Numbers 35: 33-34
So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.
And you shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the Lord am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel.
God was dwelling in the land of Canaan with the Israelites, and He is holy. He could not dwell in a polluted land, that had been defiled by blood.
That's one reason why He had His people conquer the peoples who were already there by eradicating some of the towns and cities.
And He gave rules for menslayers who didn't premeditate the killing.
God knew how enticing the World's ways are, to seduce His people away from their Lord Who loves them. He warned them repeatedly to not pay any attention to those people, to not accept their friendship or marry their women or give their daughters to marry their sons. It's just too dangerous.
And we today are warned to be aware of how God's ways are not the World's ways, and our fleshly nature rebels against Him.
Our enemy has never changed his tactics: he still tells us that we can make our own decisions, we're smart, we don't need anyone to tell us what to do.
So we go our merry way, but things don't turn out like we thought. We were deceived. That's when we need to repent, turn around, change our thinking processes to get our focus off ourselves and our surroundings and see Jesus, arms out, waiting for you to fall into His embrace.
God told the Israelites that He would go before them to conquer those peoples. And He will also go before us in our lives, to prepare the way before us; when we decide to follow Him, doing things His way, instead of our own way.
I wonder how much blood will need to be shed to expiate our own land, to cleanse it of all the innocent blood that has been shed here. When our Lord and King returns, He will cleanse the whole world of all its unrighteousness and evil. He will return this Earth to the pristine state it was in before sin messed everything up.
And He will judge the Nations.
May God forgive us and enable us to do His righteousness in our Nation.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
