Infectious Diseases

Numbers 31:2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. 

After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

     In our day and age of antibiotics and modern medicine there are still natural forces that people can't control. Locust flights across fast areas of the African continent and a virus that has put tens of millions of people in mandatory quarantine are in the news. Medical supplies are in short supply and crops are destroyed. People are panicking.
     The best of human efforts can't stop the pain of human suffering.
     There are passages in the Scriptures that highlight a plague that has haunted humanity since right after the beginning. That plague is rebellion against the LORD's authority over the universe. And in His efforts to help humanity navigate the aftermath of sin's destruction He gives what can sound like very harsh, very unjust directives.
     Moses, the leader of the Israelites, the man who face Pharaoh king of Egypt and won, is about ready to die. The LORD gives him one last task: rid the earth of the evil the Midianite people and society practice. The practices were so dangerous for the LORD's plan for His people that He ordered that they be killed!
     Wow, that sounds harsh, doesn't it. It sounds harsh to our ears because we downplay the hideousness of sin. We think the sin we commit isn't so terrible, after all we didn't murder anyone. But sin, rebellion against the LORD's authority to govern our lives, is so eternally deadly that He takes drastic measures in an attempt to purify His people.
     But as history shows, sin has still not been wiped from humanity's presence. Its power has been broken in those who trust in Jesus' death and resurrection, but we still need to choose obedience over rebellion daily.