Sermon Tone Analysis

Why Did God Command the Destruction of Nations?

Part 2

So here are the four doctrines, or topics, that we are looking into to help us understand this passage:

The holiness of God

Sin (and the dangers it brings)

God’s Wrath

God’s Sovereignty (In everything, including salvation)

We return this morning to that very difficult passage we began to look at last week, with the question we are attempting to answer: “Why did God Command the Destruction of nations?”

The reason for the question, of course, is because the passage we are studying, and also some other passages of scripture, can cause us to pause, or they can cause people who are new to the faith, or those who are against the faith to say something like this: “how can a loving God command the destruction of nations?”

Of course, along those lines there is also the objection people have to hell and God’s punishment of the wicked.

If he loves everyone, how could he do this?

But as we began to see last week, to ask this question shows a lack of understanding in the holiness of God, how sin brings danger, including God’s wrath, and that ultimately, God is indeed sovereign over all things, including salvation.

Of course, that bothers people as well, since if he is sovereign to save some he is also sovereign in not saving others.

We will be looking at that in a couple of weeks, Lord willing.

So let’s start by looking at this passage once more, and then we will get into our topic, which is Sin and the danger it brings.

God, in this passage, is telling the Israelites that when they enter the Promised Land, they are to wipe out all those people groups mentioned.

If they waved the white flag, they were not to be given quarter.

They were not to be given a peace treaty.

They weren’t even supposed to be captured and used as slaves.

No mercy was to be shown.

Israel was to devote them to complete destruction.

And they were not to intermarry with them, because they were an idol worshiping culture, and they would be a bad influence on them.

Just as a parent may warn their child that they should not hang out with friends who are bad influences, or to date only people who share their same beliefs, God was warning the people of Israel that there is a real and present danger in associating with people who are worshiping a pagan, Satanic religion.

When you do that, you may not bring them to belief in Yahweh, but they are likely to cause you to compromise your faith or leave it altogether.

This is why parents in the church used to warn kids against a concept that was called evangelism dating.

A girl sees a guy they think is pretty nice, yet he does not have faith in Jesus, but the girl thinks that through dating him, he will be converted and they will live happily ever after as a happy Christian couple.

Yet what is just as likely or perhaps more likely to happen, is that the girl, to please this guy she has a crush on, will compromise her own values to keep him, and often this means disastrous consequences.

So when we look at answering this question, our topic this morning is sin and the consequences that come with it.

We will look at three thoughts about sin’s consequences that apply to this passage.

First, That when we spend time around it, we will be more likely to do it.

Second, That sin separates us from God, and Third, which will carry us into next week’s topic, Sin Provokes God’s Wrath

The more we spend time around sin, the more likely we will be to sin

Sin separates us from God

Sin provokes God’s wrath

We will consider these three consequences from two angles: First, as they pertain to the reason God commanded the destruction of those nations, and Second, as they pertain to the duty of every Christian to put their sin to death.

The more we spend time around sin, the more likely we will be to sin

This is the reason given on why the people were not to intermarry with the pagans.

Deut7.3-5

I mentioned last week that these cultures were among the most depraved cultures on earth at the time.

We can imagine the high level of sin because our own culture reflects much of this.

So it is today.

If a child is growing up in a Christian home and trained as a Christian, but spends most of their time in the world, and if most of their education comes not from their family but from secular sources, then the same could happen.

They could be turned away from their family values and be found to be serving other gods.

Yet if this is true for the children, isn’t also true for the adults?

And yet many adults would claim that the things they hear, read, and see do not have an effect on their own moral compass.

It simply isn’t true.

I had a Christian man once tell me he was unaffected by nudity in movies.

And this reflects the attitude of many who think that their exposure to the sinful parts of the world will not impact their own actions.

Yet, we all know that this cannot be true.

In fact, what we spend our time thinking about impacts our emotions, and our thoughts will ultimately play out in our actions in some way or another.

This is why our recent D6 lessons are so important.

We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

We are to think about those things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise.

You will hardly see any of these on your cable news networks, nor on Twitter or Facebook.

You won’t find them in most places.

You have to look for them.

Yet how many times do we end up focusing many of our daily hours on these things, and at the same time not focusing on things like Paul writes about in Philippians 4:8?

You see, it isn’t enough to avoid the negative, you need to search out the positive as well.

The more time we spend around sin, the more likely we are to partake in that sin.

And that includes the sins that happen in our thoughts, because ultimately those thoughts will affect our actions.

You can see this happening in the political arena today.

Both of the two main parties have particular new sites that their folks go to.

Both of them portray their opponents as enemies who are dangerous to America.

Both of them stir up anger and hatred at every bill passed, every election won by the opponent.

Their fundraising is most effective when it is negative and paints the opponents as enemies.

And I don’t care which side you are on, if you spend a lot of time watching those shows, or reading those blogs, or however you engage with this, your mind will become very negative very fast.

And just like those people of influence in the political arena, you yourself will begin to see others as an enemy rather than as someone who just disagrees with you.

Instead of having a discussion to try to win the over, you will end up not talking at all, or if you do, you may end up shouting at someone.

But if you are in Christ, this cannot be who you are.

And if you are that person right now, who has been sucked into the lie that people who disagree with you are automatically an enemy, you need to recenter your thoughts to be in line with God’s word.

You see, we don’t put on the armor of God to fight people, we put it on to fight evil, beginning with the evil inside of ourselves.

I gave the example of the political landscape today as an example.

Remember the main point, that what we spend time thinking about will affect our emotional state, and ultimately our actions as well.

Do not spend too much time thinking about what makes you angry or sad or scared or anxious, but replace those thoughts with the good things of God.

And in Deuteronomy 7, God’s people are told, if you do not remove this sin from your midst, it will take you down.

And that is another reason why God was right to tell them to eliminate those sinful people.

It really was not the people that were the enemy, it was the sin that they lived in.

If those people had been morally upright and of good character, then this necessity would not have been there.

But God’s people were to be holy people.

Remember holy means set apart.

They were set apart for God, and they were to set themselves apart from the world.

We end up being affected by the sin around us, so we must be careful with we expose ourselves to.

Paul told the Corinthian church that they cannot avoid entirely the sinfulness of the world, or they would have to leave the world altogether.

Sometimes you will hear a Christian say, when challenged about the activities they participate in, that they are there for the evangelistic opportunity of being with sinners.

“Jesus ate with sinners” they will say.

So they justify taking part, if not in the sin itself, with being around it.

And yet, could anyone say they have the capacity of Jesus to stay clean in the midst of the sinful people?

And can anyone say that they, like Jesus, spend hours each day in prayer and meditation on God’s word?

Don’t fool yourself to think that because Jesus ate with sinners, you are safe in spending most of your time in places abundant with temptation.

Until you model the devotional life of Christ, you may be in great danger if you try to model his evangelistic life by spending all your time among the sinful people of the world.

Instead, spend most of your time with fellow believers, and in God’s word, and in prayer, so that when you do go out into the sinful world, you will have armed yourself with the armor of God that protects you from the spiritual attacks that will come.

And watch out for the anger all around us.

Anger about politics, anger about the economy, anger about the people around you that can’t seem to figure things out the way you were intelligent enough to figure them out.

James1.20

Our next main point is that sin separates us from God.

This is illustrated first in scripture in the very beginning.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they no longer could have full fellowship with God as they had before that.

Isaiah 59.2

David realized his sin had separated him from God when he confessed.

He linked his plea for forgiveness to a desire to be restored to fellowship with God: “Cast me not away from your presence”.