Word of Encouragement (02/23/2023)
Then he will say, 'Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, 38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you; let them be your protection! 39 "'See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.’” (Deut. 32:37-39)
In contrast to the false, vain, pagan idols, whom the Israelites followed after, the LORD asserts His deity and lordship over the world as the one and only true God. Not only did God declare that He created the world and all that is in it but He also demonstrated this to be true in His complete control over nature and its elements. The most awesome and spectacular example was the Flood by which He destroyed the whole of humanity for its sinfulness. Another powerful demonstration was Israel’s exodus from Egypt, particularly the ten plagues with which He punished Pharaoh and the Egyptians. These “natural/supernatural” disasters were designed to show that the LORD God of Israel was in control of all the natural elements, which the Egyptians attributed to their numerous gods. With every plague, the LORD declared, “I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside Me!”
Not only is He in control of nature and its elements but He is also sovereign over all human affairs: “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand.” God uses two sets of merism here (which is a literary device of using two contrasting parts of the whole to represent the whole, such as “heaven and earth” or “night and day,” etc.)—“I kill and I make alive” and “I wound and I heal.” With these words, God declares that He is the Lord of history and all the affairs of men. Why these two merisms? If He can kill and make alive, He can do all things that happen in between. God uses getting wounded and being healed as the two most significant examples of what happens in our lives. How so? What disaster hits home closer to us than our injuries and sicknesses other than death? And what can bring greater relief and joy than being healed?
With the negatives (“I kill” and “I wound”), God declares His authority to punish sinners as the sovereign Lord. If God should bring our lives to an end, who can resist? Can any of the false idols, whom we have valued and invested so much of our time and resources in, add even a second to our lives? If God should put an end to our “lucky streak” and bring disaster upon disaster, one wave of trouble after another, can you stop Him? If Satan could inflict so much suffering on Job (and that, only by God’s permission), how about the almighty God in His burning wrath?
But these negatives are not the only things we have; with the positives (“I make alive” and “I heal”), God declares His authority also to forgive and restore sinners. It is only right that we should have a godly fear of Him, who is the Judge of the living and the dead, who can kill and wound. But this fear should not make us run away from Him. Where can we go to get away from an omnipresent God? The only right thing to do is to turn to Him in faith and repentance and ask for His mercy and grace to make us alive in Christ Jesus and heal the wounds He has inflicted on us for our sins. We have the assurance that God will do this on account of what Christ has done for our forgiveness and salvation. Praise the Lord and worship Him!