By Odon Bulamba ( 27th May 2005)
Simeon and Levi
Both of you sat down in your violence and decided to kill.
Simeon, “he hears” and Levi, “attached” went against God’s will. The Bible says faith grows by hearing the Word of God. You can be taught every day, listen to that Word, learn it and still be in front of the Throne of judgment. You might be attached to your faith, to the church, to sermons but one day you’ll be in front of God to be judged on one thing, violence.
God says: “You did something wrong against my people one day”.
What did they do? They had a sister, Dinah and one day as she was visiting the people next door, Shechem raped her (Genesis 34). They admitted their mistake and asked to marry her and make one family of the two peoples. It was not in a bad way, they came to repent and sort out the problem. Unfortunately, Simeon and Levi who had decided not to accept their apology attacked them two days later. They killed all the men. Jacob knew the law forbids killing and was ashamed of his sons’ wrong doings. His reputation was stained in that area and he wasn’t safe anymore but Simeon and Levi didn’t care, they didn’t listen to their father. Dinah came back to the family.
How many times in our churches and our normal lives do we try to kill each other? When someone comes to you, admits their fault and tries to fix up the problem, we often answer No way! I won’t fix the problem with you.
Christians must be flexible and understand others’ needs. Let’s try our best to fix problems with people. Let’s accept their weaknesses too. Christians sometimes expect pagans to reach their level: ‘How can you act or react like this?” but we forget this person is not saved yet and doesn’t know Jesus’ love yet.
If a baby plays with a razor blade and cuts himself, he’ll cry because he sees the blood. A razor blade is like a toy for him, he doesn’t know what it is yet, he doesn’t know it’s dangerous. If Christians think of loving pagans before makinr decisions against them, God will really look after us, He’ll protect us and make us stronger Christians but if we are unable to understand what weak people are doing, it will be hard for God also to understand us sometimes.
Jesus, our Lord said: “Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.” How many times in our lives do you use that passage? Or do you just keep this in your heart, judge them and point your finger at them? We need to forgive others when they don’t know what they are doing.
Simeon and Levi were really angry and the church today is suffering because of anger. Many Christians in the church can easily be killed because their pastor is angry or don’t receive the message because of anger in the church.
There was a discussion on the radio one day about girls’ clothes in the church. The pastor on that radio got angry and supported the NZ culture. It would have been better for people to sort out their problems with the pastor alone instead of going to the radio station. The pastor was boiling and was defending something that could be easily sorted out, the NZ culture and the culture of the Bible. Finally the host asked the pastor why he was angry. If this man was my pastor and sinners or my unsaved friends had listened to him, they would have asked me what’s wrong with him. What could I have answered?
Our way of talking, of asking must be without anger. Let’s try to manage our anger and put it aside. When we are angry, we can break anything, we can destroy. That is what Simeon and Levi did, they got angry and killed.
On the Day of Judgment, angry people will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
The Bible tells us only 12 000 people in each tribe will be chosen.
God decided to remove the people of Levi because they repented, He offered them a new service.
If we are Simeon’s descendants (spiritual descendents) we are people who hear the Word of God, people who are not deaf but we lose the Word of God because of our anger. You might have faith, you might believe in God and trust in everything God tells you but if you continue to marry anger with your faith, you’re nothing. This is a huge problem in the church today. Many people trust in Jesus and the Word but they don’t control their anger. So, try to put anger aside.
No comments:
Post a Comment