“. . . like a barbed hook in your eye and a thorn in your side.”

Numbers 33:55 (R.E.B.)

Have you ever caught a fish and hooked it in the eye?  Have you ever watched the fish eye wobble as you tried to extricate the hook?  Have you thought how it would feel if that hook were in your own eye?

We have just read from the book of Numbers some rather cruel campaign of conquest instructions.  They strike us as primitive and barbaric.  Moses tells his soldiers that God commands them to go into the land before them, to fight against the people who live there, to subdue and utterly destroy them.  His soldiers are to exterminate every living soul: man, woman and child, and to destroy all the places of worship, shrines and idols of the native people.  And the warning is that if they don’t get rid of every pagan person and pagan practice and pagan precinct, then whatever is left will become as a barbed hook in their eye, or as a thorn in their side.

This is rather tough for a sensitive Christian conscience to take.  But, as we look back on the record of the American Indians, of how they were displaced and driven out of their homeland by the advancing white settlers, don’t we find that our fore-fathers followed similar ruthlessly barbaric methods of human extermination?  When our American soldiers and Marines were fighting in Vietnam they were issued similar battle instructions in their routine “search and destroy missions.”  More recently in the Persian Gulf War our men and women in the Air Force were given instructions to attack and destroy all Iraqi forces, supply lines, and communication systems and personnel.  The militaristic mind still insists that the only way to take and control a piece of territory is to destroy the opposition and to purge it of all pockets of resistance.

Thoughtful analysts of the Christian life have long insisted that the harsh, stern, battle commands issued by Moses to his soldiers long ago still apply to every Christian in the harsh realities of the fight he or she is up against in a world where moral and spiritual evil exists.

The Christian faith in every age says to us in terms of this scripture: “Your promised land to which God is calling you through faith in Christ can be entered, enjoyed, and brought under God’s sovereign control, only by using harsh, stern measures with the enemies of God in your life.  Any trace of timidity, cowardly tolerance, or secret alliance with evil on your part will inevitably result in ‘fishhooks in your eyes and thorns in your side.’”

The gentle Jesus had stern, abrasive words for his disciples on the same subject. Listen: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell; And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.  And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell.” (Mark 9:43-47 R.S.V.)

Jesus’ principle is clear: the most important thing for every person in this world is entering into life – the life of marching into the Promised Land God has stretched out before every one of us. Anything that threatens this life with God must be dealt with radically — cut off, amputated, driven out completely no matter how precious — for by comparison with the supreme value in life, it is of no consequence.

Modern surgery is based upon the principle that when physical life is threatened by a diseased organ of the body, then the kind, the humanitarian – the saving thing to do – is to deal radically with the trouble.  Slice open the abdomen and cut out the hot appendix.  Amputate the gangrenous foot.  Whatever it is that is spreading poison and death through the whole body, cut it out or cut it off and let the body live.  Hastily, ruthlessly operate, so life may be preserved.

Christian theology insists that sin, in its multitude of forms, must be dealt with in just such radical spiritual surgery.  Whatever your secret sin, enslaving evil habit, or iniquitous relationship that is poisoning your spiritual life with God, it ought to be cut out lest it ultimately destroy life itself.

But it is not only our sin, but also any lesser good that gets in the way of our life with God that has to undergo spiritual surgery.  In Mr. Phillips translation of Jesus’ admonition we find these words: “If your hand spoils your faith, cut it off.  If your foot spoils your faith cut it off. . . If your eye leads you astray, pluck it out.”  The counsel of our Lord is: “Whatever good thing you have as a gift, or a talent, or a resource from God which is spoiling your faith, causing you to trust in it rather than in Him, get rid of it.”

The pagan shrines in Israel’s promised land, the idols, the heathen rituals that seduced the people’s trust in God and spoiled their faith, were the principal targets for destruction.  Things not inherently evil in themselves become evil when they eclipse the sun of God’s Kingdom – when we come to trust in them, committing ourselves to their keeping instead of to Almighty God.  The accumulation of wealth, of professional skills, of technological knowledge, when not used as equipment in His service, according to His direction, but used rather as our strong tower of defense in which we are trusting, becomes a hand or a foot to be amputated, even an enemy of our souls to be destroyed.

Both the inspired author of Numbers and our Lord himself are telling us that life for us in the spiritual realm, in any age or country, however civilized or uncivilized, however rural and simple, however urban, complex and technologically complicated – always is threatened by the presence of evil, and blessed by the presence of God.  This is the constant nature of the human condition.  Therefore commands for search and destroy missions must always be issued – radical spiritual surgery must be performed – or there can be no security, no comfort, no hope for our life with God.

But how thrust out the enemy in man’s soul, destroy the idols, perform the intricate spiritual surgery?  A famous sermon once was preached on the subject: The Expulsive Power of a Great Affection.  With sound knowledge of both New Testament theology and of psychological laws, the preacher of that sermon affirmed that only the love of God which entered the world in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had the expulsive power sufficient to drive out the enemy and cut off the destroyer in man’s soul.

“These are they who have come out of great tribulation,” writes St. John in his apocalypse.  How great is the tribulation through which the mortal souls of men and women must of necessity pass in this world!  How hard and long the battle!  How strong and determined the enemies! How feeble the strength of men and women!  How discouraged and despondent grow our hearts!

But there are those who do come through the most devastating of great tribulations.  And who are they?  St. John says they are to be characterized as “Those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.  Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth upon the throne shall dwell among them.”

Yes, these are they in whom and through whom the expulsive power of the great affection of God’s love in Christ has flowed with cleansing, healing, and strengthening power.  All their human relationships have felt the flow of that power strong enough to cast out evil.  Husband and wife, parents and children, friends and enemies, fellow Christians and business associates, in all relationships have found this great affection building for them an unassailable fortress of the soul, a city of refuge where the love of Christ has made them unconquerable.

It was said of Thomas Jefferson that when the fierce political battles that swirled about his fiery and courageous spirit had almost defeated him, again and again, he would retreat to his beloved Montecello on the beautiful hill that overlooked Charlottesville and the university he had founded.  There he would lick his wounds, regain his strength, and soon he would return to more demanding and perilous clashes.

Blessed is the man or woman who has a Montecello of the soul – that refuge from life’s storms and battles.  But the unchangeable quotient of its restoring power is in terms of its opening to the love of God in Christ the whole network of our human relationships.  We never build up such a stronghold for the soul by carping criticism, by cutting down to size husband or wife or child or friend.  Ruefully a man in marital difficulties said of his wife: “I run a store and my wife reminds me of those women who come storming down the aisles looking for the manager.”

On the other side of the ledger, Charlie Shedd writes: “Whenever you see a radiant woman you can be sure she knows she is loved.  And the same thing is true for a man with genuine confidence.”

A woman I know told of her experience of feeling a sudden glow of warmth, one day while shopping, merely at the remembrance of how wonderful her husband always was to her and she said to herself: “Why, you are the most cherished woman in this whole city.”

Yes, there are they who always cone out of every great tribulation – who can take the harsh realities of life and not be destroyed by them, who can suffer the truncation of body, of ambition, of hope, catastrophe of finances or even reputation, and still come through, because they know themselves to be the loved ones, the dearly loved ones, of the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.