The current seromn series is working through Joshua. Chapter 6 is about the conquest of Jericho, and after the walls came down,
They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it -- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys [as God commanded]. -- Josh.6:21 (oNIV)This is part of the criticism raised by people, atheists and Christians alike, that the God of the Old Testament is cruel compared to the God of the New. The people who say that have not read much of either part of the Bible, but there it is. "Kill everybody," men women and children, including the donkeys.
This guy demolished that criticism. The church has a website and a YouTube channel for their sermons, but it doesn't play on my computer; if you can find it and get it, it's worth watching (hearing): www.RiverValleyCC.org.
The short version is a 7-point sermon. Three points is about all the average church member can handle; seven serves more to annihilate the criticism most church members don't care about (but they should).
1. Killing everybody is slightly hyperbolic. The actual command was to kill everybody in the cities, but most people lived on their own farms in the countryside. The cities is where evil was rampant. Farmers were poor, and it's all they could do to survive. We know it was hyperbole, because while it said Joshua and his Israelite warriors killed everybody as the LORD God commanded, later in the same book (and also later in the Bible) we see that there were unkilled Canaanites left to be a problem.It was an awesome sermon, I wish more churches and more pastors could preach it. Maybe more people would repent. God is about repentance and doing Good. The other kind, God cannot allow them into His Heaven (He said that in the New Testament) because (He didn't say this, but it's obvious) if He did, it wouldn't be Heaven for the rest of us.2. This is not genocide, like we saw Hitler doing. Genocide kills on the basis of race, but this was about giving the just reward to evil. We'll come back to that, but children? He didn't say this, but it's the children of immigrant Muslims into European cities who become jihadists and go around killing people as genocide. So yes, children.
3. The Canaanites were particularly evil, engaging in human sacrifice -- notably children -- and other abominations. God called down doom on their wickedness before there even was an Israelite nation to do it. He said to Abraham that He was giving them 400 years to repent, before Abe's descendants would inherit the land. They didn't repent. He didn't say it that I heard, but that message is still valid today: We live in a wicked and adulterous culture, and God still postpones the doom He has promised. This should be taught in every church, but it's not.
4. It isn't about Why did God kill the wicked, but Why did He wait so long (and still waits)? God is a God of mercy as well as (he said "more than") justice. He didn't say it, but we in our time can see the rampant evil in our country. We ourselves -- especially the poor and disadvantaged -- cry out for justice, but God is not into "killing the infidels," He wants everybody to repent, and He gives them time to do it. When they don't, they are "without excuse." Paul said that in the New Testament.
5. After you consider all that, we still need to remember this was not a command to us Christians. This was more than 3000 years ago, a unique command in a unique circumstance that we do not know very much about. God is Holy, that's why it's in our Bible, because we need to know that -- he didn't say that, but the senior pastor did back when he did Leviticus -- but the general command is to leave the widespread execution of Justice to the big agencies (governments and God). We individuals should focus on our own little violations of justice, there's plenty of that for us to fix.
6. Finally, the Bible is not only about individual righteousnes and justice, it is also about The Big Picture. It is about God and Us, Good and Evil. Wiping out the Canaanites is a tiny foreshadow of God wiping out everybody who continues to wage war on God and His People everywhere. Maybe this guy didn't say all that, but it's a fact.
7. Seventh and last, the God of Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New. He has not changed. Jesus preached more about punishment for evil than you will find in the Old Testament, and God's mercy was an important part of His message to the ancient Israelites -- and even to Abraham before them. Mercy and Justice are both moral absolutes, created by God for us -- for everybody, especially the Christians -- to obey.