January 3, 2024
Passage Read: Deuteronomy 4-7
Meditation Verse: 7:16
Thought
The Israelites were to have no pity on anyone or any people which the Lord singled out for destruction. The danger was that the Israelites would learn from those who should have been destroyed to follow other gods and learn their practices rather than walk in God's ways. The age we live in, the church does not go to war with people and has no power or authority to kill anyone. We are called to go to those who do not know Him and instruct them in the ways of God. But that warning not to pity a people whom God has rejected calls up Christ's instruction to kick the dust off our feet when a person or people reject the gospel. That is an expression of "no pity" on those who reject the Lord. His disciples were to move on to the next group of people. Today, we have pity on those who reject the gospel all the time. We give them chance and chance again to hear it, we do all kinds of good to them, we hope that the longer we are nice to them, the sooner they will change their minds and believe. We are filled with pity for them. Would it be better to wipe the dust of their home, their neighborhood, their town off our feet and turn to the next person or community? Would that be a more powerful testimony to bid them pause? To show them pity for ages, does that teach them that God is not that important, and nothing for them to fear?
Application
To pity someone is honorable, until it belittles God, whether in God's eyes or in the eyes of those on whom we seek to have pity. Pity should lead us to share the gospel, but when someone hears it clearly and completely, but rejects it, Jesus told His disciples to move on, in a sense to withdraw pity from them and leave them to their choice. Go to the next people and offer them the gospel. It is perhaps more because none of us want to give up our home and job and community to go to the next people, because we want to settle and be settled, that we decided to offer unending pity to all our neighbors who heard the gospel but rejected it. If I continue to love and pity and do good to them, some surely will eventually believe. But what do I give up of God and Christ and their teaching to obtain that fruit? Do I prove ourselves more righteous and loving than God Himself? Do I make Him less than He is and deserves?