Deuteronomy 20 and verse 16. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth, but thou shalt utterly destroy them. would like this evening to deal with one of the Bible difficulties which are often cast in the faces of Christians. And it is the difficulty of explaining the need for so much killing in the Old Testament and the difficulty of clearing or vindicating God and his people. God for commanding it and his people for doing it. This difficulty was put very clearly and succinctly in a piece of correspondence I recently received from somebody on the mainland. I'll read it because I'm sure that you will recognise some of the arguments in it. This was written by a Christian who was having difficulties with this problem. He says, I'm still left with the difficult problem of Jericho. My question would be why were the Israelites so aggressive? I'm sure in those days there was plenty of land for all. Was it really necessary to butcher the whole city bar one family? Yes, I know that the penalty for sin was death, but couldn't they have tried to at least convert them? This is the attitude the Muslims had when Muhammad was trying desperately to start his religion. This kind of story is one which many people use to preach against Christianity, especially Muslims. How can we call Muslims bloodthirsty? How can we call ourselves peaceful? If we take the Israeli example of their destruction of Jericho today, do we cut the throats of those that don't believe? is put very starkly, but it is commonly heard. And the question in essence is, should we kill our enemies? Or in the context of this letter, should we, justified by scripture, kill Muslims? Now when we're faced with questions such as these, our first step is to ask, who is doing the questioning? If it's simply a cynical unbeliever, then there is not much point in trying to answer, because they will just move on to the next question. but perhaps it's a genuine inquiry of a seeker or, in this case, a genuine difficulty of a sensitive and concerned Christian. In these cases, we have to take time to try and provide some answers. But the second step is to realise we cannot provide a complete answer. We cannot tie up every loose end. We cannot provide an answer to every angle of this question with our own limited knowledge of God's providence and of the Scriptures. But we can say three things that are negative, that are false. First of all, God's command here to destroy was not arbitrary. It wasn't in a fit of bad temper. It wasn't just some kind of unreasonable and capricious feeling that led to this command. There was wisdom and there was justice in it, as we shall see Secondly, this was not because Israel were good. Indeed, the scripture explicitly says in Deuteronomy 9, verses 4 and 5, when He is saying to them, You shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said unto thee, Speak not in thine heart, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land. Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. So, it wasn't because Israel and the Israelites were especially good and moral. And thirdly, it was not because God changed between the Old and the New Testaments. Some people say, well, this is the God of the Old Testament and he's changed and now it's the God of the New. The God of the Old Testament was full of wrath and killing and murder. The God of the New Testament is full of love and mercy and grace. God is unchangeable. We cannot reason this away with a lie. that God has changed between the Testaments. So what can we say? Well, first of all, the Canaanites were some of the most wicked people ever to have lived in this world. They were probably the third most wicked people that ever lived. First place went to the people of Noah's generation who were swept away with the flood. Second place would go to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who were burned up with fire and brimstone. But the third place would surely go to these Canaanites. It wasn't as if God suddenly came to this decision. In Genesis 15, when he was giving the promises of a land and a seat to Abraham. In verse 16 he is told that their possession of the land would take a number of years, centuries, because he says the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. This was hundreds of years before the possession of the promised land. In other words, God had given these Amorites and Canaanites plenty of time to repent of their wickedness. He had given them time and now He was giving them up. They'd had hundreds of years to turn from their sins and having failed, God's patience was now at an end. Now, it would be possible for me to stand here tonight and to read to you from extra-biblical sources about the sins of the Canaanites. Archaeologists have found writing belonging to their religions and their politics and their societies that reveal the depths of depravity of these peoples. But it wouldn't be proper to mention these wickednesses in a pulpit. It's beyond comprehension. It really is beyond public announcement what these people were guilty of amongst themselves. It's not even appropriate to try and imagine. God tells us why they were put out. It was because of their wickedness, their evil, their immorality, their perversity. This wasn't a kind of ordinary people. This wasn't some kind of nation like our own or like many nations in the world. This was one of the worst peoples that ever inhabited this planet. It was like a moral cancer that was eating away at humanity. And just as a similar generation had resulted in the flood that swept away humanity, here in a sense God is acting in mercy and love to humanity by cutting out this cancer in order to save the body. This was indeed the kindest thing that God could do for the human race, to command the destruction, the cutting out root and fibre of this people. And even in the command there is mercy. It was only the six or seven nations in the actual promised land that were to be utterly destroyed, man, woman and child and beast. Those on the borders, equally wicked, were to be offered terms of peace. They were to be offered a way of escape. And if they accepted it, then they were to be spared. If they resisted, they too were to be destroyed, apart from, and here again is mercy, women and children. And so here we have, in a sense, the Gospel. God is saying, this is what you all deserve. You all deserve to be wiped out as all these Canaanites, but here are terms of peace. Accept them or be swept away in judgement." So that's the first thing we need to remember. The Canaanites were the most wicked people, some of the most wicked people that ever lived. Secondly, this command was to impress upon Israel the exceeding sinfulness of sin. How did it do that? Well, the wages of sin is death. These people were sinners, they should die. But why did God not send a natural disaster, a flood, or a plague? Instead, he commanded this hand-to-hand, man-to-man fighting, this killing with sword and spear and arrow and dagger, inches away from fellow men and women. This was gruesome. This was really hideous warfare. It wasn't the kind we have today with bombs from tens of thousands of feet or guns from hundreds and cannons from hundreds of miles away and rockets. This was inches away. It was skin to skin, hand to hand, fighting to the death. Can you imagine the effect of that on Israel? God could have executed the whole of these nations in one moment, but instead he commanded this, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, extermination and execution. And in a sense, what better, what more effective way could there have been to teach Israel the exceeding sinfulness of sin, to see what sin deserved, to see what sin required. This wasn't that they were sitting there and news came from a distant land that hundreds, that thousands of people had been killed. This was something they had to do daily. This was exhausting, this was depressing work. And the sensitive Israel surely must have sat down at the end of a day of this and just wept over what he had to do and grieved over the sin that required it. And he got up in the morning with the thought that this had to be done again and again and again and again. Surely coming before Him constantly was this. The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. If this is what sin requires, what is sin like to a holy God? This was calculated to impress on Israel for years to come. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. is to show them God's view of sin. And so when we read it also, we should see in it the exceeding sinfulness of sin and what it requires. Thirdly, the honour of God's attributes was at stake here. The attribute of holiness was imperiled. Here were heathen nations prospering, spreading, multiplying, their wickedness multiplying by the day, getting more and more depraved and dehumanized. And anyone looking on would say, well, God doesn't seem too concerned. God can't be that holy if he doesn't react. if he doesn't respond? And so aspersions were being cast on God's holiness, or perhaps his power. They might have thought, well God is holy, he hates us, but he doesn't have the power to act. He doesn't have the means at his disposal. He doesn't have that moral determination to fight against this wickedness. And so God was being demeaned, and God was being degraded himself, And so it was absolutely vital that he vindicate his holiness and his power. But you might say, surely this very act does cast aspersions on God's holiness and power. I mean, as the questioner said, was it really necessary to kill the woman and the children also? Does that not make God look Unholy? Cruel? Malicious? Well, it's interesting if you read the Old Testament. Women were a far greater threat to Israel than men. You think of Velik and Balaam. Baelic hiring Balaam to come and curse Israel, the sorcerer, the magician. Failed, failed, failed. Next chapter, the woman came from the Moabites and seduced the Israelites into fornication. That happened again and again and again. It was the woman who were often the greatest threat to Israel. And you say, well, what about the children? Surely the children could be spared. Well do we not see even in our own experience that children, even young children, who have been brought up maybe in a very dark and sinful home, even if they were say taken from their parents at a young age, often the traits of the parents, even if very little time had been spent together, are in that child and are almost impossible to eradicate. except by the Gospel. You look at a little child, a little Moabite, a little Canaanite, a little Amorite, and it looks so innocent, but it could easily grow up into a Pharaoh, or an Epicanetzer, or one of the many others. God was wise, holy, and just. This action was to vindicate and clear the honour of His name. It was to cease and stop the heathen saying, God is just like us or God is very weak. This action was God saying, I am not like you and I am mighty. Then fourthly, This may have been God's way of saving some Canaanites. How you may say, well what awaited these children? What awaited them was something far worse than an early death at the end of a spear. What awaited them was a lifetime of immorality, a lifetime of paganism and the most vile practices. Maybe being offered as a child sacrifice, maybe being brought into some of the most depraved temple practices in the Canaanite religion. It's just unspeakable the kind of lifestyle that these people lived and what they did to their children. And not only that, not just being brought up into a Canaanite lifestyle, but what laid the end of it? Hell, eternal damnation and torment. And so, perhaps the death of these children before they reach the age of responsibility, the age of knowledge and the age of accountability, was God's way of saving even Canaanites. If they'd been allowed to live, what would most likely have happened? A lifetime of wickedness? No repentance in hell? But who's to say that this wasn't God's way of saving them before they became accountable and responsible? We don't know God's plans and how God deals with those dying in infancy. But surely this may well be one of the ways, whether in these kinds of slaughters and natural disasters, even in the tidal wave of these bloody abortions of God sweeping into eternity. Young lives before they reach the age of responsibility. It looks so blood filled. It looks so full of death. But who's to say it's not the way of life for them? Who knows, maybe this day, in heaven at this moment, There are thousands, there are hundreds of thousands maybe, of Canaanite children praising God that they were slain in infancy. Fifthly, the promised line of the Messiah was in great danger of extinction. Abraham was given two promises of a seed and of a land. And the land was necessary in order for the seed to come. He was promised a land so that God could form a nation like Israel to protect them, form them into a political unit in order to protect that people and then from them to bring a seed. the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the purpose of the nation of Israel. That was the purpose of the land, to bring forth the Messiah. And once the Messiah had come forth, the land was no longer necessary. That's why it was taken away from Israel. The land has served its purpose. The only promised land that awaits now is heaven. The Messiah has come forth. God's purposes have been served. But here, Israel was a fledgling people. They were a nomadic people. They didn't have a square inch of land they could call their own. It was necessary for that land to be cleared in order for God to build that fledgling nation to bring forth the Messiah. It's important to see. that with the exception of Jericho and Ai, Israel were not the aggressors until Joshua's time. They were fought against and they had to defend themselves. It was really a policy of exterminate or be exterminated. Clear the land or you will be cleared of it. And so here we have God's mercy not just to Israel, but God's mercy to the whole human race in providing this safe home for Israel until the time that the Messiah would be born. Love and mercy for humanity demanded it. It was better that none be saved alive. in order that many may be saved alive in due time, eventually. It was better that many thousands die in order that many millions might have life. It was better for Israel to have this land in order for Christ to descend from them, the Saviour of sinners. And that a few sinners should so threaten and imperil the Messiah and the nation from which he was to descend. And history vindicates God's command. Biblical history shows us what happened when Israel did not obey this command. When they held back, what happened was they were overwhelmed repeatedly. Their borders became unsafe. possession of the land became very tenuous until God raised up judges and God raised up kings to deliver them. Then, sixthly, we must remember that God commanded other nations to war against Israel at times. It wasn't all Israel kill, Israel kill. At times it was nations, kill Israel, attack Israel. Wars were God's means of punishing evil. They were judicial. Yes, the Canaanites were punished for their sins, but God also commanded other nations to rise up against Israel to punish them. Even nations far more wicked than themselves, like the Babylonians, And so it shouldn't be seen that Israel had preferential treatment or that Israel was spare for their iniquities or there was some kind of immoral favoritism here. No, there was a favoritism but it was moral. It was based on the holiness of God that couldn't excuse sin even when it saw it in Israel. So when we see this command to slay we must remember that it wasn't all a one-way street, it was two-way. Then, seventhly, we must remember that this was a temporary, a one-off event in redemptive history. We must be able, as we read the Bible, to show that there are some events which are unrepeatable events. They are one-offs. They are special epochs and events in God's history which don't happen again. Creation. The Exodus. The conquest of the promised land. The coming of Christ into the world. The promise of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And it's through an error in this respect that the charismatics go so far astray. They look at this one-off Pentecostal event and all the gifts and the miracles and the tongues that accompanied this beginning of the church, the initial burst of the gospel into the Gentile world. They take that one-off event and the one-off happenings with it and they say this should happen all through history. And likewise we can go very far astray if we look at chapters like this and use it to justify violent aggression against enemies of the gospel. This was a one-off. It was justifiable once only for the purposes of Israel's taking of a promised land, a special time. And this is confirmed for us by Christ himself. For example, in the garden, you'll remember, Peter took the sword And the command was, put thy sword back in its sheath. In John chapter 18 and verse 36 we read, My kingdom, says Jesus, is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight. But now is my kingdom not of this world. He is saying, that time has changed. The time for violence, for warfare, for aggression in a physical way is over. Put thy sword into thy sheath. My kingdom is not of this world. It's not about a particular nation anymore. Not about a particular piece of land anymore. My kingdom is not of this world. It's of the whole world in a sense, in a spiritual sense. Then, hatefully, we should marvel at the long-suffering of God today. No, we probably are not at the stage of the Canaanites, but we're pretty bad. When you see the evil that is in our land, when you see evil being called good and good evil. When you see sins that used to be utterly ashamed to show their face now walking boldly and proudly in the corridors of power and our political parties bowing down to sodomites and giving them rights and equality Is it not an utter miracle that we are not swept away? Who's to say that the terrorism we're experiencing is not God's judgment upon us? And who's to say it's not going to get an awful lot worse unless we repent? Who can look at our media Who can look at the channels in the paper and see what's advertised? Who can look at the posters full of heaven and hell? Everything's heaven and everything's hell. Programs, products, and nobody has a clue what heaven and hell mean. Is it any wonder that heaven is raising up hell against us in our own day? We should marvel. at the long suffering of God. I heard a radio program the other day on a very reputable channel and program. I heard a speaker say that it was right to hate. We shouldn't ban hate speech because it's right to hate. For example, he said, it's right to hate Nazis. Not just Nazism, but Nazis. You say, well, you surely agree with that. Just, he went on, just as it's right to hate right-wing evangelical Christians. You see the equating of the greatest evil in this world with some of the greatest good. You see where our society is? And nobody raises a voice. It is an utter marvel, surely, to us that we are not seeing our nation being swept away. Look at our Western world. Look at its decadence. Look at its pornography. Look at its disrespect for authority. Look at its abortion. Murder upon murder upon murder. Are we really saying we're better than the Canaanites? We're Canaanites to the core and woe betide us if we do not repent. We are seeing but little distant shadows of judgment, little clouds as men's hands and they're growing. And what is to be done? When we read these chapters, surely we must put our faces in the dust and say, have mercy upon us. Then ninthly, here surely we see foreshadowings of the final judgment. The next is God is described as a man of war. And in Revelation, the Lord Jesus is described as a man of war. In Revelation 19 at verse 17 we read, I saw an angel standing in the sun. And he cried with a loud voice saying, to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men. We read earlier on, I saw heaven open. Behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Who's this? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treaded the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of Lords. I saw heaven open, says John. And here in these chapters we see heaven's opening foreshadowed. This looks gruesome. It looks grim. It looks so filled with death and blood, and it is. We see thousands, we see tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of dead bodies. We see men, we see women, we see children. And we are repulsed by it. We react against it. But friends, this is nothing compared with what's ahead. When it's not men that are the executioners, but the Lord Himself with heaven's armies. When He comes as the Lord of hosts. Will you be amongst those who have made your peace with Him? God gives us these incidents to warn us, to call us to repentance, to call us to peace with Him, to cease from our enmity, to bow down and say, My Lord and my God, O friends, see what lies ahead. You pursued by Him with eyes flaming with fire, a sword going out of his mouth, the hundreds and thousands of angels on white horses pursuing you for justice and judgment. Oh, grim as the Canaanite slaughter was, how much worse will this be? And where will you be? Finally, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual. The New Testament Church has no right to take the sword to advance the cause of Christ in an aggressive way. Paul says, put on the whole armour of God, and what does he describe? The shield of faith. The breastplate of righteousness. The sword of truth. Feet shod with the gospel of peace. That's the Christian's armour. It's not carnal. It's not murderous. It's life-giving. The weapons of our warfare are not bombs. They're not bullets. They're not terror. Should we kill Muslims? Of course not. We should love them. Somebody might say, love them to death. And in a sense, that's right. Love them so much, show so much care and compassion, different to the rest of this world. Show them that the Christian church is completely different, even to the so-called warm words of the politicians, which are not backed up by actions. The Christians should show love to their neighbour, love to their enemies, love to those who persecute them, love to those who want to kill them, and in that way love them to death. Love them and love them and love them until multitudes are converted and false religion dies. And so in a sense we are to love our enemies to life. That's our great hope. That's our great desire. to go forth with the gospel of love and life, to show the great contrast between this great prophet Jesus Christ, the One who said, Put thy sword into thy sheath. If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would fight. But my kingdom is not of this world. The One who said, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. The one who loved his enemies right to the end, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Let's lift up this great Christ of love and life and peace and say to the whole world, beat that. Have you got anything to compare with that? Any prophet, any God in this world He is incomparable. He is utterly unique. He is all compelling. Surely here is the great secret to true spiritual victory. Oh, may God help us to show it in a world so full of aggression and violence and threat and terror. Let the world know that Evangelical Christians are the world's best friend, the Muslim's best friend, the Roman Catholic's best friend, the state's best friend, although we may be viewed as their greatest enemy. What they need is the touch of the Master's hand, not terror. It was battered and scarred And the auctioneer thought it hardly worth his while To waste his time on the old violin But he held it up with a smile What am I bid, good people? he cried Who starts the bidding for me? One dollar? One dollar? Do I hear two? Two dollars? Who makes it three? Three dollars once? Three dollars twice, going for three, but no. From the room far back, a grey-haired man came forward and picked up the bowl. Then wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening up the strings, he played a melody, pure and sweet, as sweet as the angel sings. The music ceased, and the auctioneer With a voice that was quiet and low, Said, What now am I bid for this old violin, As he held it aloft with its bow? One thousand, one thousand, do I hear two? Two thousand, who makes it three? Three thousand once, three thousand twice, Going and gone, said he. The audience cheered, but some of them cried. We just do not understand what changed its worth. Swift came the reply, the touch of the master's hand. And many a man with life out of tune, all battered with bourbon and gin, is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd, much like that old violin. a mess of pottage, a glass of wine, a game, and he travels on. He's going once, he's going twice, he's going and he's almost gone. But the master comes and the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought. by the touch of the Master's hand. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, our Master, that Thou art able to touch a worthless life, a battered life, a ruined life, and transform it in a way that its sword and politics and military action never can. And thou art able to change this world by many touches of thy hand. Oh, change our world. Reach down from heaven tonight. Touch many lives. And change this death-loving, death-destined world into a place of life and love. In Jesus' name, amen.