How Could God Order The Destruction Of The Canaanites?

Introduction

Good morning. If you will, open in your Old Testament with me to Deuteronomy chapter 20. Deuteronomy chapter 20. And as you’re turning there, I’d like to thank everyone for the wonderful, peaceful atmosphere we have together as Christians, worshiping our great God. I’m also mindful and thankful for the peace that is unique to the summertime because next week beginning, and this is perhaps my biggest problem with Ken, college football starts, and if you could believe it, he’s an Alabama fan. So we need to practice forgiveness pretty soon. In Deuteronomy chapter 20, though, when it comes to the people of God in the Old Testament, we think of Israel. And when we think about how they were to be unified, they were unified in a cause. That is, that they were God’s people.

They had a holy relationship to him, as he laid out the standards for. And if they would trust him, if they would be strong and courageous, they could enter the promised land. In Deuteronomy chapter 20, beginning in verse 16, though, we have an issue that we need to understand. 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. 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, 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.

You see the problem, of course, embedded in verse 16. With regards to these cities, they shall save alive nothing that breathes. And certainly, while there is a list of peoples in verse 17, it is not an exhaustive one, but it sufficed to represent the nations that were in the promised land, the land that God had promised to Abraham that his descendants who became Israel, that land that they would receive as an inheritance. We have this question that is raised over and over, and I will acknowledge that I’ve been asked this by Christians, non-Christians, we’ve addressed it in Bible class form. It comes up because it is a question that matters. And I do want to discuss from the outset why we would take a time in a sermon to discuss this question.

How could God order the complete destruction of the Canaanites? How could a good, holy, and loving God look at a people and say, leave alive among them no one that breeds? You see the problem there, don’t you? We have a question as Christians of a question of faith. Is this my God? Is this the God that I believe in? Does the God that I believe in order that other people be put to death in order that his people can reign in their place? And moreover, if you if this question does not bother you, if you are strong in your faith on this, then you say that God has this prerogative, you’re right. But I want us to be able to articulate that to a second group of people who struggle with this question greatly, and that are atheists.

A great many atheists have named this question, whether in honesty or not, whether in all sincerity or not, that this question prevents them from believing in the Christian God, because it doesn’t reconcile with the New Testament they claim. Because no God that they would want to worship would order as they claim a genocidal God or a genocidal being in the sky, depending on how respectful or disrespectful the person you’re conversating with is. So I want us to know how would we answer this question? How would we come to an understanding in my faith? How can I know who God is? And also how can I communicate that to someone else who might be struggling with this in a very real and sincere way? I want to start by looking four quick observations about the study before we really dive into the details.

1. Four Quick Observations About the Study

First of all, to our atheist friends who we’re discussing this with, if there is no God, on what basis would murdering or killing anyone be evil anyway? Right? You see the initial problem to someone who says, I don’t believe that there is a God, but your God is mean, your God kills, your God is genocidal, your God murders, whichever particular word with its important definitions you attach to it. What is the problem there? Well, to someone who doesn’t believe in God, there is an absence of a true morality. There is no standard. And so immediately this causes a problem. Just, it doesn’t disprove it, it’s just the initial observation. If there is no God, how can we call any act evil? Secondly, consider with me one of the biggest challenges that atheists pose, and again, people of sincere efforts to understand God pose is why does God not intervene in the world when bad things happen?

Where was God on 9-11 when the planes flew into the world trade towers? Where was God when all those people died? You name the world example, you name the destruction, and people say, where was your good and loving God then? Allow me just to raise the question, or at least the idea that you can’t question where is God when evil happens, and then when you study evil happening like it was in great number and uh into unfathomable links in the Canaanite nations, then question what God does to stop that evil. This morning we’re going to discuss how evil and how wicked the Canaanite nations were. And what we see there is that God was stopping the evil. God was stopping the unimaginable horrors and lack of morality that was practiced by each and every one of these groups in the promised land.

So we can’t both question why God allows evil and then question his method for stamping it out. That’s inconsistent reasoning. You can choose one, but you can’t choose both and be a fair-minded person. Consider third with me. And this is perhaps most important. Our creator has the divine right to give and to take life.

Verse 10, beginning of Job chapter 34. Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong. For according to the work of a man he will repay him, and according to his ways he will make it befall him. Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice. Who gave him charge over the earth, and who laid on him the whole world? If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to dust. The idea is clear in Job chapter 34. Who gets charge over life and death? God. Who put God in charge?

No one. God is eternal. God is in charge because God has always been and will always be our creator, our eternal heavenly Father to those who seek him. God has this individual right. And if you continue in verse 16, if you have understanding, hear this. Listen to what I say. Shall one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty? Who says to a king, worthless one and to nobles, wicked man, who shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor? For they owe all the work of his hands. In a moment they die. At midnight the people are shaken and pass away. And the mighty are taken away by no human hand. Here’s the beauty of our God who is in charge.

Not just that he is there, not just that he is in charge, but that our God is just, that he is not partial, verse 19 shows. God doesn’t show partiality to princes. He doesn’t show partiality to the rich. He blesses all with the same measure of love and outstretched justice and mercy as he does others. So what we need to know about our God is, frankly, he has the ability to give and take life, and no one can question him on that, because he is the God who gave us the life that we’re talking about. And one final point, even if it was granted that there was some standard of morality which there is not without God, even if it was deemed that it was an atrocity, which it is not, as we will determine in the Bible record, exactly why God issued this order.

But even if it was an atrocity, can we understand that even if God was mean, that does not disprove the idea that God exists. That may change your idea of wanting to worship him. It may change our way of understanding the Bible record. But a mean God is still God. A mean creator is still a creator. Now the beauty is we have a loving, merciful creator. We have a just and living and loving God. That’s who we serve. And that’s the God that we are under. But if it was proved that God was mean or that God was evil, he would still be a God. So as we get through that, let’s talk about the Canaanites for a minute. Go back to Genesis chapter 15. I think it’s critical to see this.

2. God Knew About This Long Before

In Genesis chapter 15, the first point I want us to make in setting this question with others, and even for our own faith, is to determine that God knew about this long before these nations even fully developed into the sin and evil that they practiced. All the way back in Genesis chapter 15, and if you know anything about Genesis chapter 15, you know that God is speaking with Abram before who was born. Before even Isaac was born. Now, if you remember, it took Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob and Esau before you even get to the twelve sons of Jacob, who had his name changed to Israel. So we are centuries before Joshua’s conquest through the land of Canaan. And note what God tells Abram in Genesis chapter 15, beginning in verse 12.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. But note verse 16 with me carefully. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation. Why? For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Canaanites, the Kenesites, the Cadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gergeshites, and the Jebusites. Surely you see, even amongst the mispronunciation of those names, the similarity of those mentioned in Deuteronomy chapter 20. But when you see in verse 16 that the Israelites who were in Abraham’s offspring, who were this promised nation that was made to Abraham all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, they would inherit the land, the promised land when what happened in verse 16, when the iniquity of the Amorites was complete. Now, when you think about verses 12 and 13, God points out that not only are the people of Israel going to be a nation, but first they’re going to be stuck where?

They’re going to be stuck in Egypt, a land that is not theirs. They are going to serve the Egyptians for 400 years. And what would God do with the Egyptians when that time had elapsed? What does the text say in Genesis chapter 15 that would happen in verse 14? But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve. Not only did they come out with the great many possessions that God told Abram they would, but God brought judgment on the Egyptians. He brought judgment on Pharaoh. He brought judgment in particular on the so-called gods of Egypt that the people were worshiping and submitting to, instead of Jehovah, instead of the one true and living God, who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses and Joshua as well.

We need to understand about the Canaanites, that God foretold of their wickedness. The clear indication from Scripture from seeing both the before and the after is that God knew there would be a point where the evil of the Amorites, taken as a placeholder for the people in the land of Canaan, would develop to a point in which it was complete. And what does God do? Both having the prerogative of our Creator and being the just and living God with people who are surrounded by and inhabited with wickedness. He will judge them. He will punish them. This was foretold even before the people of Israel were a thing, as you might say. Consider the wickedness of the Canaanites, though, both historical and biblical record, make three clear ideas.

3. The Wickedness of the Canaanites

I want us to stand out to see just how wicked they were. First of all, they are heavily involved in pagan idolatry. When we study the Old Testament, we see the people of Israel time and again struggling with foreign gods. Guess where they got those gods from? It was not from the law of Moses. It was from the foreign nations. Look in Deuteronomy chapter 7. In Deuteronomy chapter 7. Note before also they go into the land. Note why did God want these nations destroyed? What was he worried about? What’s the big deal about leaving them alive anyway? Why couldn’t Israel have the land and God just make them all get along? In Deuteronomy chapter 7, beginning in verse 1. When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you were entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gergashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you.

And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. Why, God? Verse 3 and 4. You shall not enter marry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you and he would destroy you quickly. What was God worried about? That these nations would intermingle with the Israelites, and that we have a nice big society. Not at all. God was worried if they gave them their sons, if God gave them their daughters, what would happen?

It would turn their hearts away from God. And in verse 5, but thus you shall deal with them. You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their ashram and burn their carved images with fire. God says, get rid of the foreign gods. And we know that God is the only God. We know that He has no room or no purpose for false gods. But I want to talk about these false gods that the Canaanites worship. This was not just some people who bowed down before some wooden statues. What was involved in the pagan idolatry of the Canaanites was sexual immorality of the grossest manner. What was involved in pagan idolatry was some of the worst imaginable sins that you could even think of in an hour session because it involved bestiality and human sacrifice.

That’s what characterized these nations that we stick up for with such great fervor. The Canaanites, as a large people, not just as the one group that would be mentioned in this verse or that. The people who inhabited the promised land were heavily involved in pagan idolatry that often led to bestiality and yes, human sacrifice. Here is the Canaanite god Molech. This is a perhaps idea of what it or he looked like. But if you notice, there is a spot in which Molech is a unique God because he took a certain type of sacrifice. Do you know what sacrifice that was? He took human sacrifice. He took ch their children being sacrificed. My favorite Bible story, one of the worst kings up until the point at which he humbled himself and changed, is King Manasseh.

In 2 Chronicles chapter 33, among the litany of things that Manasseh did to violate God’s will and to spit in the face of the God who gave him this reign over the people of Judah, Manasseh offered his sons to the valley of fire. He offered his sons to a foreign God. Where did that idea come from? Whether it was Molech exactly or not isn’t the point. The idea is that this pagan idolatry was not just a rejection of God. It led to a nation of people that were caught up in all sorts of immorality, ranging in any type of effort of sin that you can possibly fathom. This was a wicked people who were backwards in every sense of the way.

These are people who historians write were better people than their own gods. The people of the land of Canaan were considered to be more moral than the gods that they worshiped and sacrificed their children to. We need to understand that about the Canaanite people. And that’s why in Deuteronomy chapter 18, if you’ll turn there with me, God takes such a strong stance. In Deuteronomy chapter 18, beginning in verse 9, note that God warns the people of exactly that type of characterization. In Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 9. When you come into the land that the Lord your God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.

Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. Note this part in verse 12. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. What’s the answer? Why is God driving the people out? Why is He telling the Israelites to leave aside nothing that breathes? Because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

Have you noticed the theme time and again that goes beyond just that the Israelites were going to inherit the land of Canaan? It was that they were to push through and bring judgment on the nations, to not be involved in their pagan idolatry, to not be involved in their necromancy. By the way, this list is something entirely that Manasseh violated almost at every detail and every turn. But as we see this, when we come back to our original text, we know why in verse 16, God would say to leave alive nothing that breathes. Why in verse 17? Because all of these nations did as the Lord your God has commanded you to devote them to complete destruction. Because if they did not, in verse 18, they may teach you to do according to their abominable practices.

If you do not wipe them out, they may teach you to do as they have done for their gods. And you would sin against the Lord your God. Have we seen the concept of sin come up time and again in this study? God didn’t just arbitrarily wipe out the people. We know from Job chapter 34, and certainly in the New Testament and Acts chapter 10, that God is not an impartial God. He is impartial. He loves all people. In Jonah chapter 3, we see Jonah goes to the Ninevites. Those are people of the Assyrian nation. And God has a message for them repent, or you will be led into destruction. And they repented. And while Jonah should have been happy, we know that the Lord our God was.

4. What About the Canaanite Children?

God cared for the Gentiles, God cared for the Israelites. But he could not stand sin. Consider with me the one sticky subject of this, though, is what about the Canaanite children? Because for people who don’t actually want to discuss this, they want to get straight to the point that makes us squirm, that makes us think, how is that fair? Certainly the Canaanite children didn’t have sin. Certainly the Canaanite children weren’t practicing all this pagan idolatry. But when we note what Jesus does with these children in Matthew chapter 18, he says, To such belongs the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew chapter 19 and verse 14, the same idea is there. But look in 2 Samuel chapter 12 and know what did David, a man after God’s own heart, understand about his child?

In 2 Samuel chapter 12. In 2 Samuel chapter 12, of course, this is the fruit of the sin of David in Bathsheba and David in Uriah. As David repents, he is told that he is forgiven, but nonetheless in verse 14, the child who was born to them would die. But note, what does David understand about the child who was born of sin? And this passage in and of itself is a problem for many. They say, how can God take the life of an innocent child? Certainly the child of David in Bathsheba did not participate in the sin. But in verse 23, when the child was dead, what was David’s response? But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.

We know David from the authorship of the Psalms knew he was going to be with the Lord. He was going to be with God. And in verse 23, he recognizes that this wasn’t the end of his relationship with his child. Where would he see his child again? In the wonderful, loving arms, in the presence of our eternal Heavenly Father. That’s our God. Our God is showing a divine streak of mercy and allowing these Canaanite children to have the ultimate blessing that we as Christians must want ourselves. We have to be striving to be with God every day. We have to be of the mindset that we want Jesus to return again, because that shows us our priorities are right and that we want to be with God now.

And this was an advantage that the Canaanite infants and children were able to enjoy. They were able to be with God. And the truth is, God spared them in so doing a life that was likely going to be filled with the same corruption of their parents. We know that because if you look at world religious statistics, if you are a Muslim, most often your children grow up to be Muslims. If you’re a Christian, even, most of your children grow up to associate with something that our senses people deem Christianity. But when you consider Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 16, that there’s a point in each child’s life where we can refuse to do evil and choose to do good. What do you think would have happened with the Canaanite children who grew up with these terribly immoral gods in the arms of the terrible immoral people who raised them?

Perhaps it wouldn’t be all different than the most wise man in the Bible. In 1 Kings chapter 11, you know about Solomon, don’t you? In 1 Kings chapter 11, turn there with me. And note what happened to the wisest man in the world, of course, aside from Jesus. In 1 Kings chapter 11, Solomon, this great king, who had had received this great blessing from God. If anyone should know better, if anyone would be impervious to this type of wickedness and foolishness, it would be Solomon. And yet in 1 Kings chapter 11, note exactly what happens to Solomon. In verse 1, now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people, you shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.

Solomon clung to these in love. We read this law, and if you didn’t believe it would happen, note what happens to Solomon. He had seven hundred wives who were his princesses and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. Verse 4, when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and yet his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Asheroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Malcolm, the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done. And note verse 7 even. Then Solomon built a high place for Kamash, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem.

And so he did for all his foreign wives who made offerings and sacrifice to their gods. If Solomon can fall from this, the Canaanites could, certainly being raised in it and propagating it. Their children may fall into it. And by the way, we need to take the words of wisdom. When God says, stay away from evil, don’t mix with sin, we can fall too. Some of the clear lessons from this study is not only the idea that God is acting in faithful justice, and that he is a keeper of his promises, yes, to the Israelites. But we see God’s mercy. We see God’s love. And we need to make sure that we’re on the side of God. That we recognize that while God is impartial, that I must be pleasing to him, that I must submit my life in accordance to his ways.

5. Judged for Their Wickedness

And so, as we consider two final lessons, why did God destroy the Canaanites? Why did he have their complete destruction? It was because of their wickedness. They were judged for their wickedness. It goes all the way back to when? Genesis chapter 15 and verse 16. At that time, before there even was a nation of Israel, before there was Jacob, before there was even Isaac, God told Abraham what? The iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete. And as we move through the scriptures, we would understand and see that that wickedness, that corruption, their iniquity would grow to completion, and as God always did time and again, he dealt with it. And if you don’t believe that, consider that God handled the Israelites the very same way.

In Isaiah chapter 10 and verse 5 and 6, we see that the prophet Isaiah is told by God that the Israelites would be judged. And we know from both biblical and secular history that the Israelites were taken captive by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians. But when you think about the Assyrians, you have to recognize that this was a militant, ruthless group. These were not a people of God that you would say, well, you know what? God’s just favoring the Assyrians, and yet Isaiah chapter 10 and verse 5, God calls them the rod of my anger. And he used the wicked, Gentile Assyrians against what should have been the good and holy people of Israel. Well, what was the problem? What do we learn about God that applies to our lesson this morning?

That God judges wickedness no matter who violates his law. God is impartial. And while God is loving, he cannot look upon wickedness. And while the Amorites, the Canaanites, and all those nations that you want to name were judged for their wickedness, the time would come and did come, and we think of the date like 722 BC, that the Israelites were found guilty for violating God’s will, for participating in the same wickedness God went to great lengths to tell them to avoid and abstain from. And they were punished. And God did what he has always done, which he uses this world to accomplish his purposes. Because he is the creator. He is the one who has charge of life and of death. God is our everything. God is our Father.

We should love Him like that. We should seek Him as the Heavenly Father. He wants to be of us. When we recognize what the Israelites should have known from taking advantage of God’s command to inherit the promised land, the Israelite nation should have known more than any other because of their unique, one time only theocracy in this life, that God is serious about sin. And that if God is serious about sin, then we better stick to his ways. We need to, as Leviticus chapter 19 says, be holy as our God is holy. But it was when they didn’t violate, when they didn’t keep the command of God. When they violated his sanctions to not be apart, not to intermarry and intermingle with these people who were involved in all sorts of wickedness and corruption, that they themselves fell victim to wickedness and corruption, and God judged them as the guilty people that they were.

Conclusion

And while that explains our question, why did God destroy the people? While it does help us understand our God, it does leave one very important question. What verdict will God render for me? What verdict will God render to you? If, as Peter says in Acts chapter 10, it is true that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. The question that I have to answer, the question we are all responsible for is are we fearing the Lord? Are we doing what is acceptable to him? And there is only one way to know that. That is to study, read, and practice the words of life. God gave the Israelites a unique chance to do that.

And the truth of the matter is, God gave the people in the land of Canaan that opportunity as well. We didn’t focus on that because we focused on the wickedness that they were doing. But God did not punish the people just because they were in the way.

He punished his own people when they violated his will. As Christians, we need to be the bearers of light in a world of darkness, not to get intermingled in it, not to get caught up in it, and allow our light to be diminished, our lights to even be turned off. But we need to be shining bright so that others may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. Praise God that his ways are known. Praise God that he is mercy, he gives great mercy and justice. And praise God for being our eternal Heavenly Father. Will you go in God to pray in prayer with me? Our dear God and most gracious, loving, powerful, everlasting Heavenly Father. We thank you, and we recognize that you are so above us in every possible plane.

That your ways are not our ways, that your thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We pray that we can submit to you and have faith that your way is best and to live out the understanding of that commitment. Forgive us of when we sin, forgive us of when we violate your will. Help us to never compromise on the integrity of what you expect of us. Help us to strive for and achieve the holiness which you have laid out as our goal. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, that we could be cleansed of our unrighteousness, that we could be wiped clean of our sin, and that one day we have a hope of truly being in heaven with you. Help us always, as we strive to understand difficult sections of the Bible, to read it in its entirety, to try to understand its context, to press on to a greater understanding of you.

Help us to be merciful as we want you to be merciful to us. Help us to be loving and just as we wish for you to be loving and just in judging all of us. Thank you for your impartial reign. Thank you for your creation. We pray that we worship you in spirit and truth this morning. It’s in your Son’s name we do pray. Amen. We’re now dismissed to our Bible class period.