserved for murderers, idolaters, and people involved in witchcraft and sorcery.  Which of these sins were Caleb and Joshua guilty of?  Did they think that Israel was being led to certain death by following the Faithful Four (Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb) into the land God had promised them?  That only meant that the people thought these four dudes had more power than God.  Did they believe Joshua and Caleb were following other gods?  Moses had been telling them that God was going to give them the land all throughout their journey through the wilderness.  They had replaced the words of God with their own words.  Did the men of Israel believe that Moses and Aaron had led them out of Egypt by means of sorcery and witchcraft?  They mistook the signs of God with cheap magic tricks  Worse, their actions did not match their words, for they had said they would follow God with all their hearts (see Exodus 19:8, 24:3, and 24:7--three times they had said, "all the words that God has spoken we will do.")

Our culture is like that.  They like to spout religious truisms like "God is Love", but recoil at the thought of God's wrath.  They ridicule religion as "smoke and mirrors" and "magic mumbo jumbo", and follow their own way.  Too often, some Christians are like that, too.

Little thought is given to the underground church in North Korea.  Tolerant westerners bend over backwards to welcome Syrian refugees while Muslims in Syria are beheading Christians there.  We refuse to take a stand because against evil because we do not want to be thought of as fundamentalist or extremist.

I began this essay with the thought of "blessing" being equated with healing and prosperity.  I heard a quote from a famous faith healer who said something like this: when he gets to heaven, he wanted to ask God why He didn't heal everyone.  This sincere man of God was truly frustrated that God would heal some and not others.  I think I know.

God doesn't bless everyone with prosperity, because if only the Christians became rich, then the world would follow riches and not Christ, the One who gave up the splendor of heaven to show grace to us (2 Corinthians 8:9).  He doesn't heal everyone, because then everyone would come to Him for healing and would lose sight of His message of righteousness and holiness.  Most of all, God doesn't heal us all, so that some of us will go to the sick people of the world and give them hope.  God doesn't give us all riches, so that some of us will go to the poorest of the poor and tell them of Jesus.

Don't worry if the world seems to be against you.  In the story of Joshua and Caleb, they were the only two men of their generation who were allowed to go into the Promised Land.  The rest of the people died in the wilderness because of their sin and disbelief.  God always rewards faith--just not in ways that we may want.