When God Makes War

 Jonathan took an in depth look at difficult passages regarding war that we find in the book of Joshua.

Message

THE PROMISE STILL STANDS
“When God Makes War”

Opening Thoughts
- God does not need me or you to Defend

• Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to theLord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
• Psalm 115:3 “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”
• God doesn’t need defending- His reality, authority, and glory don’t depend on human arguments 

- God does desire that I declare a reason for the hope in me.

• 1 Peter 3:15 ^“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”
• 2 Timothy 2:15^“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
• Our role is not to prove God exists for His sake, but to point others to Him for their

War commands in Joshua
- Joshua 6:21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.

- Joshua 8:24-25 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword.²⁵And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai.

- Joshua 10:28-40 ⁴⁰So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowlandand the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded. 

- Joshua 11:11-20 And they struck with the sword all who were in it, devoting them to destruction;there was none left that breathed… ^14bBut every person they struck with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed…²⁰ For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses

Why the command for Herem- “Utterly Destroy”
- Extreme Moral Corruption (Leviticus 18:2-27)
- Child Sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 12:31)
- God had given these people 400 years to stop this wickedness

3 Main Views
- Minor views:

•  Joshua misunderstood God’s commands- Heresy
• The Old Testament authors accidentally attributed to God what should have been attributed to Satan- Heresy

- View #1: Radical Discontinuity

• The Old Testament God of Wrath has nothing to do with the New Testament God of Love (Jesus)
  • God “hit puberty” between the OT and NT and He’s not the same God anymore. God has a multiple personality disorder
• They are trying to “get God off the hook”
• Problems:
  • God is the same yesterday today and forever (Hebrews 13:8)
    • Equally just, holy, loving, etc. No attribute trumps another
  • Jesus talks about judgment (hell) more in NT than OT
  • Jesus returns in Revelation 19 with severe judgment
• Bottom Line: Heresy. Marcionism and it’s anti-Christian

- View #2: Completely Literal (Traditional)

• Deuteronomy 20:16-18 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, ¹⁷ but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,¹⁸ that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
• This act was more of a preventative act than a punitive one
  • The goal here was to destroy the influence of these people so that Israel would not be tempted.
    • God takes no delight in doing this, but sees it as a necessary measure
  • Bottom Line: It is right for God to kill men, women, and children anytime He chooses.
    • God is the giver of life and the taker of life
    • Everyone that dies, dies because God wills to take their life
      • He will take 50,000 lives today
      • God does not owe us life
      • Add that we are sinners and the fact is we should have died yesterday with hell-it’s sheer common grace we’re breathing

- View #3: Hyperbole as narrative style (Modified Traditional)

• The book of Joshua uses non-literal ancient battle language that fits within the genre and narrative style of the Book of Joshua
  • We do this in our language all the time- Example: “Crest is going to annihilate Shelby Friday night during the football game”
  • Examples of hyperbole and non-literal language:
    • Joshua 11:4 And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in numberlike the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots.
    • Genesis 22:17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspringas the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.
    • 7.5 sextillion grains of sand
  • Biblical reasons for this modified view:
    • Deuteronomy 7:1 “When theLord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, ² and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. ³ You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons
      • How can you drive out, inter-marry, or make a covenant with someone that you already destroyed?
    • Joshua 10:36-39 compared to 15:13-15
      • Ch 10- Left no survivors in Hebron or Debir
      • Ch. 15 Hebron and Debir still populated
    • God seemed open to those who would turn to Him like Rahab (Josh2) & permitted peace w/ those like the Gibeonites(Josh9)
    • “Drive them out” vs “utterly destroy” is a 3:1 ratio in occurrence
  • Bottom Line: This view holds that God was allowing the Canaanites to repent or leave and then those that did not flee were put to the sword. However, not every single person in every single conquest was destroyed. 

Closing Thoughts
- God orchestrated a unique time in history whereby the Israelites were deputized to execute God’s judgment limited to those living in Canaan
- God’s justice is based on wickedness, not race. God eventually uses the Assyrians and Babylonians to evict the Israelites from the land the exact same way because they practiced the same sins later.

• Numbers 33:50-56 When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, thenyou shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places…  ⁵⁵ But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. ⁵⁶ And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”

- This type of holy warfare is certainly not valid

•  God has given the sword of justice to the government (Romans 13)

• “We no longer kill to Make God known, we now die (lay down our lives) to make God known” – John Piper