[Music] why was it right for God to slaughter women and children in the Old Testament how can that ever be right it's right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases God gives life and he takes life everybody who dies dies because God wills that they die so God is taking life every day he will take 50,000 lives today life is in God's hand God decides when your last heartbeat will be and whether it ends through cancer or whether it ends through a bullet wound God governs so God is God God rules and
governs everything and everything he does is just and right and good God owes us nothing if I were to drop dead right now or a suicide bomber downstairs were to blow this building up and I would be blown to smithereens God would have done me no wrong he would have been done David no wrong he does no wrong to anybody when he takes their life at age two weeks or at age 90 92 God doesn't is not beholden to us at all he doesn't owe us anything now you add to that that were all sinners
and we deserved to die yesterday and go to hell the fact that we were even breathing today is sheer common grace from God so I could make the question harder as it was stated it doesn't feel hard to me because God was stated as the actor but if I make it harder I'll take longer than three minutes to answer the question and you don't want me in this session so I think my basic answer is the Old Testament and the new presents God as the one who has total rights over my life and over my
death the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord how he takes away is his call he never wrongs anybody John how would you state it to make that question harder and question makes it harder as that he commands people to do it he commanded Joshua to slaughter people okay so you got human beings now killing human beings and so now you've got a moral question for what is right to do so Bible says thou shalt not murder and God says to Joshua go in and clean house and
he's and don't leave anything breathing don't leave a donkey breathing don't leave a child breathing a woman breathing an old man or Oman or a donkey just wipe out Jericho and and so then then my answer is there is a point in history a season in history where God is the immediate king of a people Israel difference and the way he is the king over the church which is from all the peoples of Israel and does not have a political ethnic dimension to it so there was a political ethnic dimension he is immediate king and
he uses this people as his instrument to accomplish his judgment in the world at that time and God it says let the sins of the Amalekites accumulate for 400 years so that they would be full and then he sends his own people in as his instruments of judgment so I would vindicate Joshua by saying in that setting with that structure of people and and God it was right for Joshua to do what God told him to do and that is annihilate the people but that's much more complex morally than saying God doesn't meet he can
cause a flood and kill everybody on the planet except eight people and he didn't do a one of them anything wrong but he didn't ask anybody else to do that so whatever God uses others right now an example would be that God has given the sword to the government so I believe that the government has a right to take a rapist and a murderer and put him in jail or to kill him no I think capital punishment is consistent with Genesis 9 and consistent with God's character because of the value of man the blood of
a man shall be shed for taking the blood of a man but that's very different than saying anybody can go around killing people so God has his times and seasons for where he shares his authority to take and give life and the church today is not Israel and we are not a political entity and therefore the word we have from the Lord today is love your enemy pray for those who abuse you lay your life down for the world don't kill in order to spread the gospel die in order to spread the gospel you
