Good morning. It's great to be with you. Um This is, this topic is part of the hazard of being someone who works primarily in the Old Testament. Uh Things like this happen to you. People want you to talk on violence. Uh The church we were at for years in Louisville. I think the first sermon I ever preached, there was in a series on Genesis and shockingly, the first sermon duty that I pulled there was when circumcision is introduced. So these are the kind of things that happen when you choose to work in the Old Testament. So take that as a warning if this is where you wanna go. These are the kind of topics that you get. Uh, you don't get this in New Testament, they have other issues. But uh this is what you end up getting here. I, I wanna kind of give you a road map for where we're headed today because there's so many places that we could go and so many things that we could do. But I think there are three things that we have to address to think about the topic of violence and specifically violence in the Old Testament. Well, and the first thing I wanna do is I wanna think about the way that violence is introduced in the Old Testament. I wanna do this because I wanna help you read The Old Testament. Well, now you're probably thinking, what do you mean? I'm a fine reader. I read all the time. I read my Old Testament. What I mean by that is that the Old Testament is not always written the way that we would write it. OK. So we want a story to be told for the most part. And then we want the narrator to come in and go. That was sinful. This was good. Do that, don't do that. And The Old Testament is written more like a movie where what it gives you are scenes, you watch someone do something good or bad and then you watch the impact of that and the aftermath of it in your life and then you sit back and go, oh, that didn't work out well. Oh, that was, it was hard but it was good. Look at where it went. And so we get more of that in the Old Testament. So to help us then read, I think one of the things that rarely done when we talk about violence is to ask the question, how is violence introduced in the Old Testament? We'll take just a little peek also how violence ends in the Old Testament to ask the question. What's the set up. What's the framework that we're given for reading about all the acts of violence that take place in the Old Testament? How do we manage that through the lens of how it's introduced to us? And so we'll spend a little bit of time in Genesis thinking about how uh violence is introduced. Then we're gonna take, what is, I think the biggest question when people ask me about violence in The Old Testament, the one that always comes up is the conquest of the Canaanites in the book of Joshua, wiping out cities. And the questions that come are usually, is, is this ethnic violence like we would see today? Is it a form of genocide? Why does this take place? And how on earth can this be a just thing? Isn't this just a land grab? And so we'll look at that and that'll be where we'll spend the majority of our time today. And then I'm gonna suggest that at the end of things, if we are struggling with violence, we actually are probably struggling with the gospel because there is a connection between the gospel and violence of both good and bad that we need to wrestle with today. And so that's where we're kind of kind of end our time. Ok. So how do we read The Old Testament? Well, let's deal with the Canaanites because we've got to, and then let's ask a fundamental underlying kind of question about the gospel and violence. So that's where we're headed for today. So let's think about the introduction of violence in The Old Testament. It's a story that, you know, it's the story of Cain and Abel, our first siblings born into uh humanity and they are having issues. Uh They both bring a sacrifice to God and Cain's sacrifice is rejected. Abel's is accepted. And as a result, Cain's mad and jealous of his brother. So ultimately, he lures his brother out into a field and he kills him. He bludgeons him with a rock. The next thing that happens is God shows up for Cain. This is where we get the famous line, right? You know, so where's your brother? Abel? I, I, I'm not my brother's keeper. I I it wasn't my job to keep an eye on him. That's like I know where he is because I know where his blood is still seeping into the ground. It speaks this judgment to Cain in uh Genesis 4, 11 to 13. And now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You should be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Now, I want you to notice a couple of things about what this does for us. First of us, our first act of violence in the Old Testament and God himself shows up. He's the one who comes to deal with this, the one who comes to say this is wrong and this is going to require punishment and the punishment that's given to Cain intentionally mirrors the punishment that was given to Adam and Eve and their first sin in the garden in the fall. What got them booted out of the garden? What introduced death to humanity and eternal death and separation from God in their sin in the garden that's mirrored here. Notice that the earth is affected, that this land that God has given them is not going to work the same way for Him. That was one of the curses given to Adam and Eve when God dealt with their sin is that this garden that I gave you is no longer where you're gonna live. And now life is gonna be frustrating, work will be inefficient. You're gonna have to kind of fight the earth to get what you need because you poisoned my garden. He continues that theme with Cain and notice that Cain has made a wonder. He's driven. The uh later verse says from the presence of God, the same thing that happened to Adam and Eve in being kicked out of the garden. They're no longer going to enjoy that fellowship with God. So what we see is that the first act of violence is dealt with directly by God and the punishment introduces the same things it did in the garden and then it introduces temporal consequences, things that happen here and now your life as a result of this sin is going to be harder. But it also introduces eternal consequences just in the Adam and Eve also now needed forgiveness of sin. They needed to be reconciled with God because they were now in eternal danger of punishment, they had lost their life giving connection with God. So Cain has as well. So he here now needs forgiveness. And what we notice is that in both stories, even though judgment is poured out, mercy still exists after He pours out judgment on Adam and Eve. What does he do? He closed them. He covers this nakedness that they've created for themselves where now they don't trust one another. He begins to heal and repair that. And for Cain, his ironic worry is that other people might unjustly kill him, which is exactly what he just did to his brother. And God says, ok, I'll spare you that I will make you in such a way that other people will not kill you. So you don't have to worry about becoming a victim like your brother. He extends a mercy that was undeserved to Cain. So as we begin to think about the opening of violence in the Old Testament, it is a sin worthy of God's direct intervention and judgment. It is a sin that brings both temporal and eternal consequences, but it is also a sin from which mercy can arise and be poured out by a loving God. This is the opening. So when we read later acts of violence that may not have an explicit. Did you get that? That was bad. We read it in light of this one, we know that this kind of unjust violence is judged by God. Now we could flip really just a page or two in our Bibles. And we get to what is I think the pinnacle, the very peak of violence in the Old Testament, which is the run up to the flood to look at how the situation unfolds in Genesis. Uh six verse five. And then verses 11 and 13, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of His heart was only evil continually. Now, the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence and God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. So the primary cause of the flood, the greatest in time judgment that we're going to see in all of the text of scripture is primarily targeted at unchecked violence, unjust violence perpetrated one against another. So God pours out and this is where we need to see this because we're gonna have to wrestle with this later. God pours out a just violence and that he brings death to humanity as a means of dealing with unjust violence. And after this life is going to change forever and it's going to change because he's going to say now on the other side of the flood, you, humanity is gonna say this to Noah for the rest of time, you are going to have to deal with violence and at times you'll need to use just violence to deal with unjust violence. Notice what he says in Genesis 96, whoever sheds the blood of man. So whoever commits murder of a fellow human being by man, by humanity, shall the murderer's blood be shed? Why? Because God made man in his image and murder is the greatest affront to the way in which God designed us to be his representatives in the world. So he's like, so this spiraled out before and I brought everything to an end except for you know, and your family. So going forward, you're going to have to deal with this. Now this is one where some folks begin to get a bit squeamish about violence because this idea that violence could be just is oftentimes pushed back on. But there are moments in time and moments in history when we feel this more clearly in a way that we can go. Ok? I get it. We've had a spate of shootings in the US. And one of those that's been really front and forward is the school shooting in Texas. And as people have critiqued the response to that, the critique has never been, they shouldn't have gone in and shot the shooter. The response has been, they didn't move fast enough to use just violence to end this unjust violence that he was doing. See it more broadly and internationally in a situation in Ukraine where the West has been pouring weapons into there saying you deserve to defend yourself, your people and your land against this unjust violence that's being poured out on you. So we have enabled and equipped just violence to push back on it when life is good when life is easy. It's kind of easy to say. I don't like this idea of just violence. I don't get it. And there are all sorts of questions about whether or not violence is done justly, even in the, in the name of the law, those kind of things and those are all questions that we desperately need to ask. Uh the Old Testament. Ask them too. It talks about, do you actually have witnesses for this crime that you know, you're convicting the right person it asks about, have you been bribed? Are, are you using threat of just violence to oppress someone? Ask all those questions that we're asking today. But at its core, it makes the assertion that sometimes just violence is needed to deal with unjust violence. And so this is really where we are today with an idea that unjust violence is always a community issue that we have been tasked since the flood as humanity to deal with violence together. It is part of our job to do that. And so God has tasked us in this way. Now, if I had more time, I would spend a bit with you about how violence ends in the Old Testament. These are some familiar images. You know that Isaiah will talk about that. They'll become a time when the lion lay down with the lamb, cute, fluffy lamb's not in danger of being eaten anymore. You know that there's a time when swords, these implements of war will be refashioned into farm implements, which means we don't need them anymore. We could look at places like Zechariah where God's like, nah, the city is not gonna need walls. Why? Because I'm back among you like I was in the garden and you're perfectly protected. There's no more violence here. We read long before revelation in Isaiah that there'll be a time when there's no more tears. No more death, no more violence. That's its picture of the end. So we find out at the beginning that violence is something that God condemns and judges himself. And then he turns that to us as humanity to deal with it amongst ourselves. And he gives us a picture that it's not a part of who humanity is. It will be undone when sin itself is undone at the end. So now we hope we pray and we wait for an end to violence because it's not inherently part of who we are. So that's how the Old Testament opens up. So everything else you read in between needs to be read through these lenses is the violence that I'm seeing just is the violence that I'm seeing? Unjust, how does it fit in this framework? Is it being deployed in order to counter unjust violence? What's going on here? And we know that it's not the permanent situation of humanity. So this is where we find ourselves. So now we gotta deal with Jericho because this is the one that I always get asked and I wanna frame it this way. I think the big question that people are asking is, how do we deal with divine violence and how do we deal with divinely commanded violence? How do I think about a God who uses violence like the to deal with sin? And then how do I think about it when God commands his people to do that? Whether it's capital punishment being instituted in Genesis nine or sending the Israelites off to war in the book of Joshua. So before we actually get to Joshua though, I wanna ask a few questions and this is part of being a good reader of The Old Testament, those Israelites who are about to march into war into Canaan, what would they have known before they went in? What's in their mind as they're heading in? So I'm gonna start 400 years before Jericho in Genesis chapter 15. Then the Lord said to Abram. So to Abraham 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 afterwards 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 and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Ok? So how did we get to Jericho? We got there because some 400 years before God had chosen Abraham and he made three promises to him. He made a covenant and said, I'm going to give you a nation, you're going to become a nation. He's gonna become his family, the nation of Israel. I'm going to give this nation a land, the land that you're in right now, which is the land of Israel, the land of Canaan at the time. He makes this promise to him that this land I'm giving to you. And he says, and I'm giving you a promise that your family, your offspring will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Now, I'm not doing this now because the sin of the people who live here right now has not reached its peak and I'm not ready to judge it yet. You remember Peter talks about this a day is like 1000 years with the Lord because he's patient. He doesn't want people to perish, he wants them to come to salvation. So he doesn't just judge every act of sin as it happens and fully deal with it. He's patient and gives time hoping that people will come to him in salvation. So he waits. So the Amorites sin is not complete. Amorites, just a synonym for Canaanites. Canaanites were made up of a whole bunch of different peoples. And when you read through all the S JB Sys, hi, all the ones you can't pronounce. They're all Canaanites, right? They're all part of this group. And so he said, well, I'm not ready for that yet. So you're gonna go away. So they know when they are getting ready to head in that they're going in and this battle is gonna be about judging sin when it's ready to be judged. They know also that it's not just to give them a place because they're not the ultimate end of the promise to Abraham. They are merely a conduit or a vehicle for a blessing to the entire world, which would include the Canaanites. They're part of all the nations on the earth. So how this works out. It is for the blessing of all nations, not just the hoarded in Israel, there's a little more that they know before they get there. They also know that God will judge their own sin. You know why? Because this is not the generation that came out of Egypt, the land that they were in where they were slaves when God that brought them out in the Exodus, that first generation sinned against God. And he said, OK, you're gonna live in the desert until all of you die. And he takes the second generation in. So as they stand on the threshold of Jericho, they can look around and mom and dad are not there. Aunts and uncles are not there. Grandparents are not there because they all got buried in the desert because they all sinned against God. So they don't walk in with an idea that we are great. We are mighty, we are righteous and the Canaanites are sinful. We just left a whole generation in the desert because we're sinful. So Moses preaches to them just before they go into the land and you'll start seeing this in Deuteronomy chapter seven. And on it says, why did God choose you because you're great. No, you're the smallest of nations. You don't even have a land yet. You're nothing. He choose you because you're righteous. No. Do we need to talk about the wilderness again? Why did he choose you because he loved you and he wanted to make you a means a blessing all of the earth. That's what they know when they get ready to step into the land becomes pretty hard to view this as ethnic genocide if this is the set up to it. But then we see even more. What I wanna do is I wanna focus on two stories. Some years ago, I was interviewing for a position and one of the guys I was interviewing with knows that I'm not a social media person. Uh I don't do Twitter, I don't do Facebook. I have a linkedin account that I abandon and it's just kind of out there, but that's just not my thing. But he said, we wanna make sure because props are known for kind of rambling on for a while. He said, so we need to make sure that you can be concise and succinct. So we're gonna ask you for a couple of things where we want you to answer on Twitter means in the old days, right? You get 100 and 40 characters. That's all you get. You gotta be able to answer a really hard question on Twitter like fine. And one of the questions they told me to be ready to answer was, what do you do with the conquest of Canaan? What do you do with Jericho? And my answer was ask me about rehab and Aiken that'll fit 100 and 40 characters. Old school ask me about rehab. And Aiken rehab is probably a story that, you know, she was a prostitute in the town of Jericho. And when the spies went in to kind of plan out their advance into the land of Canaan, they encounter her and she hides them. Now she hides them at the risk of her own life because the law in the day would be if you had spies come in and you did not reveal them to the king. It's your head on the platter. So she's risking her life. And why she does that is because she says to them, I know who your God is. This is what she tells them in Joshua two verses 11 to 14. As soon as we meaning the Canaanites heard it about everything that your God did to the Egyptians and everybody along the way, our hearts melted for the Lord. Your God is actually God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Not all these gods that we've been worshiping your gods, actually the real God. So now in light of that, I know this, please swear to me by your God that as I have dealt kindly with you, you will also deal kindly with my father's house and give me a sure sign that you will save alive. My father and my mother, my brothers and sisters and all who do, who belong to them and deliver our lives from death amid said to her, our life for yours, even to death, we will deal kindly and faithfully with you. Rahab has heard about this God of the Israelites and said, I wanna follow Him. I'm giving up the gods that we worship because they are not God in heaven, they're not God on the earth. Your God is. So I wanna go and lo and behold when the time comes and Jericho is destroyed, they save her. If this is ethnic in its orientation, then it's like, thank you for saving us. We're going to kill you now because you're a Canaanite press, not if the judgment by God was against them, simply because they were Canaanites. Then I'm sorry, rehab that you believe in me now, but you're gone because you're Canaanite. But he had already told them 400 years before that this was about sin and it being judged and then they show up and she says, I believe Joel will say later, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved and she was and she wasn't just saved from death. Notice what we learn about Rahab in the New Testament. Look at just two texts. The first one is Matthew 15 and six. It's part of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter one and Sam and the father of Boaz by Rahab Boaz, the father of Obed, by Ruth and Obed, the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David, the King Rahab. The Canaanite prostitute becomes part of the line of Jesus becomes part of the Messiah's genealogy because she responds in faith to him. It doesn't matter that she's a Canaanite. It doesn't matter. She was a prostitute matters that she responded in faith to what she knew he was revealing in himself. Look at how Hebrews 1131 talks about her by faith. Rahab. The prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, not those who were Canaanite, those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. She was saved temporarily and saved eternally because of her responsive faith. And it mattered zero that she was a Canaanite now. Ok, maybe they give her a pass because she was friendly to them. But if you know Aiken's story, you know that this is not about ethnicity or just a land grab. Aiken was one of the Israelite warriors and he was involved in the battle for Jericho. And part of what you need to know about the battle for Jericho is God had said you may take nothing from the battle. You know, spoils of war ordinarily, you would take ammunition, gold, silver, whatever it is, you take it all and you keep it. No, no, no, no. Jericho is not gonna work that way. You're gonna devote it all to me, you're gonna destroy it all. You get Nada out of it. Well, Aiken like shiny things. So he takes some home. I think his family is involved because he buries it in the tent. A little hard living in a tent to kind of hide things. You know, dad, why are you digging a hole? Uh Hand me that gold. I'd like to shove it in here. Uh And then you got kind of the lump in the living room floor that you can't explain. And so he's hidden this with his family's complicity. And then they head off to the next battle. The next battle is up in the mountains, a little place called A I. And they decide they're so confident in the victory God has given at Jericho. They're like, it's silly to send everybody up there to just make them weary from trudging up and down the mountain. God's gonna do the victory anyway. We only need a handful of us. So they send just a handful and a handful die. They just get routed at A I and Joshua shows up on his knees before the Lord says, what is going on? Why would you bring us in just to defeat us? This is God's response in Joshua seven verse 11. Israel has sinned. They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them. They have taken some of the devoted things they have stolen and lied and put them among their belongings and he who has taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire. He and all that he has because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord because he's done an outrageous thing in Israel. So they go through the process of identifying and they figure out that Aiken and his family are the ones who've taken from Jericho, some of the spoils that God said no to. And so he's killed. If this is ethnic genocide, the Israelite gets a pass because he's the right ethnicity. This is about sin. Then God's making it clear. I judge sin regardless of who you are. So rehab and a can teach us that really what we have here is a judgment of sin. A little look at eternal judgment rushed forward into the here and now so that we can see what it looks like. And that really is gonna bring us to this last place that we need to go with the gospel and violence. I get a little testy sometimes when I teach. So I like to poke people and see where they are. All right. So let me ask you a series of questions you don't have to answer, but I want you to think about it. Do you feel better about the Canaanites if they die of some disease? Right? So they don't die in battle but they die of some disease. Does that make you feel better about their fate? Would you feel better if they just died in their sleep? Little heads go down on their pillow one night and then they don't wake up. Does that make you feel better about them to make you feel better? If they live to a ripe old age, they've had a rich, full life and then they die when they're old. Does that make you feel better? Where are they? Now? I think if I read the scriptures rightly, they are waiting final judgment in hell forever. I feel better about the manner of their death. I wonder a little bit if I'm really not looking at what happens in final judgment. If I'm shy about that, I'm gonna take you to a couple of places here to kind of just lay this out for us in a way that we can't get away from it. Let's look at Isaiah 34 2 and five and six and in Isaiah 34 this is what I think is the best picture, the best mental image of what final judgment is like of what hell is like for eternity and what it means says for the Lord is enraged against all the nations and furious against all their host. He has devoted them to destruction. The same term used for the Canaanites has given them over for slaughter. For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens. Behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom upon the people I've devoted to destruction. The Lord has a sword, it is sated with blood, it is gorged with fat with the blood of lambs and goats with the fat of the kidneys of rams for the Lord has a sacrifice in bulls, ra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. So my judgment that I pour out is effectively a kind of sacrifice. Now, we know the scriptures teach us that without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. So the Israelites have been taught along the way to make sacrifices as they sin to offer In faith, this animal sacrifice in faith that God would forgive them, waiting for that one great sacrifice that would be made through Christ on the cross. And what He says here, your options are twofold. You can either bring a sacrifice at 34. You can be the sacrifice and those are the only two options that exist. You will either pay for eternity for your own sin as a sacrifice, continually consumed, nothing left over because all of you is owed for this. So it's not like there's a life on the other side where now I can get that payment out of the way and I go on living a good life. No, this is what you'll do for eternity because all of you, your life is required to pay for this sin. So either something else goes on the altar to be sacrificed or you go there to pay for eternity. And this brings us then to Hebrews 927 and 28. And just as it is a point of for man to die once and after that comes judgment. So Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to those who are eagerly waiting for him. The reason I don't feel better about the Canaanites and their manner of death is because I know that it's appointed once for them to die and then comes judgment and their judgment is either poured out on Christ and his violent death on the cross or it's poured out on them. So ending life peacefully without a saving a relationship with God is only an entrance to eternity of just violence poured out on you. Let me go one more step. If you're unwilling to pour out just violence on sin, then you have no salvation to grab hold of because that's exactly what God did on the cross. He poured out a just violence that Jesus was willing to take, not for his sins, but for mine and for yours. And he said this is just, and it's right. Sin must be judged, but I'm willing to have it judged in me so that it won't have to be judged on you. And if you reject the option of just violence being poured out on Jesus, then you no longer have a God who can save. There's a place in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 50 where we'll end today. It's one of the best pictures of jesus' judgment, his trial and all the unjust things that happened to him at the hands of the people. He's looking forward in this prophecy and says, I gave my back to those who strike my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hidden up my face from disgrace and spitting. I did this for you and then he leaves us with what the options are. Isaiah 50 verse 10, who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of a servant who fears God and believes in Jesus who follows jesus' voice. Let him who walks in darkness and has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. If you're willing to admit that you don't have life that you don't have light to make your own way. I'm in darkness and I need you. I have an option for you be like the servant and trust in God. But if you don't, your other option is to make light for yourself. Isaiah 5011, behold all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches, walk by the light of your fire and by the torches that you have kindled. That's your right. You can do that. But you have this from my hand giving it to you truthfully, you shall lie down and torment. There are only two ways I have the light and I'll make it on my own that ends in torment. I don't have light for my own path. And I'll trust in the servant and in His God. And that just violent punishment of my sin, I accepted being poured out on him instead of on me. This is why unjust violence is always a community issue. And the ultimate answer is always the gospel. And we stand in the same place the Israelites did we know that our sin has been condemned. We know that our sin is judged as the church. It's been judged in Christ. And we take that salvation, but it's not just for us is for us to be a conduit to the world because Jesus was given his great commission to go out and share this message across the world. There's an option for you besides lying down in torment. There's an option to trust in what's been done on the cross through the death and resurrection of Christ. This is the picture of violence in the Old Testament. It's there and unjust violence is judged and condemned. But there's also mercy because of the just violence that's poured out on our sin can be taken as a step of mercy if we're willing to trust in the servant in Messiah, in Jesus who came to pay for our sin. Let's pray, father, we are so grateful for this opportunity to think about such a hard thing and all that you have done. And so we pray as you help us think through this, that we can work our way to sing a sense of the wonder and the glory of what you've done on the cross for us. We ask all these things in your son's name. Amen.