Does God Ever Send Problems Our Way?

In our Sunday School class this morning we looked at the passage in Numbers 21:4-9 which describes the encounter between the recently-freed-ex-slaves (the Israelites) and a bunch of poisonous snakes. The answers to the following question were informative: “There are 3 ways to look at the appearance of these snakes: (1) God sent them as punishment; (2) God allowed them to afflict the Israelites; or (3) God didn’t actively intervene one way or the other when the snakes attacked, but later came to the rescue. Which do you think was what happened?”

It was interesting to see that as the discussion went along almost everyone came to the second option—that God allowed the snakes to afflict the Israelites. Hardly anyone espoused the position that God sent the snakes, and therefore directly was the cause of the death of some of the Israelites. That was true even though the Bible specifically says, “Then the LORD sent (my emphasis) venomous snakes among them…” and the context clearly shows the reason for the unwelcome gift was the Israelites’ complaining and rebellion against God and Moses.

Clearly what was inferred from variant readings of the Scripture depended less on what the Scripture actually said than on what the readers wanted it to say. That’s not uncommon. When two people read the same newspaper story they often get widely different interpretations of what happened. Or when two reporters cover the same event it may be impossible to discern what actually did happen because they looked at the event through different filters.

Each of us approaches the Bible with our own set of colored glasses. Our past experiences, training, church affiliations (or lack thereof), and our own current relationships with God will color how we see a passage. So, the informative part of the class’s response to the question was what the answers said about us, not what they said about the Scripture.

There are some obvious Scripture references which directly say that God caused something to happen which we would call “bad”. These were generally instances when the people of God rebelled and broke their part of the covenant. Others indicate that God allowed certain things to happen, presumably when He could have intervened and prevented the problem from developing. Other times there is no indication as to God’s involvement ahead of time, but clear examples of God’s coming to the rescue later.

When I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy, stationed in Texas, three sailors came to the base dispensary the same week with the same problem (because they had all three been with the same prostitute the prior weekend). As the base Pharmacy Technician, that same week I would have dispensed allergy medicines, antibiotics for bronchitis (or some other non-sexually-transmitted disease), pain medication, etc.

I wouldn’t have said that God “caused” any of these people to be sick. Some problems we bring on ourselves. Some are a part of living in a material universe and they happen to anybody. Some are caused by other people, and we find ourselves on the receiving end of an accident or intentional harm. These are all different from what might come when we directly tell God that we don’t care what He’s done for us or what He’s told us to do, we’re going to run our own life.

The Bible shows a loving and compassionate God who hears the cries of His people and helps them. That’s not the only facet of God’s character revealed in the Bible, though. Understandably it’s the only one we want to see. However, we need to be careful not to dishonor God by refusing to see the plain language of Scripture in those instances where it is plain that God’s character also includes the possibility of exercising sanctions when we don’t keep our part of the covenant.

In the real estate contracts I deal with all the time there are some parts which look out for one party (the Seller) and some which address the issues of the other (the Buyer). The contract as a whole expects that both parties will honor their commitments, but it also provides for remedies if one party defaults.

That’s how it is in contracts (covenants) between two human parties who enter into the contract as equals. Can’t we also expect that God might exercise some “remedy” when we default on the covenant between ourselves and God? It does give us something to think about, doesn’t it?