DESTRUCTION

Judges 2:3—Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.

How many of us are uncomfortable with God’s Old Testament track record? The fact that He commanded Israel to completely annihilate those who lived in the Promised Land disturbs our sense of decency and contorts our view of His love and mercy. So we glob on to Jesus as the remake of God’s image and in so doing miss His message that He did not come to bring peace but a sword. God did not change, His method changed. The perfect grace-bestowing Son fulfilled the Law man could not keep.

Yet, for God to be a God of grace He must be a God of destruction. For the sin beginning with Adam and Eve is now imbedded in all our DNA. But before we go on, why did God order Israel to wipe out the Canaanites et al.? Was it their insistence in worshiping idols? Just as they resisted being conquered by the Jews, so they persisted in rejecting God. When the Jews failed to dislodge them, they became the thorn and snare the angel described in the passage above. The people Israel refused to destroy seduced her into worshiping hand-carved images, sacrificing children on the altar, blaspheming the Almighty until she was more corrupt than her teachers were.

A sliver of wood penetrated my hand. It was firmly lodged and I gave up trying to get it out. But it became infected. When we allow evil residency should we be surprised when it infects us? God deals ruthlessly with sin because it is rebellion towards Him. To expect Him to be gracious and loving and yet turn His back to sin would be as absurd as failing to practice good hygiene because we want to be fair to the bugs!

We do God a great injustice to judge Him wrong for destroying. First, we cannot see into the hearts of man as He can. Our sin-distorted view prevents us from being wisely objective. Second, the very fact that we question the motives and actions of the One Who created us and label them wrong begs our condition! Third, we are quick to destroy that which offends us. Thus we become hypocritical when we deny God the right we practice ourselves. Fourth, we are uncomfortable with God’s holy hammer when it strikes our ability to please our flesh. The real reason we would rather not see God pound on sin is because there are some sins we like. Besides a lack of faith, the reason Israel did not displace the Canaanites was her fascination with their evil.

While I may not understand God’s methods, I must believe that He knows best and trust that when He asks me to have nothing to do with evil it is for my benefit. If I don’t, then in truth I want to be god. As surely as Israel was corrupted I will be corrupted. We take our cue from Jesus to love the sinner but not the sin. And if we are serious about loving God we give Him permission to cut out whatever is cancerous inside us.

Oh Lord, don’t let me excuse the place of sin in my life. Destroy it! Like the welder, put Your torch to that which is broken so that I will be strong and faithful.

Inspiration

The first thing in salvation is the element of destruction, and it is this that people object to. With this thought in mind, recall what our Lord said about His own mission: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword." {Matthew 10:34} Our Lord reveals Himself as the destroyer of all peace and happiness, and of ignorance, wherever these are the cloak for sin.—Oswald Chambers in The Philosophy of Sin