9.
The
Consequences Of Their Actions
Just
because you give the kids your rules doesn't mean that they'll follow
those rules.
Eventually,
you've got to let the children make their own mistakes.
Even if it means they get in trouble for it.
The
Book of Judges, 2:11-19, describes the pattern of behavior that took
place after Moses’ death, the end of Joshua’s leadership, and the general
settlement of the Holy Land of Israel…when the people felt like they no longer needed
God in their everyday life.
“And the people of
Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord
and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord,
the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They
went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them,
and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord
to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served
the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel, and He gave them over to plunderers, who
plundered them. And He sold them into the hand of their surrounding
enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they
marched out, the hand of the Lord was against
them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as
the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in
terrible distress. Then the Lord raised up
judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet
they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed
down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had
walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord,
and they did not do so. Whenever the Lord raised
up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge,
and He saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For
the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning
because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge
died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after
other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of
their practices or their stubborn ways.”
TL;DR? The Lord entered this
co-dependency circle with His people: they would have an affair; He would
abandon them; they would get in trouble with the bullies around them; He’d have
pity and rescue them; they’d appreciate Him for a finite amount of time before
their next affair. Repeat ad nauseum.
Isn’t there a point, though, that we
have to stop saving our children from their own follies? Isn’t there a point
when we have to let them suffer the consequences of their actions? The
Lord our God certainly thought so…read Judges
2:20-23…
“So the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel, and He said, “Because
this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and
have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the
nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether
they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord
as their fathers did, or not.” So the Lord
left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and He did not give them into
the hand of Joshua.”
Kings
rose and kings fell – a few were Godly, but most were Baal worshipers or other
blasphemous forms of idolatry. Yet for God the Father, it still took close to seven
hundred years before He finally gave up and whipped out the only punishment
that would make the children repent…
He
took away their “bedroom” and all of their toys.
When
they were allowed to come back to the Holy Land, seventy years later, we see in
the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and a few of the other minor prophets that the
people who returned were just happy to be back in their homeland –
“And all of the people shouted with a great
shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of
the Lord was laid. (This is when they started rebuilding Solomon’s Temple,
in Ezra 3:11-13.) But many of the
priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first
house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house
being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not
distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s
weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far
away.”
†
The
previous chapter made it clear: children
are to obey their parents, no matter what.
Find
what works. If it’s a carrot, use a carrot. If it’s a stick, use a stick.
Use the least drastic stick that gets the point across, but get the point
across. Was it overkill to “take away their bedroom”? It’s not like God
jumped to that step unprovoked – it took Him seven hundred years and
well over a dozen lapses into idolatry for him to resort to the comparatively
tame step of eviction. (Yeah, yeah… ‘time doesn’t mean the same thing to God that
it does to us’. I know. But remember what I’m sure every one of your pastors
has reminded you over the years: God never acts too early, but He
always acts in time. Apparently, He believed 700 years was acting
‘in time’. As with all things, we have to give the Lord the benefit of the
doubt.)
Hold
on to the fundamental message – do whatever it takes to be the parent.
You’re the one in charge in the parent-child relationship. Don’t forget
it, and don’t let your child forget it, either.
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