(music) - There's little question this has been one of the toughest questions Christians have faced through the centuries. This isn't a modern question. It's an older question. But, modern sensitivities
had made the question that much more pertinent. We feel the pain of
this far much more now. One of the hardest things
about it is in fact we see and read of God's own thoughts in the commanding of the
extermination of the Canaanites. Making it feel so much worse is that women and children are
discussed in this context. I think it is shocking
and I think we're supposed to feel the weight of it. The second thing that
makes it so difficult, unlike, let's say, a so-called act of God, a tornado or an earthquake
that kills women and children, is that in this case,
God commands His people to be His agents of extermination. The shocking thing about
that is that His people, they are sinful themselves. There is the difficult
side that we look at but if we are to be honest with the Bible, we have to take a look at
what else the Bible teaches us that is really the other side of the coin. First of all, comes up at the
very heart of this question is this ethically just? Is it even right because of
these women and children? Well, not everyone will
accept this answer. I, myself, before I was a Christian would've hated this answer. The answer is that God
alone is a righteous judge. Will the God of all the
earth judge righteously. You may not or maybe I might not see how reading the
Bible, reading the story of life around me, how God can be just and allow these things to happen. I think there's a biblical
teaching that I hope I can show at least some of the reasons why we should trust
that God really is just in the way He does these things. But, fundamentally, what
the Bible teaches us is that God is just whether
we completely understand how. And that for us to assume
He is somehow unjust is in fact to assume to that we know more about things than we really do. We don't know everything. So, God alone is in a
place of righteousness where He can pronounce these judgements. That's important fundamentally as part of the answer to this problem. Second, we need to understand this was not an arbitrary ethnic cleansing. Indeed, the Bible highlights this as a very important event
in God's rescue plan for the human race, and
more on that shortly. But, in fact, this is a specific judgment on a morally degraded people. We know this not only
from biblical descriptions of what the Canaanite people were like, but from archeology and
the sorts of horrific sacrificial practices,
as just one example, of offering their children to gods in very painful sorts of deaths. In fact, the Bible shows
that God's judgment on the Canaanites was held back. He predicts it 400 years before it happens in the book of Genesis in chapter 15 and describes it as he's waiting until the sin of the Canaanite people is full. A very interesting theological concept. Again, it's not arbitrary. The measure of their degradation was full. This leads, then, to
a very important point I already alluded to. God, beginning with Abraham, has a mission to rescue a sinful human people. It involves fallible and
sinful agents like Abraham, all the way to the present
with people like me. One of the things that's
clear in this extermination, is that God warns that the very people, by that time a whole nation, would be corrupted by the Canaanites if in fact they are allowed to remain. One of the interesting
things that's often mentioned when people stumble over
this question is that in fact the Bible makes
clear that the Canaanites were never fully exterminated, number one. And number two, exactly
what God says happened. Indeed, throughout the Old
Testament the major problem is that over and over
again, the people of God mix the worship of God the
creator, the one true God with Baal or some other
version of Canaanite religion. The judgment was not only righteous, it was part of a necessary attempt to protect the very
people of God He would use as part of His mission. There's another point here, lest it seem unfair that the people of God were told to be the instruments of
His judgment in this case. It is that God judged
His own people, Israel, harsher than He did anyone else. In fact, the story
throughout the Old Testament over and again is that
because of their sinfulness, which is worse than the Canaanites because they knew the one true God. God uses the pagan nations,
the very same kinds of people, whether Egyptians or Assyrians, or earlier Babylonians, to bring judgment on the very people of God. There's a warning here, I think, that we need to think about in conclusion. Jesus tells a story in His day where Jewish thinkers were wondering about natural disasters. Why certain people, let's say, if a tower fell on someone,
God clearly allowed it to happen, they must've
been terrible sinners. Jesus warns and says,
"Don't think that somehow "you're better because this
hasn't happened to you." These things serve as
a warning to all of us who are sinful and this shocking story of the extermination command is in fact highlighted in the very story itself in the book of Joshua with God's rescue of a prostitute Canaanite, Rahab. Because she seeks the
God, the one true God, she is spared and her family. Not only is she spared, she
will become the grandmother of King David and will
end up in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. In fact, she's mentioned
in the book of James, the book of Hebrew. She stands out as a kind
of hero of the faith. It's a foreshadowing of the very, and there are many others in the Bible. This one just gets our attention. But there are many of
these kinds of judgments and they are all around us to this day that we are supposed to be forewarned by. No one gives us a greater
warning of the dangers of the life to come in an unredeemed state than Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus had more to say
about the pending judgment. Yet, He Himself was the
very one who gave Himself a sacrifice that those who believe in Him might be saved. This is the amazing grace,
the other side of judgment that we see in the unique
story that's the Bible. I think if we think of
it in the bigger picture in the light of Jesus' teachings, then I think we actually
see it for what it is. It is a merciful warning. - [Narrator] Thanks for
watching Honest Answers. Don't forget to subscribe
to find out the answer to next Wednesday's question. (music)
