The God Who Kills“How can a good God commission Israel to kill people?

Intro

Well this morning we begin a 3 part mini-series called Tough Stuff in

which we will be looking at difficult questions that people often raise

when they read parts of the Old Testament. My aim in this series is 3

fold.

1) If you are a Christian here this morning who has some feelings of

confusion about God and His character when you read the Old

Testament, I hope that over the next 3 weeks we will able to look at

the Bible together and see the framework of the Old Testament that

shows how consistent God actually is in His character and more than

that how far above us and beautiful God is.

2) Again for all of you who are followers of Christ, what we are

dealing with in this series are some of the objections that non-

Christians often raise as reasons why they are not followers of Christ.

So my hope is to equip you with the Biblical foundations for the

holiness and beauty of God so that you will be able to give some

answers to these questions that you will no doubt face in your

interactions with unbelievers.

1 | P a g e

3) For those of who have not yet put your faith in Jesus Christ and His

death for you on the cross, perhaps some of the stumbling blocks

that you have are questions that arise from the reading the Old

Testament. My hope and prayer is that through this series you might

have a better grasp of what God is and what He has done for you

through Jesus and that you will turn to Him and have eternal life.

That’s my 3 fold aim for this series. What will probably happen

however is that you will leave here with more questions than

answers because we can’t cover every angle… And that’s okay too.

The problem

The question that we are seeking to answer this morning is “how can

a good God commission Israel to kill other people?”

You will know that over the last few months we have been looking at

the story of the Exodus: How God rescued the Israelites from slavery

in Egypt and how He has been leading them to the land that He

promised to give them.

What happens in the end of course, when God rescues Israel, is that

He drowns the Egyptian army that tries to stop them. What follows

this drowning, which is not covered in the book of Exodus, is that

God then sends the people He has rescued from slavery to kill the

nations that occupy the Promised Land that He is giving them.

2 | P a g e

And so these are some of the texts that you read in the Old

Testament:

Deuteronomy 20:16-

16 …in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an

inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.17 Completely

destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites

and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.”

Joshua 10:36-40

“36 Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to

Hebron and attacked it. 37 They took the city and put it to the sword,

together with its king, its villages and everyone in it. They left no

survivors. Just as at Eglon, they totally destroyed it and everyone in

it.

38 Then Joshua and all Israel with him turned around and attacked

Debir.39 They took the city, its king and its villages, and put them to

the sword. Everyone in it they totally destroyed. They left no

survivors. They did to Debir and its king as they had done to Libnah

and its king and to Hebron.

40 So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the

Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with

all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who

breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded.”

3 | P a g e

There are many of these texts in the Old Testament. We don’t have

time to read all of them. Admittedly these texts have caused lots of

people many problems because here are people killing other people

because God said so. How is that okay?

Many people think that it isn’t. Perhaps you are one of those people

here this morning. Listen to the picture of God that one influential

man has drawn as a result of texts like these.

The Atheist Richard Dawkins describes God from the Old Testament

this way:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant

character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,

unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a

misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,

pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously

malevolent bully.”

The case for context

So what shall we say to these things? How are we to understand

these texts?

Well in order to come to grips with any passage of scripture you’ve

got to ask yourself perhaps the most crucial question of all: what is

the wider story in which I find this verse or that verse? What is the

context immediate context? What’s the grand narrative of the Bible?

4 | P a g e

If you don’t do that regularly enough when dealing with difficult

texts, you could well become a Richard Dawkins, you can make up

your own god, you can create Him in whatever image suits your

agenda.

There was an Archbishop from England quite a long time ago who

was invited to visit New York. A reporter asked him if he was going to

visit any of the nightclubs in New York. He was an older man who

was quite shielded from many things as you can imagine and he

replied, “are there nightclubs in New York?” He didn’t know any

better poor guy... Now the newspapers the next morning led with

the headline: “The Archbishop wants to know: are there nightclubs in

New York?”

Can you see what has happened there? Yes, you’ve quoted the

Archbishop word for word but you’ve managed to completely

mischaracterised what he was saying because you did not place it in

its proper context.

And this is what happens with the Bible, especially the Old

Testament, all of the time.

So what I’m going to do for you this morning is outline the broader

story of the Bible and then locate God killing people through Israel

therein. So what is the context then? What is the big story?

5 | P a g e

We are rebels deserving Judgement

The Bible opens by describing for us the creation of the world. It

starts by telling us that God created us human beings with a special

dignity because we were made in His image; we are responsible

because we have been given the capacity to make good meaningful

decisions; and we are deeply loved because we were created in

personal relationship with God. But almost immediately, we turned

around and ruined it all by rebelling against God. From Adam all the

way down to our present day we’ve alienated ourselves from God

and decided that we don’t need Him; we have it all figured out.

If you haven’t seen the movie Interstellar, you must watch it. It

shows that our arrogance is incredible! Spoiler alert, the chief idea

that that movie conveys is that ultimately when you pull back the

curtain to see who is behind the scenes creating and sustaining the

world humanity lives in… you will find… humanity. Lo and behold

behind the curtain is me! Ultimate reality… is us. It’s a fascinatingly

tragic but dead accurate portrayal of our worldview. I love the movie

because it encapsulates the height of human folly and rebellion

against God so poetically and philosophically. It arrives at the

discovery in the end that God is us.

6 | P a g e

This is exactly what the Bible says went wrong with us. Right from

the beginning of the Bible’s storyline, human beings are not

portrayed as innocent neutral explorers trying to cope in a world

that’s wired against them, we are willing and active God-wannabees

and we are the reason that the world is as broken and as messed up

as it is. We are guilty-treasonous-perpetrators who’ve turned their

backs on God, and rebellion against a good God can only bring about

disaster. More to the point, rebellion against a good God can only

bring about judgement from God. And so Genesis 3 says,

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit

from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from

it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat food from it

all the days of your life.18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.19 By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”

7 | P a g e

Rebellion brings judgement. Death ultimately. Dust you are and to

dust you will return, why? Because all you are is the sum of your

material parts as philosophical materialists tell us? Because through

death we can be reincarnated to a better species or person if we

worked well enough according to Hinduism? Because dying is the

natural process of life as naturalists say? Remember Mufasa talking

to Simba about death in the Lion King? “You see Simba, (in that

James Earl Jones voice) when we die we become grass. The antelope

eats the grass and we eat the Antelope and die and become grass. So

goes the circle of life. No, death is not just part of life. Death comes

v17: Because you ate from the tree about which I commanded “you

must not it from it otherwise you will surely die”. You see brother

and sisters, death is the wages of sin. Death is just about the only

thing we know for certain yet our world does not know why we die.

Death is the rightful payment for sin. It’s sin’s gross salary. It’s the

earnings we deserve. It’s the only salary we will never need a union

to receive. It’s what our rebellion earns us and it also comes with the

fringe benefits of the ongoing suffering and frustration that we

experience from day to day. “Cursed is the ground because of you.

through painful toil you will eat food from it

all the days of your life.”

This was not only Adam and eve’s fate…

8 | P a g e

“Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and

in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” Romans

5:12. We are our first parents’ kids.

If you don’t grasp this, if you don’t see our position rebels in God’s

sight, then you won’t be able to make heads or tails of the Bible. If

you do grasp this then it becomes quite the paradox that we would

put God on trial and place ourselves on the judge’s bench and ask

how can a good God do such and such don’t you think? When you

consider the fact that we are not innocent victims, we are culpable

villains against this God it changes the tone of the discussion doesn’t

it? It ought too. Now, when I say “we are not innocent victims, we

are culpable villains” I’m not saying that every bad thing that

happens to you is traceable to something wrong you’ve done. The

Bible doesn’t give us such a 1 to 1 relation. What it does tell us is that

it is our rebellion against God that has shaped the conditions through

which our world yields all kinds of pain and suffering. We’ve aroused

the wrath of God because of our sin. That’s the position in which

humanity finds itself.

Now let’s have a look at what the Bible specifically says about God

sending Israel to kill other people. Who is this Israel? Where does

Israel fit in the big story? The story of Israel, as we’ve discussed at

length over the last few months, is the story of God not giving up on

humanity.

9 | P a g e

You see despite our rebellion against Him, God nevertheless wanted

us... And so He resolved to win us back, He resolved to overcome our

rebellion and sweep us off our feet with His love and mercy, and

captivate us with His beauty and unite us to Himself in a loving

relationship again. That’s the heart of God! Israel’s story is the story

of how God began to establish relationship with a people for the

purpose of reaching out to the whole wide rebellious world (you will

be a blessing to all nations). And so He pursued humanity, beginning

with His pursuit of the nation of Israel and among the promises He

made Israel was the promise that He would one day give them a land

of their own and that’s when the killing will take place in the story.

So, this is what God said to Abraham in Genesis 15, the man God

chose to become the father of Israel:

“ 12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick

and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him,

“Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will

be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be

enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they

serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great

possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and

be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your

descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not

yet reached its full measure.”

10 | P a g e

“17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot

with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On

that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your

descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great

river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites,

Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites,

Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Now… we know that the Egyptian army in 400 years’ time will be

drowned in the Red Sea. What’s the reason that God gives in v14?

God is punishing them for enslaving and mistreating these Israelite

people right?

Have a look at v16: When v16 says you will come back here, it’s

talking about the Promised Land, Canaanite territory. And it’s talking

about Israel coming back to fight and kill the Amorites and all the

other groups that will be living there. Look at the reason that God

gives for their coming back at the specific time that they will be back

(400 years and 4 generations later). What is the reason? “for the sin

of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” In other words,

God will use Israel to bring His judgement on them for their sin… but

only at a time when their sin, in God’s calculation, warrants such a

judgement right? (it has not yet reached its full measure). It’s an

incredible little verse that isn’t it? What it shows us is that God is not

arbitrarily going around executing people willy nilly

11 | P a g e

like some sadomasochistic, bloodthirsty, capricious, malevolent

bully. He is giving sin the wages it deserves, when it deserves it.

Now this is back in Genesis. Abraham hasn’t even had his first son yet

never mind a nation of children. When the time does come some 400

years later for the fully formed nation of Israel to go into the

Promised Land and fight the inhabitants thereof, God spells out

again, loud and clearly why He is putting these nations to death:

Deuteronomy 9:3-5

“But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes

across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he

will subdue them before you (God’s taking full responsibility for their

death). And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as

the Lord has promised you.

“4 After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not

say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of

this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the

wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out

before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or your

integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on

account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will

drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your

fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

12 | P a g e

6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that

the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are

a stiff-necked people.”

The reason for their destruction can’t be clearer can it? God is using

Israel to exact judgement on wicked people. Can you see that? And

just in case you thought like our friend Richard Dawkins that He was

a racist, ethnic cleansing, genocidal maniac because He supposedly

liked the Israelite race and hated the others, listen to what happens

to Israel years after they’ve settled in the Land God gave them when

they too sin against the Lord:

2 Kings 17:5-9

“5 The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against

Samaria (the Northern half of Israel) and laid siege to it for three

years. 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured

Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in

Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.

7 All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord

their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the

power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods 8 and

followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before

them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had

introduced. 9 The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their

God that were not right.”

13 | P a g e

God sent the nation of Assyria and then later Babylon, wicked

nations that God will also judge, to inflict brutal judgement on Israel

and basically enslave them again because of their sin.

Findings

So let me pause there and draw out a couple of conclusions at this

stage.

Firstly, because God is a good God, he does punish wickedness. We

need to grasp the fact that the punishment of evil is a function of

goodness. My teens get this. I often say to them, what would you

make of a judge who lets murderer off the hook just like that? And

they say, that judge is not a good guy. He’s corrupt and unjust. A lot

of people today hate the fact that God judges. People want a God

who doesn’t punish anyone… but a lot of those people at same time

are angry that Shabir Shaik barely touched his sentence for

corruption. They are screaming for our President to have his day in

court. A lot of people who don’t want a God who judges are angry

because they think Oscar Pistorius got a light sentence. They are

outraged by Bill Cosby’s acquittal in spite of the 50 women that came

forward with he did to them.

God would be morally reprehensible if He had absolutely no

intention to punish evil doing; if He couldn’t be bothered by the evil

in the world. Imagine God being unbothered by a guy who rapes a 3

year old baby, or a guy who beats an old lady to death.

14 | P a g e

It is because God is a good God, that he does punish wickedness. The

punishment of evil is a function of goodness.

Secondly, God in the Old Testament, is using Israel as an instrument

to accomplish His justice and He is free as God to do so. We saw that

the wages of sin is death and that God is exacting that death on

sinners through Israel. God has every right to punish wickedness

through any instrument He chooses and He chose to use Israel to

inflict His judgement on some nations because of their sins.

Remember that God is the giver of life and the taker of life. Everyone

who dies, dies because God decided to take their life in the manner

that He chooses. That He used Israel as a means to that end is owing

to His freedom as God and He also made it clear to Israel that it’s not

because they themselves are any less guilty of sin that they are used.

They are simply a vessel.

Thirdly, God is impartial in judgement. Even though He used Israel to

judge other sinful nations, He used other nations too to judge sinful

Israel.

The bottom line here brothers and sisters is that God is good and

because He is good He punishes evil. Judgement of evil is a function

of goodness. And we want evil judged don’t we? Unless that evil is

coming from us.

15 | P a g e

The really puzzling question is not how can a good God put people to

death through whatever means, the questions of questions is why

are you and I are still here? Why hasn’t He wiped us all out because

none of us sitting here can claim to be without sin?...

A lot of people reading these accounts of how God used Israel to

destroy the Canaanites imagine God as this cold-heartless-mean-

machine who sits somewhere in the sky and does this sort of thing

for fun like it’s a game for Him. Nothing could be further than the

truth.

The heart of God

First of all, we heavily underappreciate the gravity of our rebellion

against God, how deeply offensive and painful it is to God and how

great a penalty we deserve for it. To give us a bit of a grasp of His

hurt, in the book of Hosea, God compares Himself to a husband

who’s been cheated on by His wife repeatedly. We heavily

underappreciate the gravity of our rebellion against God.

Secondly, we grossly underappreciate how heart-breaking it is for

God, our Creator, to punish us for our sins. He says to us plainly in

Ezekiel, 33:11 “As surely as I live… I take no pleasure in the death of

the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”

16 | P a g e

And you know, the devastating reality that is revealed in the New

Testament regarding judgement for sin is that the killing that we’ve

just been talking about in the Old Testament was only just a picture

of the real punishment to come, which is eternal conscious torment

in hell. 1 Corinthians 10:11 says, “These things happened to them as

examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the

fulfilment of the ages has come. So if you think you are standing firm,

be careful that you don’t fall.” Why did a good God commission Israel

to kill other people? To give us a demonstration of the judgement

that our sins deserve so that we would turn to Him and cry out for

rescue.

And if you thought the God who kills in the Old Testament makes you

uncomfortable, I’ve got news for you: There’s no one in the New

Testament who spends more time talking about hell than Jesus

Himself. The reason we tend to think the Old Testament paints a

picture of a God more horrifying than what we see in the New is that

physical death is more tangible to us isn’t it? It’s closer. We can see

it. We know it. Whereas hell which is infinitely worse, unimaginably

worse, is nevertheless hard for us to concretely conceive of isn’t it?

So it’s to make a false dichotomy to claim that the God of the Old is

somehow different and more brutal than the God of the New.

17 | P a g e

It’s the same God. What happens in fact is that as revelation

progresses from Old Testament to New, more is revealed to us and

everything is made more clear and vivid and intense…

God is deeply pained by our rejection of Him and He is deeply pained

by subjecting us to His judgement.

And it is because of that tension in his heart that He sent Jesus Christ

into the world to die on that old rugged. The amazing message of

Christianity is that God sent Jesus to bear our sin on the cross and to

bear the guilt of our rejection of God in order that the punishment

that we deserve would fall on Him.

Romans 3:23-26

“23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are

declared innocent freely by his grace through the redemption that

came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of

atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by

faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his

patience he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished

— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to

be just and the one who declares innocent those who have faith in

Jesus.”

18 | P a g e