Burunche’s Blog

Deuteronomy 21: 22-23 “If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is executed, and you hang his body on a tree, you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.“

There are many ways in which to pollute a land and defile it. Shedding innocent blood is one way of bringing curses. Leaving the body of someone who has been hung, impaled, or crucified is yet another way. Notice that the man in question has definitely committed a sin worthy of death. Presumably, the man has been stoned and then his body has been hung on a tree as an example to any who might otherwise consider committing a similar offense. But there are limits, and the body must be buried before sundown.

Why is God making a big thing about this practice? Pagan tribes sometimes would hang bodies on the city wall or would leave bodies out in the open for days. When King Saul and his son Jonathan were killed, the Philistines hung their bodies on the city walls. The men of Jabesh – Gilead came and stole the bones of Saul and Jonathan by night, keeping them in a safe place.

What might happen if bodies are left in the open? The story is told in 2 Samuel 21 of a time when King David was ruling and there was a famine for three successive years. When David inquired of the Lord, he learned that this drought had come because Saul had broken the covenant between the Israelites and the Gibeonites and had attacked the Gibeonites. David summoned the leaders of the Gibeonites, asking them what retribution they required. The Gibeonites demanded that seven of the sons of Saul be delivered to them to be hanged “before the Lord.” David allowed this hanging to take place, and the bodies of these men were left outside. The mother of two of the men guarded the bodies for nearly one month. Finally David took the bodies of the men who had been hanged along with the bones of Saul and Jonathan and buried all of them in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish. Once these actions had been completed, God answered David’s prayers for the land.

At first, this story about the avenging of the Gibeonites sounds atrocious. But remember that these events took place before the coming of Jesus and that the law of lex talionis, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” was still in effect. The Gibeonites left the bodies of Saul’s sons out because they were not believers and this was their custom. But also notice that God did not lift the famine until all the bodies and bones were buried properly.

APPLICATION: Why is this passage so important? When Jesus Christ was crucified at Calvary, he was murdered to satisfy the fears of the Jewish religious leaders who wished to remain in good favor with the Romans. (These same rulers were also afraid that if Jesus really was the Messiah, they would be out of power.) Jesus did not commit any sins whatsoever, let alone anything worthy of death. Because Jesus was perfect and sinless, he could freely lay down his life for the sins of the entire world, for all those who would believe in him. Jesus took upon himself the curses that all of us would have faced otherwise.

When the friends of Jesus collected his body, they had to move quickly to place him in a tomb before the Sabbath began at sundown. Joseph of Arimathea gave up his own tomb so that Jesus could have a resting place close to Calvary. The women with Jesus did what they could and then wrapped up the body quickly so that they could return to their own homes before the beginning of the Sabbath. This hasty burial explains the reason that the women came to the tomb on Easter morning, expecting to complete the preparations of Jesus’ body. But the tomb was empty! By dying as a perfect sinless man, Jesus had conquered death and the grave and had already been resurrected.

The message of Christmas is actually the message of Easter. As the hymn “Good Christian Men Rejoice!” says, “He has opened heaven’s door and man shall live forevermore!” But there is one catch: we must acknowledge that we are sinners and that nothing we can do will earn us a spot in heaven. And we must believe that Jesus really lived, died, and arose. We must accept Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins and we must stop living for ourselves and live to please God instead.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we confess that we are sinners and that there is nothing that we can do that will earn us a place in heaven. We accept Jesus’ blood sacrifice on our behalf. Now we turn our lives over to You and ask You to help us live for You instead of for ourselves. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 21:18 – 23 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother, or listen to them when disciplined, his father and mother are to lay hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown, and say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

God hates rebellion! Satan and one third of the angels fell because of rebellion. In 1 Samuel 15:22 God tells us that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Why? Rebellion and control are the two sides of the witchcraft coin. Witchcraft is aimed at controlling people, events, the future, etc. Those practicing witchcraft are rebelling against God, refusing to accept God’s will for their lives and for those around them. Not only is rebellion a horrible sin against God but rebellion is more catching than any virus.

APPLICATION: Once rebellion gets going, there is no end to the damage that may result! Several years ago, there was a worker at one hospital who delighted in rebelling, undermining hospital authorities and in encouraging others to do so as well. As a result of this man’s machinations, workers chose to go on strike at a time when a visiting work team was present. Teams had been coming for several years and had contributed large amounts of medical consumables to the institution. That single act of rebellion cost the hospital the relationship with the medical school involved and stopped the flow of supplies that had been so beneficial.

Looking at these verses, you might conclude that God is only interested in punishment; however, nothing could be farther from the truth. Amelia Mitchell (The Book of Deuteronomy “Looking to Thee From Day to Day”)has made the following points about these verses:

God seeks repentance far more than capital punishment.

 The demands of the law are severe and unforgiving.

The desires of grace are full of the yearnings of love.

In Luke 15:11-32, Jesus told a story about a son who demanded his inheritance while his father was still alive and then ran off and wasted it in drinking and orgies. The very fact that the young man made this demand was an act of outright rebellion and disdain for his father. This act indicated that the young man considered his father as good as dead and wanted nothing more to do with him. The predictable happened; when the money ran out, the fellow wound up in trouble. Finally, the rebellious son found himself herding pigs, something no pious Jew would do, and he was so hungry that he even had to eat some of the corn and husks along with the pigs. It was at this point that the young man realized that his father’s servants were far better off than he was, and he returned home. In contrast to the young man’s earlier arrogance, he now planned to beg his father simply to allow him to work as a hired servant, forfeiting his status as a son. But the father had never stopped looking for the young man, and when he saw his son trudging down the road, he RAN to meet him! Not only did the father take his son back into the family, but he even threw a party for the son. Jesus told this story to illustrate how much God the Father wants us to repent and to turn to Him.

Before Jesus Christ came and shed his blood as a sacrifice for the sins of all who would believe in him, all humanity was under the Law. But Jesus changed everything. Romans 8:1- 4 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous standard of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

BOTTOM LINE: God in his yearnings of love sent Jesus as the perfect blood sacrifice for sin. We can choose to accept that sacrifice or to reject it; however, we must recognize that fundamentally, all of us are rebellious. All of us at one time or another have tried to be our own saviors and have failed miserably. God does not want anyone to miss out on heaven! Anyone who winds up in hell does so by their own choice.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us! Lord, help us to reject rebellion and to turn to You for our salvation. We confess that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Lord, thank You for sending Jesus to die for our sins. Thank You that if we believe in what Jesus has done, we will receive eternal life. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

When I was a kid growing up on an Illinois farm, I loved Christmas! I loved all the pre -Christmas activities, the parties at school and the school programs.

Let me send you back to Altona, Illinois in 1954. Altona is a small town on the main railroad lines between Chicago and the west; both the Santa Fe and the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroads run through our town. (The CB& Q later merged in 1970 with James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific to become the Burlington Northern Railway. In 1995 the Santa Fe and Burlington Northern merged to become BNSF.) We can still catch trains in Altona to go into Galesburg or to even go to Chicago and beyond. The idea that we might catch the California Zephyr and travel all the way to San Francisco is nearly too exciting to consider!

Altona is a town of 600 people. In these years immediately after the Korean War, business is booming and things are looking up. Local farmers are keeping four carpenter gangs busy and the source for building materials is the Houghton Lumber Yard, with branches in Oneida and Galva, Illinois. In a small town where the Houghton Lumber Yard is one of the main businesses, Mr. Houghton always hands out cylindrical boxes of molasses kisses to every one of the children at our school as soon as we complete our grade school Christmas performance.

Our grade school is the old Walnut Grove Township High School, the school from which my dad graduated. Although Dutch Elm Disease is making its way through the country, this year the elm trees still proudly guard the school. By next Christmas those trees will be only a memory. My first grade class helps sing a few Christmas carols as part of our contribution. This program is much easier than the one I will face at Immanuel Lutheran Church. The Lutherans expect us to recite “pieces,” short poems that hopefully link together to present a Christmas message. My mother has been working with me on my recitation for weeks. I have been standing at one end of our large living room while Mom stands at the other end, encouraging me to speak up loudly and clearly. Woe betide any child who stands up and mumbles or – even worse! – forgets their piece entirely. Sunday School teachers sit on the front row to prompt the children, knowing that if their classes fail to perform well, they too will be criticized.

I am not alone. We have three churches in Altona, Immanuel Lutheran Church, the Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church. My school classmates whose families attend these other churches are going through the same experience: trial by Christmas program. One year, one little boy standing on the platform and waiting for his turn to recite began gathering up his trouser legs through the pockets of his trousers. With his parents dying a thousand deaths in the pews, my friend managed to hike the hems of his trousers up as far as his knees. The worst part of the whole thing was knowing that the little old ladies of the church would have LOTS to say after the program! (This was at the Lutheran Church, where we took EVERYTHING very seriously!)

Our main street in Altona is Depot Street. We have two grocery stores – Bob’s Locker, owned by Bob Olson, our local butcher and Nelson’s, owned by Howard Nelson and Larson’s Variety Store. Around the corner, there is Johnny Andrews’ Andrews Implement, which now deals mostly in refrigerators, stoves, and other electrical items. Bob Olson does all our butchering and at Christmas time also makes Swedish potatiskorv, potato baloney. Nobody owns deep freezers at this point in time; we all rent freezer space at Bob’s Locker and then take things home as necessary to keep in our refrigerators. Bob also carries the rennet my mother will use to curdle fresh milk to set the curd for ostakaka, Swedish cheese cake, another Christmas favorite. Both grocery stores also carry pickled herring, wheat flour, rye flour, cardamom, and the candied fruit so necessary for creating fruit cakes and raised tea rings decorated with frosting and candied cherries. During Christmas season, my Grandma Delphia Bjorling will bake Swedish limpa rye bread laced with and butter horn rolls, both laced with cardamom, in wholesale amounts.

My little town has very modest Christmas decorations. We might have cut out lighted wreaths hanging from lamp posts, but that’s about it. And most people settle for Christmas trees that they set in their front rooms so that the lights will shine brightly for passers by.

At Immanuel Lutheran Church we still maintain the 5 AM Julotta services – the church service early on Christmas morning. Although Immanuel stopped using Swedish in church in 1917, there are still many in the congregation who both read and speak Swedish. Someone will read the Christmas story in Swedish, and the choir will sing a Christmas anthem while the congregation will sing “When Christmas Morn Is Dawning.” After church, the adults will have coffee and rusks while we kids will have cocoa and rusks before returning home to do farm chores, including milking cows by hand, and then to open presents. By the time church is over, Christmas morn really is dawning.

We still have party lines with several families on one line. The switchboard is at Oscar Johnson’s house, and the Johnsons must be vigilant so that people will be able to connect with friends and relatives. Our phones are antiques, the originals with huge batteries. The telephone wires are strung on poles and in ice storms, the phones go out. We know when we are receiving a phone call by a code composed of long rings and short rings. Our ”ring” is three longs. A general line ring of four longs means an emergency or a disaster such as a barn fire or a death or an announcement that there is so much snow that not even the Lutherans can hold church. Even our party phone lines are bilingual. Listen in on the neighbors as they chat and you had best know both Swedish and English if you want to understand what they are saying. (The story is told of one of my cousins whose parents felt safe in gossiping about the neighbors in Swedish because they believed their four year old daughter wouldn’t understand them. That lasted until the day when my cousin began asking questions indicating that she understood VERY well!)

What kinds of gifts will be under our Christmas trees? These are the days in which children are still allowed to be children. Of course, Grandma is going to give us underwear or pajamas. We might get new sleds or baseball gloves. One year I got ice skates. When I was nine, I asked for – and received – a football stamped with the autograph of a professional football player. We do not have huge numbers of gifts, but they are selected with great love. Then there was the year that my parents got me a doll.

Let me be quite frank; I couldn’t care less about dolls! For most of my early childhood, my mother was chronically ill and I began changing diapers for my younger brothers as soon as my baby fingers could bend those horrible big safety pins. Nothing tells you that you are a three year old failure like being unable to close the safety pin on your brother’s diaper! And these were cloth diapers; if they were poopy, they went into a diaper bucket, most likely a five gallon feed bucket that had been re – purposed. And yes, I was cleaning baby bottoms at the age of three. But the Christmas I was four or five, my parents decided to get me a doll.

I am certain that doll was not cheap. The doll was large and I think Mom might have even sewn an outfit for her. When I opened the package, I knew two things; I knew I did not want this doll and I knew that my parents were watching me like hawks! That was the Christmas when I earned my Oscar as Best Child Actress in a Christmas Morning Drama. I managed to bug my eyes out and make all kinds of cooing noises. And it worked! That night as I was going to sleep, I heard Mom say to Dad, “Did you see Jean’s eyes when she saw that doll?”

We hang up stockings for a long time. In the beginning we hang up whatever knee socks or clean work socks we can find, but one Christmas in the late 1950’s my Grandma Mathis creates wonderful Christmas stockings for each of us with our names on them. From that point onward, those are the stockings we hang up. Those stockings might hold a navel orange, nuts, small toy cars for the boys, barrettes for me, and candy of various kinds. We know that our parents have filled the stockings, but who cares? they are fun anyway!

Generally, we have live Christmas trees that we have cut at a friend’s tree farm. A few years we actually had trees in pots and we later planted those trees out in front of the house. We don’t go in for tinsel, but we have lots of glass ornaments and other ornaments that we have made, plus strings of large lights that require being untangled every year.

Christmas means family gatherings on Christmas Eve, and we are frequently the hosts because we have the largest house with plenty of room for everyone. It’s lots of fun when everyone gets together, and family cooks contribute their specialties. We read the Christmas story and then open presents. Sometimes we get together with Mom’s side of the family on Christmas Day and sometimes we wait until the following weekend.

As we celebrate Christmas 1954, we have no idea that in seven months my father will be fighting for his life after a near – fatal car crash. We are blissfully ignorant of several other impending family tragedies. But our house is warm and cozy and we are together. Our little community has tucked itself in for a long winter’s night. Our animals lie peacefully on clean straw out in our barn. And the Christmas message is still the same: ”Peace on Earth. Good will to all men.”

God Jul! Merry Christmas!

Deuteronomy 21:15 – 17 “If a man has two wives, one beloved and the other unloved, and both bear him sons, but the unloved wife has the firstborn son, when that man assigns his inheritance to his sons he must not appoint the son of the beloved wife as the firstborn over the son of the unloved wife.

Instead, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of his unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of all that he has. For that son is the firstfruits of his father’s strength; the right of the firstborn belongs to him.”

INHERITANCES!!!! There is no end to the problems when an estate is to be settled. But here God is making things quite clear. A first born son deserves a double portion of the inheritance, whether or not his father loves that boy’s mother. There is something very special about first born children and animals. Once one baby comes, who knows whether or not there will be more? First born sons had to be redeemed by blood sacrifices at the temple.

A child has no control over the relationship between his father and his mother. Even if a child is the result of rape, the child is still innocent of any wrong – doing and should be loved and cared for. A father who chooses to play favorites on the basis of his relationship with a child’s mother does great wrong to the child and leaves scars that will last a lifetime. A first born son is not rubbish to be thrown away as soon as the favorite wife also delivers a son.

APPLICATION: God is passionately interested in the way we treat our spouses and children. Here God is trying to protect any boy or man whose father might shun him because the father dislikes the man’s mother.

Several years ago, we knew someone whose mother was the second wife to his father. Our friend’s father had several children by the first wife and then divorced her, marrying again. The children of the first marriage wanted nothing to do with their father or their half – siblings, even though those children were not responsible for the problem. This poor family became fractured, with the children suffering the most.

Despite the advent of Christianity, polygamy is still present in many parts of Africa. We once watched an un – favorite wife stand in the midday sun for 90 minutes, waiting for her husband to decide to pay school fees for the children he had fathered with her. At the same time, a second older wife sat in the house a virtual prisoner while a third and younger wife was ensconced in a flat across town. The third wife had already born eight children and we wondered if she was afraid to stop bearing children for fear of rejection by her husband. Yet another friend’s progress in school was halted when his father refused to pay for the exam fees for his high school leaving exams after the results for the first time in which he wrote had been discarded by the West African Exams Council. (His mother was a fourth – and un – favorite – wife.)

God does not play favorites but loves all of us equally. The question for each one of us is how do we treat others? Jesus addressed this problem with his followers this way:

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:32-36)

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for each of us individually. Lord, help us to demonstrate Your love to others, even to those whom we do not like, and especially to those who are trying to be our enemies. Help us to show the same mercy to others that You have shown to us. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

It’s the 18^th of December, and we haven’t hung a single ornament or strung a single string of lights. It’s been a very difficult year. We began in January with the loss of my beloved stepmom Mary Roesner Bjorling. Mary had been suffering with heart failure for months, and we knew her demise was inevitable, but the loss was no less real. With Mary’s death, we both lost the only remaining mother figure we had. When the family selected September 12, 2021 as the date for Mary’s Celebration of Life, we knew we had to be there if at all possible.

Most of the first eight months of the year were spent in agonizing doubt; we knew Bob’s brother Tink also had a failing heart. Could we get all our COVID vaccinations? Could we make travel arrangements? Would we make it to America in time to see Tink before he died? Arriving in America August 20^th, we fidgeted while we put necessary things in place in Illinois before driving twelve hours straight on August 27^th to Medina, NY, where we met Tink at a restaurant. God’s timing was perfect; we spent Friday night and Saturday morning with Tink. Sunday morning August 29^th we spoke to Tink on the phone as we were on our way to speak at a church. That was the last time we got to tell Tink that we loved him. That afternoon we found Tink dead in the house.

The following day, the 30^th , as we were trying to come to grips with the realities of Tink’s death, our long – time friend Joshua Beso died in Ghana. Joshua was one of the original nurses when we first came to Saboba and headed our Public Health Unit for nearly 20 years. Joshua’s final funeral just took place one week ago.

When we went to America this time, we spent nearly four weeks total with my brother Russell Bjorling and his wife Carol. We were able to connect in a way we hadn’t during previous visits, and we shared lots of small blessings. I realized how much Rus and I were alike, even to our fondness for accessing comics on the internet on a daily basis.

Rus and Carol were both fine when we left their place to head south in mid – October. Little did we realize that scarcely one month later, my funny, compassionate, nurturing brother would die with COVID pneumonia while my sister – in – law would be struggling with health issues as well.

When my brothers Rus and Dale and I were growing up, Christmas time was also fruitcake time. My mom was a wonderful baker, and her fruitcakes were delicious! Mom would generally bake the fruitcakes in late October or early November and then anoint them with something alcoholic until Christmas. Having any kind of alcoholic beverage in our household was highly unusual; generally, ours was a dry household. When my parents were responsible for buying the communion wine for Immanuel Lutheran Church, they would slide into a liquor store, buy Mogen David wine, and slide out as quickly as possible, lest someone see them and decide they had become closet drinkers.

In our household, there were two kinds of fruitcake, white fruitcake and dark fruitcake. The white fruitcake had lots of candied lemon and orange peel, plus candied cherries in it and might have pecans or almonds as well. The dark fruitcake was made with molasses and fruit juice and generally had raisins, walnuts, small pieces of apple and some other dried fruits.

When Mom died in 1980, Rus took over the title of Fruitcake King. Rus did much of the cooking in his household, and fruitcake at Christmas was one of the traditions. Although I am an excellent cook and baker, my duties as a doctor in a bush hospital have left little time for baking fruitcake. And there’s a real supply chain problem; getting candied fruit in Ghana is a real challenge.

Rus’s medical condition was beginning to worsen as we left the U.S. on November 10^th. At that point, fruitcake ingredients were the last things on our minds.

Now it is Christmas time and we continue to remember Rus for the little kindnesses that he did routinely. We will celebrate our Christmas quietly, but it will be without fruitcake.

Deuteronomy 21: 10 – 14 “When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take them captive, if you see a beautiful woman among them, and you desire her and want to take her as your wife, then you shall bring her into your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails, and put aside the clothing of her captivity.

After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. And if you are not pleased with her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes. But you must not sell her for money or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.”

The realities of war! God has already ordered the Israelites to totally destroy six tribes and to bring all the other cities under their control, killing all the men in those cities. Obviously, the women and their children who are left will need husbands to care for them, so these women will become wives. Now God is laying down the way these ladies are to be treated, and those conditions are quite compassionate.

1. The woman is to shave her head, trim her nails, and lay aside the clothes she was wearing when she was captured. Presumably, the new husband will provide appropriate clothing for the woman. Shaving the head, trimming the nails and laying aside old garments all indicate that the lady is entering a totally new life. (At the same time, in case she has head lice, this will take care of those as well.)

2. The woman is to be given one month in which she can mourn her father and mother, presuming that they have been killed during the conquest. During this time, the husband is not to have sexual relations with the woman.

3. Once the month of mourning is completed, the husband may have sexual relations with the woman.

4. If for any reason the husband decides that he does not want the woman as a wife, the woman is free to go wherever she desires. But the man cannot sell the woman for money or reduce her status to that of a slave, since he was the one who took her into his house and his bed in the first place. She might have married someone else who would have cherished her.

APPLICATION: Reading these lines, we wonder how any woman can possibly have been willing to subject herself to such a marriage; however, consider the circumstances. The reality of the situation was that without a husband to support and protect her, a woman in that time was vulnerable to all kinds of assaults and had very few means of supporting herself and her children. These marriages would at least protect the woman and allow her children to also survive.

In the history of the United States there are many stories of white women who were kidnapped by Native Americans and forced into marriages. Despite the circumstances, many of these marriages proved to be happy ones. Not all the women eventually “rescued” were pleased to return to their previous way of life. And then there is the phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome.

Several years ago, a number of people were taken hostage in Stockholm, Sweden by a group of criminals. During captivity, many of these people came to sympathize with their captors and some victims even defended these captors after their release. It is possible that this same phenomenon might have taken place in ancient times as well.

There is yet another possibility as to why these women might agree to a forced marriage. These women were coming out of cultures in which they were forced to sacrifice children to propitiate various gods. Their husbands may have been having sex with temple prostitutes and then comparing these women with the prostitutes. At the same time, the status of women in those cultures may have been so low that they were virtual slaves. Due to God’s ordinances, however, the Israelites utterly abhorred child sacrifice and cult prostitution. The Israelites treated women fairly. Once a captive wife had the opportunity to experience the Israelite culture, she might find that she was far better off than she had been in her original situation.

We live in an age when human trafficking is flourishing as never before. But God hates sexual slavery, as well as prostitution and slavery of any kind. The rules laid down in this passage were given for that particular time and place, but they by no means should be used to justify any form of forced marriage or of maltreatment of women. The proof of this lies in the affirmation that if the husband becomes dissatisfied with his captive bride, he is to let her go freely wherever she chooses.

When God was giving these commands, He already knew all the women and children who would benefit from them. God loved those women and children just as much as He did the Israelites. And God was already making provision before hand so that captives would be treated humanely and with dignity. God also wanted His people to behave in such a holy fashion that anyone who was captured would see the difference and would be attracted to worship Him instead of demons. There never was – nor is – nor shall be any limit to God’s love.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help us to graphically demonstrate Your love to those around us so that they will be attracted to You, the One True Living God. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 21:1 – 9 “If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the neighboring cities.

Then the elders of the city nearest the victim shall take a heifer that has never been yoked or used for work, bring the heifer to a valley with running water that has not been plowed or sown, and break its neck there by the stream.

And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and pronounce blessings in His name and to give a ruling in every dispute and case of assault. Then all the elders of the city nearest the victim shall wash their hands by the stream over the heifer whose neck has been broken, and they shall declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. Accept this atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.”

And the bloodshed will be atoned for. So you shall purge from among you the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.”

The shedding of innocent blood brings curses on a land and pollutes it; so does unsolved unavenged murder. This principle has stood since ancient times. Here God is instructing the Israelites in the handling of what we would term a cold case – a murder with no known suspects and no clues.

The fundamental object of these instructions is absolution from the sin of murder and reinforcement of the concept that murder is punishable by death. First, the elders and judges must measure and decide which city is the closest to the murder victim, assuming that city to be the most likely place where a murderer might hide. Next, the elders of the city nearest to the victim are to take a heifer to a valley that has never been cultivated and that has a stream of running water. The Levites for that city will break the neck of the heifer by the stream and then the elders will wash their hands over the heifer declaring the following: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. Accept this atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.”

Hebrews 9:22 tells us, “According to the law, in fact, nearly everything must be purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Sin demands payment in blood. During the sacrifices in the temple, at some point each part of the temple equipment was sprinkled with sacrificial blood to purify it.

APPLICATION: Blood sacrifices as a means of atonement are common throughout the world. Several years ago, a terrible thing happened in one community where we were working. A young man attempted to rape a seventy – five year old lady. Fortunately, the lady was quite strong and was able to fight him off; however, the chiefs and elders took this matter quite seriously. One of the staff at the hospital where we were then working was a relative to the young man. The chiefs and elders required this lady to bring a white cock for a blood sacrifice so that they could purify the land and wipe out the stain of this sin. This requirement was an integral part of the traditional religion these men were practicing, and they were quite concerned that their land be cleansed.

It is a mistake to ignore the principles set forth in the Old Testament. God hasn’t changed; what has made the difference is that Jesus Christ has been born as a man, lived, suffered, died a completely innocent person, shedding his blood for the sins of the entire world. Those who believe in Jesus Christ have their sins forgiven because of his sacrifice.

The traditional colors of Christmas include red and green. Red stands for the blood that Jesus eventually shed at Calvary. Green stands for eternal life, that gift that Jesus purchased by his blood sacrifice. But there is one condition: we must confess that we are sinners and that we cannot save ourselves. Having made that confession, we can then thank God that He is giving us eternal life through the blood sacrifice Jesus has made.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we confess that we are sinners and that nothing we can do will make up for our sins. We thank You that You sent Jesus to die for our sins and that Jesus has paid the price that we could never pay. Lord, help us to follow hard after You all the days of our lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

My Dad was a Christmas baby. And Christmas was always very special to both of us. In a family where we had five part harmony, Dad was the tenor while I sang alto, my mom sang soprano, and my brother Dale sang baritone while my late brother Rus sang bass.

We missed a great deal by working on another continent – birthdays, anniversaries, holiday celebrations. These photos are from the Julotta service at the Bishop Hill Colony Church in Bishop Hill, Illinois in 2006. Dad and I sang the lovely Swedish hymn “Naer Juldags Morgen Glimmar,” (When Christmas Morn is Dawning.) Dad read the Christmas story in Swedish that year; he could infuse meaning into every word.

When we left the U.S. in September 2011, we knew that Dad’s heart was failing and that this would be the last time we saw him this side of heaven. Selfishly, I had begged the Lord for the opportunity to close Dad’s eyes when he died. But now it was December and Christmas was approaching. The reality of our situation is that our mission hospital is one of the few facilities to have a doctor over the Christmas holidays. Most doctors in small rural district hospitals leave to join their families. I was the only doctor for our hospital and I felt that I absolutely could not leave Saboba.

Dad entered the hospital on December 3, 2011 after taking part in a Christmas carol sing at his beloved church, Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altona, Illinois. Several of our friends visited Dad on our behalf, but we knew that the time was growing short.

I had made rounds and was at the house on December 16, 2011. At noon I began having the worst chest pain I had ever experienced in my life. The pain lasted for thirty minutes and left as suddenly as it had come. An hour later, I checked my email, only to learn that Dad had died that morning at 6:30. Allowing for the time difference, the time of Dad’s death coincided precisely with the time at which my chest pain stopped.

I believe two things: I believe that my Dad had a heart attack as his final event and that God allowed me to feel the pain of that heart attack and the release from pain Dad experienced as he died.

Dad knew that he was dying. Two days before Dad died, he called his pastor, Pastor Tim Anderson, and my stepmom Mary and laid out the funeral service, assigning parts for each of the grandchildren.

Nobody is perfect, and Dad had his flaws. But at Christmas I always remember our singing together at Bishop Hill. I remember the words of that lovely hymn.

1 When Christmas morn is dawning
In faith I would repair
Unto the lowly manger;
My Saviour lieth there,
Unto the lowly manger;
My Saviour lieth there.

2 How kind, O loving Saviour,
To come from heaven above;
From sin and evil save us,
And keep us in thy love.
From sin and evil save us,
And keep us in thy love.

3 We need thee, blessèd Jesus,
Our dearest friend thou art;
Forbid that we by sinning
Should grieve thy loving heart.

Forbid that we by sinning
Should grieve thy loving heart.

Many years ago, Grace Nies Fletcher wrote a book entitled Preacher’s Kids. That book described her family’s funny and painful experiences living in the scrutiny of church members waiting to find fault with the parson and his family. But it is the last sentence that I wish to quote. After speaking movingly of her father and of her brother who died prematurely, Mrs. Fletcher sums up the experiences of a lifetime in words similar to these: “When I think of my Dad, I think of his singing and I think of his faith. And on my knees I dare to claim the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory.”

At the end of every Julotta service, the organist would always play the triumphant Swedish Christmas hymn “Hosianna!” And as I remember my Dad, I raise my hands to the heavens and sing “Hosianna!” as loudly as I can.

Deuteronomy 20:10 – 20 “When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace. If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.

But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God has delivered it into your hands, you must strike down every male with the sword. But the women, children, livestock, and whatever else is in the city—all its spoil—you may take as plunder, and you shall use the spoil of your enemies that the LORD your God gives you. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes. For you must devote them to complete destruction —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that they cannot teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods and cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them? But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.”

God is laying out conditions for warfare. There are two categories of cities: those that are far away and those belonging to the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Cities that do not belong to these tribes will have the opportunity to save themselves if they will accept an offer of peace, subjecting themselves to becoming forced laborers (slaves.) But any of these cities that resists will be attacked, the men will be killed and the women, children, livestock and everything in the city taken as spoils of war.

ON THE OTHER HAND…. Any of the cities belonging to the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites are doomed to total annihilation. “You must not leave alive anything that breathes.” What? God is demanding that even the women, children, and animals be destroyed? Um, yes. Evidently the level of pagan worship among those six tribes was so horrific that even their children and animals were dedicated to demons from the womb. And any woman allowed to live could easily convince her husband to worship false gods. Just look what happened to King Solomon. God doesn’t want the Israelites to even take any booty from these cities because there would be lots of cult objects in the booty that might also entice the Israelites back into idol worship. God knows that many of the Israelites are still closet idol worshipers and it would take only the slightest nudge for them to follow the gods of these tribes. Remember that the Egyptians had a huge pantheon of gods and the Israelites had 400 years to get used to the idea of propitiating different deities for different problems. Monotheism is a hard sell for these people.

One of the most arresting parts of this passage is the injunction against the destruction of fruit trees. We work in northeastern Ghana, where it can take at least 15 years for shea nut trees to establish themselves. God knows the growing conditions for the Promised Land; it’s taken a long time for those fruit trees to begin to bear fruit and if they are destroyed, there will be no fruit trees at all. “You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?”

APPLICATION: One of the amazing things about God’s instructions to the Israelites is their practicality. God even cares about saving fruit trees. “But,” you ask, “if God cares so much about fruit trees, why is He ordering the Israelites to destroy everything in the cities belonging to those six tribes, including the children? Does God care more about fruit trees than about children?” No! Nothing could be further from the truth. But the parents of those children have systematically dedicated them to demons generation after generation. If there were any other way of delivering those children from their wicked parents without risking spiritual destruction for the Israelites, God would have given other instructions. Remember that Abraham had friends who were Amorites and that God told Abraham that He would not bring the Israelites back out of Egypt until the iniquity of the Amorites was complete, in other words, until the Amorites had become so evil that they had doomed themselves to destruction.

After the conquest of the Promised Land, God never again ordered the total destruction of any people. When America was being settled, there were those who insisted on drawing comparisons between the Native Americans whom they encountered and these tribes. Sometimes these verses were used to justify unspeakable practices such as spreading destruction by smallpox by selling blankets infected with the virus to innocent people. But all such attacks were wrong! What made the difference?

Between the time that God was giving these instructions to Moses and the Israelites and the time in which America was being settled, Jesus Christ came and gave up his life as the ultimate blood sacrifice for sin. That sacrifice opened the way for every man, woman, and child to come to God, no matter where they came from. David Brainerd was 25 years old when he began ministering among the  Stockbridge, Delaware and Sasquehanna tribes. Brainerd’s fruitful ministry proved that the Gospel could change hearts and lives just as effectively for Native Americans as for any other people.

The ground is still level at the foot of the cross. Apart from Jesus Christ, all of humanity has sinned and has fallen short of the glory of God. All of us need a Savior. While many times the message of Christmas gets lost somewhere between consumerism and sentimentalism, the plain fact is that Jesus was born as a human baby, lived a sinless life and died for our sins because none of us could save ourselves.

An ancient Christmas carol says it best:

1.    Good Christian men, rejoice
       With heart, and soul, and voice;
   Give ye heed to what we say:
               News! News!
   Jesus Christ was born to-day:
   Ox and ass before Him bow,
   And He is in the manger now.
Christ is born today! Christ is born today.

2.    Good Christian men, rejoice,
       With heart, and soul, and voice;
   Now ye hear of endless bliss:
               Joy! Joy!
   Jesus Christ was born for this!
   He hath ope’d the heav’nly door,
   And man is blessed evermore.
Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!

3.    Good Christian men, rejoice
       With heart, and soul, and voice;
   Now ye need not fear the grave:
               Peace! Peace!
   Jesus Christ was born to save!
   Calls you one, and calls you all,
   To gain His everlasting hall:
Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us! Thank You that NOBODY is beyond the reach of Your love and that Jesus died for all of our sins. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 20:1 – 9 “When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you. When you are about to go into battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army, saying to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be alarmed or terrified because of them. For the LORD your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”

Furthermore, the officers are to address the army, saying, “Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man dedicate it. Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit. Has any man become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man marry her.” Then the officers shall speak further to the army, saying, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him return home, so that the hearts of his brothers will not melt like his own.”

When the officers have finished addressing the army, they are to appoint commanders to lead it.”

God is preparing the Israelites to go into Canaan and conquer it. But a few things need to be perfectly clear.

1. No matter the size of the enemy army or the kinds of weapons they have, the Israelites must remember that God is with them and will fight alongside them to give them victory.

2. God wants only those whose minds are fully on the battle to fight. Anybody who has just built a house and has not yet dedicated it, or planted a vineyard that is not yet bearing, or who is engaged but not yet married should go home.

3. Anyone who is faint hearted or afraid should go home so that he will not demoralize those around him.

God wants dedicated fighters, not those whose heads and hearts are back with their families, their houses, their lands, or their sweethearts. Any soldier whose mind is not fully concentrated on the battle is a liability to himself and to those around him. If such a person is called upon to defend one of his fellow soldiers who has fallen, he may shy away, thinking only of preserving his own life. Such an action will leave the others in the army fighting on two fronts: fighting the enemy and having to guard themselves against betrayal by one of their own.

Later on in Judges 7, we learn about Gideon. Gideon began with 32,000 men; however, God advised him to allow everyone who was afraid to go home. When Gideon made that announcement, 22,000 men took off in a cloud of dust, leaving 10,000 behind! Next God had Gideon observe the fashion in which these men drank at a nearby stream. Those who cupped water in one hand and remained standing with their weapons belted and ready were only 300, while the rest knelt down by the stream, abandoning their weapons in the process. God selected those men who remained prepared to fight.

Notice that the officers are only to appoint commanders after all those unwilling to commit whole – heartedly to battle have left. Premature selection of commanders might leave the army with leaders who are not totally committed to victory, a highly dangerous situation.

APPLICATION: Although many of us are not in the Armed Services, all of us work in various fields, and all of us can give examples of co-workers whose slackness has created problems. Working in remote areas as I have, I have learned to value good workers and to fear poor ones. In one particularly awful case thirty years ago, a nurse who was supposed to be monitoring a patient with a head injury deliberately went somewhere else to sleep, abandoning the patient to his fate.

As a surgeon, I have trained a number of people to work in the Theater (OR) with me. (I have trained some of these workers personally while in other cases, I have helped sponsor them to training programs.) It is a blessing beyond measure to have dedicated staff whose only concern is the welfare of the patient.

2 Chronicles 16:9 says, “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” Is your heart fully committed to the Lord? Who is guiding your life; is it God or are you following patterns you have gotten from others?

One day, a young man came to Jesus, claiming he wanted to become a disciple. Luke 9:61-62 tells the story. “ Still another said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first let me bid farewell to my family.” Then Jesus declared, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” What could be more socially acceptable than going home long enough to say farewell to one’s family? This guy probably thought that Jesus was going to pat him on the back and tell him, “That’s great! We’ll see you when you get back.” But Jesus knew that this man wasn’t serious about becoming a disciple; what this fellow wanted was the praise of his family and friends for his dedication. Perhaps the man hadn’t done much with his life to this point and was hoping that by becoming a disciple, his parents would stop bugging him to make something of himself. Perhaps the man was hoping for a big send – off party.

Contrast this guy’s attitude with that of Peter and Andrew and James and John. All four of those men were fishermen with major stakes in successful family fishing ventures. But when Jesus called those four men, they left their nets and followed him. Matthew was a tax collector, making large profits; he paid back everyone whom he had defrauded and left to follow Jesus. And then there was the Apostle Paul, also known as Saul of Tarsus.

Saul described himself as a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a student of Gamaliel, one of the foremost teachers of the time. Saul was fluent in many languages and could quote Greek philosophers readily. But when Saul met Jesus, his whole life and even his name changed. Saul became Paul, a bond servant to Jesus Christ, giving up everything for the sake of the Gospel.

Notice something: God never promises that there will not be casualties. Most of the original twelve disciples died gruesome deaths, and Paul was beheaded. But through their dedication and sacrifices, the Good News of Jesus Christ spread throughout the world.

They cast their nets in Galilee
just off the hills of brown;
such happy, simple fisherfolk,
before the Lord came down.


Contented, peaceful fishermen,
before they ever knew
the peace of God that filled their hearts
brimful, and broke them too.


Young John who trimmed
the flapping sail,
homeless in Patmos died,
Peter, who hauled the teeming net,
head-down was crucified.


The peace of God, it is no peace,
but strife closed in the sod,
Yet let us pray for but one thing—
the marvelous peace of God.

PRAYER: Father God, help us to whole – heartedly follow You all the days of our lives. Thank You for sending Jesus to die for our sins. Thank You that Jesus conquered death and the grave, so that we know that if we trust in that blood sacrifice for our sins, we will have eternal life with You in heaven. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.