Amputation

I know a man who recently had his leg amputated above the knee. Understandably, it was a traumatic, life changing experience – one he is having difficulty accepting. So why did this man agree to have his leg amputated when he knew it was going to be such a horrendous experience? That’s pretty obvious. It was either amputate the leg or die of infection. Amputation is always the last resort option, never a pleasant choice.

In our study of The Story Bible, we are in the middle of several chapters which are hard for some people to make sense of due to God’s harsh treatment of the people which he had specially created to represent him in this world during this period of history (the nation of Israel). There are horrific foreign invasions, natural disasters, internal conflicts which all finally lead up to the utter destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the annihilation of its population. Of course, the question is, “Why would God allow something like this to happen?”

Knowing what took place centuries after these terrible events, we could describe them as a “spiritual amputation”. The nation of Israel had abandoned God. The kings, priests and people were all bent on being like the folks around them – they wanted to just blend in with everybody else. And it went on this way for hundreds of years despite God sending all sorts of warnings through special messengers called prophets.

The people of Israel were convinced life was better without God. God was even more convinced of the exact opposite and so for as challenging as it is for us to accept, through the cruelty of Babylonian armies, God amputated certain “spiritual infections” which would have led to the end of Israel as a nation.

We have a challenging study this weekend, a study which goes so much deeper than the trite “God is love” descriptions and forces us to deal with God’s justice and holiness in the light of human evil. What we’ll find might not be pleasant, but it will be definitely effective in helping us to answer the important questions in life. And in the end, isn’t that what matters?

Saturday evening worship: 6:00 pm
Sunday morning worship: 10:00 am