Revering the Word
Deuteronomy 20 Why did God have them destroy other nations?
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Deuteronomy chapter 20 and it's one of those harder chapters to take in. It's really important to understand that we are reading about a season of history that's a different season, a different dispensation. It is the people of God in the desert before they take the promised land under the Mosaic Covenant. They're living under the old covenant, the old agreement that God has. Now today we live under a new agreement, a new covenant which God has made through Jesus Christ. And now we interpret the old through the lens of the new. The Old Testament is still the foundation of our Bible and it's still the same God that we are worshiping but now God has given us a further revelation of who He is in Jesus Christ and now God has made us a covenant of grace and forgiveness through the cross. And we treat our neighbor differently than they did here in the Old Testament. What we're going to see here is how God had designed for Israel to wipe out the land of Canaan and then also how they would treat other cities that were not part of the Holy Land that God was giving them. And it's a it's a very harsh and significant thing and we get the reason why God wanted them to do it this way and I want to provide a little bit of seasoning to that. But if we turn Deuteronomy verse 18 after He asks them to destroy the people and the cities that they're about to go. He says so they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods so that you would not sin against the Lord your God. And what you have to remember is that back in the beginning God created Adam and Eve and he said I've made you in my image and likeness and I want you to be fruitful and multiply and that has been what God has been after. He has wanted a people to reflect who He is and that they would be fruitful and multiply and that He would develop a nation of people that would be a reflection of who God is of His goodness, His love, His character and that we would be multiplying that. Well when Adam and Eve sinned they brought sin into the race of mankind and they were banned from the proximity of God and from the Garden of Eden and man multiplied but man multiplied a very sinful version of God's creation and it got so bad that they were only doing corrupt wicked things all the time and that's when God flooded the earth and He began again through a righteous man named Noah. Sadly though Noah still had the same sin problem that we had even though he was a largely a good man and you know sin still multiplied you know mankind has never been able to rid themselves of this sin problem and in Israel you know never was really able to create a nation that honored him but you know God at first began to try to develop this holy nation through Adam and Eve then when that failed and they multiplied sin after they got kicked out of the Garden then he started over through Noah and when that failed then he started you know through a family Abraham's family and now what he's trying to do is do it through the Old Testament law through of Moses that he's giving them and he's he's desiring that they would obey what he's commanded and that they would still become this holy nation and in God being the creator of all things he has a right to declare what his objective is and his objective is is to create a holy nation that would honor him and that would obey him and he knows that if they don't if they intermix with the people of the land of Canaan who are worshiping all kinds of false gods that this thing that he's doing is going to fail so he wants them to create a space where they can live and not worship false gods so that's very important to him this is what God is trying to establish and and unfortunately it is going to fail and I think part of the failure of that is to show us that we need God that we can't do it on our own you know if you aren't sure of it already all have sinned and false sort of the glory of God there's no one righteous not even one as we read in the book of Romans we we as people have a problem with sin and what we really ultimately need is we need Jesus we need the cross we need his grace we need his forgiveness because none of us can live to the standard of God so we need the forgiveness of God through the cross following his own rules and sacrificing Jesus as the Lamb of God then what we receive is we receive the Holy Spirit and we are enabled today to live a holier life than the people that have gone before us because God now makes us born again and he puts his spirit to live inside of us what I say that that means that we are totally achieving the objective of being a holy and righteous people no we perfectly forgiven but no we still struggle to to bring that about and that's what I believe what God's going to do not only through the tribulation through the rapture through the tribulation but then through the millennial reign and ultimately into the new heaven and the new earth God is going to bring a lot as objective he is going to have a holy nation he's going to have to do it himself completely and he is going to obtain his objective in the end but in this dispensation in history right here he's trying to do it through his people by creating a nation where they're not intermixing with other people with false gods and therefore he has those people wiped out from their midst now although it's the same God we have a further revelation of what God desires for us today through Jesus and this is not something that he's asking us to do today today we are to win the world of Jesus Christ we're to make disciples of all nations were to be his witnesses in Jerusalem Judea and Samaria into the ends of the earth so although we're reading about something that God did in this season of history it's it is part of biblical history it's part of understanding who God is and what he's after but it's not something that he's asking us to do today and that's what we have to understand when we bring a New Testament lens to the Word of God so that's going to help us understand this passage today but let's go ahead and take it in now Deuteronomy chapter 20 when you go to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you do not be afraid of them for the Lord your God who brought you up from the land of Egypt is with you when you are approaching the battle the priests shall come near and speak to the people he shall say to them hero Israel you are approaching the battle against your enemies today do not be fainter did do not be afraid or panic or tremble for them for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you the officers shall speak to the people saying who no this so so first of all the priest even has a part in this and calming the people down and letting them know that God is with them and God you know miraculously defeated Israel's enemies on many occasions and it showed the glory of God in the power of God in doing that and we'll see that as we head through the book of Joshua and they're not too distant future and listen to this this is interesting who is the man that has built a new house and has not dedicated it let him depart and return to his house otherwise he might die in the battle then another man would dedicate it isn't that interesting he's like as though if you had a new house you didn't have to fight it's as though really it's like God's like doesn't need everybody and if you have a really legit excuse to not be in battle he's like that's fine then don't fight because I can do it without you that's how I'm interpreting this listen to this who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not begun to use its fruit let him depart and return to his house otherwise he might die in battle and another man would begin to use his fruit and it it's you know in leadership a lot of times people have excuses for why they don't do things and it's almost like God's like not gonna fight against them fine if you want to make a bunch of excuses go back to your house go back to your vineyard I don't want to deal with it and he's gonna fight with those who are not gonna make excuses listen to this and who is the man that is engaged to a woman and has not married her let him depart and return to his house otherwise he might die in battle and another man would marry her then the officers and if that's not enough listen to this then the officers shall speak further to the people and say who is the man that is afraid and faint-hearted let him depart and return to his house so that he might not make his brother's hearts melt like his heart it's like if you're gonna be a coward I don't need you to fight I'll fight with the people who are ready to fight with me and we'll have enough because the Lord God will be with them I just that that's just really an interesting teaching there I don't think you see that very often in military leaders but God knew what he could accomplish even without these people who didn't want to fight when the officers have finished speaking to the people he shall appoint commanders of armies at the head of the people first ten when you approach a city to fight against it you shall offer terms of peace now this was for cities that weren't directly in the the promised land but cities around it because the cities in the promised land they were supposed to annihilate but other cities around it they could give them terms of peace if they would accept it if if it agrees if the city agrees to make peace with you and opens to you then all the people who are found in that shall become your forced labor and shall serve you however if it does not make peace with you but makes war against you then you shall besiege it when the Lord your God gives it into your hand you shall strike all the men with the edge of the sword only the women and children and the animals and all that is in this city and all its spoil you shall take as booty for yourselves and you shall use the spoilful of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you which are not of the cities of the nations nearby so this is only for these cities that are around the promised land but not in the promised land only in these cities of the people shall the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance shall you not leave anything that breathes but you shall utterly destroy them the hit tight the amorite the Canaanite the perizite the hivite and the jubusite as the Lord your God has commanded you now this is what we where we began why is God asking him to annihilate these cities in the promised land here's what it says so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods so that you would sin against the Lord your God can you imagine if you were you know trying to set up a holy nation amidst a bunch of people who are worshiping Satan and all kinds of pagan false gods and they're entrenched in all this false worship and now you're just going to try to set up a holy nation in the midst of that God knew it wouldn't work and that's why he is asking them to do what he's asking them to do when you besiege a city a long time to make war against it in order to capture it you shall not destroy its trees kind of interesting by swinging an axe against them for you may eat from them and you shall not cut them down for is the tree of the field a man that it should be besieged by you only the trees which you know are not fruit trees you shall destroy and cut down that you may construct siege works against the city that is making war with you until it falls and siege works you know it's kind of interesting I guess the my best understanding and forgive me of that but I don't know how else to do it is movies you know when they would come with big ramming logs and try to ram down the gates of cities or even have logs that would allow them to climb climb up the log to get up to the wall of a city basically these trees were used as a means to help you know Israel or help anyone who was attacking a city that was fortified they would use trees to do that but God is saying don't cut down the fruit trees you're gonna want to eat of those so that I can bless you with that fruit but you can cut down the other trees to use as siege works so there you have it I hope we've seen these chapters before in our midst and I've talked about them before but God has a right to want to give Israel a chance to develop a holy nation he's after us to be a greater reflection of who he is and he wants us to be fruit from multiply that's the mission of God but he wants us to be fruitful multiply people that love him that follow him that obey him and he does not want us intermixing with the world so that we become more like the world but today we do live in this world but what we're trying to do is get the world to know and follow our Lord and Savior Jesus so we need to be in this world but not of it may we not melt into the pagan practices of the world around us but may we lead the world around us to our Lord Jesus Christ hallelujah God bless you all