When we rebel against God, do you ever wonder what it costs you? As I read on through the Old Testament, I began to notice a pattern of actions the people chose and the consequences when they rebelled.
A few scenarios are:
- Adam and Eve - By rebelling against what God had told them not to do, they went from paradise to the labor, pain, and toils of this world. They also would’ve lived forever, but God told them they will face death and everyone after them as well.
- The Israelites – I can’t list all of the instances without doing a lot of research, but shortly after God lead them from slavery in Egypt, they turned away and began to worship idols. God wanted to kill them for it, but Moses interceded and instead (I think) 12,000 of them died. Not too long after that, that generation was punished again and told they’d die and not see the promised land. A couple of books later in the Bible I noticed they had gone from 600,000 to 300,000 from the time they had left Egypt because God kept striking them with plagues due to their repeated rebellion.
- Moses – He didn’t get to go into the promised land because of his rebellion against God. God allowed him to see it and then he died shortly after that. All of those years working towards leading His people there and he didn’t get to enter it.
- Aaron – He died on Mount Hor and was stripped of his robe as it was given to his son because of his rebellion and disobedience.
- King Saul – God took his reign as king from him for being disobedient. Saul watched as a young man named David became his predecessor, which David was just his harp player and then became his armor bearer. Saul watched as David gradually began to rise up and eventually take his place on the throne in Israel.
There’s so many more and one thing I also think about is what if Moses just refused in the first place? What if David saw Goliath and said: “No way, I’m going back to tend to my father’s sheep!” ”He’s your problem, not mine!”
We see time and time again the consequences of rebellion and many great examples of the rewards for obedience. I caught myself saying “Dang those Israelites just kept on turning away!!! What were they thinking??”, but the fact is every one of us does the exact same thing.
How many times do we find ourselves not praying, not reading the Bible, and not taking time out each day to spend with God? It’s easy to focus on Him when we’re facing a difficult situation, but when times are good, we quickly set that aside.
At what cost does that come at? What did God have for us and was going to bless us with, but withheld it and said we’ll never see it since we didn’t listen to Him? Maybe that’s why some of us are in the situations we’re in and to think that God may have had something so much greater for us, but we turned away from Him.
