You Shall Consume All The Peoples

This morning is a tough text. I like it, but I like it because it's direct. It forces you to deal with it. If you just read it and you just pass over and like, oh yeah, well there it is, you're not paying attention. But if you're paying attention, you're going to be like, wait, what? Huh? I tend to like these kinds of texts because they get my attention and I hope that they get your attention. And I hope that God is gracious to us and does business with our hearts this morning as we study it. We're just continuing our study in Deuteronomy chapter 7. And in our text this morning, God commands Israel to consume all of the nations who inhabit the promised land. Wipe them out. Consume them. Make them no more. And as we study this passage, we're going to consider the goodness of the command, as well as the reasons behind God giving this command to his people Israel.

My hope is that as we study this, that God will overcome our fears and our apathy and he'll make us willing to obey him in all areas of life, especially the ones that are difficult for us or scary to us or intimidating to us. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 16 through 19. You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you. Your eyes shall not pity them. nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. If you should say in your heart, these nations are greater than I, how can I dispossess them? You shall not be afraid of them. You shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. The great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out.

So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So our text starts off with a command, and the rest of our passage deals with the implications of that command. The command is to consume all of the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you. And I want to begin by asking you, does this command align with the second greatest commandment? Meaning if you were opposed to this or if you read that command and you kind of like, why is it that you're opposed to it? Why is it that it makes you tense inside? Is it not that it doesn't seem to agree with the greatest commandment to love your neighbor even as yourself? How can wiping out these people have anything to do with loving your neighbor? The first thing I would do is I'd remind you that that is the second greatest commandment and not the first. The first commandment,

Jesus teaches us, is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And what that entails is that we love him by obeying him, okay? Is God calling his people to do something mean? By our accounts, I'd say yes. Going and wiping out women and children and animals and men of war and men of old age, by our accounts, that seems to be a mean thing to do. But we're going to come to why it's not a mean thing to do, but a just thing to do in a moment. But in terms of squaring this command to consume all the peoples with the second greatest commandment, beyond saying there's a first greatest commandment, we have to be able to distinguish between a general command given to guide all of our interactions, meaning to love our neighbor as ourself, and a specific command to execute God's will.

We are to love our neighbors at all times and in every situation. We're even to love our enemies unless God singles out a specific group of people for judgment as he does in this passage and commands his people to be the instrument of his judgment coming to bear on them. Then, as God's people, the commands to obey is to destroy. That's what you find in this passage. There's no way to get around, the consuming, the destroying, the horror of the command. It's awful. It's awful in terms of the loss of human life. It's awful in terms of the gore. If you read in the early chapters of Joshua, you read the execution of this command, and it's enough to make you blush. Women and children being struck down. Animals being consumed. Everything being set to fire.

And it was the Lord's command that they should do exactly that. Now, does God still call people to do things like this today? To destroy, to consume, to execute another group of people? From scripture? No. Perhaps from a government that he's set up. But I want you to understand the uniqueness of this passage. I don't want you to miss. misunderstand it or abuse it, the sorts of things that they're being commanded to do here, you're on good grounds to presume that you will never be called to take up arms and to execute an entire group of people in service of God. The canon of Scripture has been closed. We should not expect this sort of communication to come down from him. Now, it may be that you aren't so worried about being told to execute people, but I want to say to you, this idea that God told me to, was a legitimate thing for them to say at this time and not a legitimate thing for us to say if the thing we're convicted to do is contrary to Scripture. When we read the Bible, we have to be able to put it in its proper context. We have to be able to understand when that command was given and in what ways that command is intact with us today. And I realize some of you might be uncomfortable with me saying this because you're like, but isn't all the Bible applied to us just straight on through today? And I say, yes, but we do have to know how.

And this is an example of the sort of command that was given to their people at the time in a specific context that we should not be presuming to receive ourselves. Okay? An example would be, this is the difficulty of sorting this stuff out. Okay? Years ago, a late-term abortionist was killed in his church. A guy went in and killed him while he was there worshiping. And the question was, was that just or right? And the answer is no. That's not to say that the guy didn't deserve it or to say that Christians aren't glad that it happened. But it wasn't an execution of justice because that execution of justice didn't belong to an individual citizen to take the sword upon himself, but it belonged to the government that God had set up. And they were failing. So these things take work for us to sort out.

So why did God call that these people should be commanded? Why was there this extraordinary command? Contrary to loving our neighbors, contrary to bearing with them, contrary to evangelizing them, contrary to sending Jonah to Nineveh. Nineveh was a wicked place, full of corruption and idolatry. What was God's response to them? What was his command? Jonah, go and preach to them. Tell them that judgment is coming. And they repented. But here the command is different. It's not go and evangelize, go and preach. It's go, have nothing to do with them, and exterminate them. I'm saying it that way because I want you to feel how tense it is. If you were being told to do this, soldiers in armies have trouble being told to go kill the guys shooting at them. They're being told to go kill women and children. The intensity of this passage is immense. So why does God say go and consume all of the peoples?

This command is an execution of a previous judgment against the inhabitants of this land. This was actually proclaimed to have been done hundreds of years before. When Abraham walked through this land, God promised to give this land to him after 400 years of slavery in Egypt. And so the Israelites at this time are being appointed as God's chosen instrument to execute the Lord's judgment from long before. So when you hear this command, how does it sit with you? Do you just see it as, well, the Lord said to do it, so it's the right thing to do, and that's that. Do you think it's a good command? Do you think it's an unjust command? You might not like me asking the questions because you feel like I'm saying, well, you should question Scripture. You should...

to evaluate whether you agree with it or not. And I assure you, I'm not actually asking you to sit in judgment of Scripture. I'm trying to get you to look at your own heart and see whether or not you have a response to something this gruesome being commanded by God. If you don't, you're broken. If you're just like, well, too bad for them. It's just what it is. It's a very hard-hearted and callous response. It's a very hard-hearted and callous response to sin. Well, it just is what it is. So why did God command so many hundreds of years before that this people, that these nations should be exterminated? Is it just because he's vindictive? It's because he's got something to prove? No. It's because they were rebels. And there's a difficulty in understanding this sort of thing. If you're disciplined, I'll give you an example. When you were a child and your mother said to you, wait till your father gets home. Was it a faithful, is that a faithful thing for a mother to say? Sure it is.

As you waited, what was worse? The waiting or when he actually got home? It was the waiting, right? Did you ever wait so long that you thought maybe they'd forget? Did they ever forget? They didn't? Well, then you had good parents. Have you ever forgotten? I'm going to spank you when we get home. You ever said that to one of your children only to not do it when you got home? We have this idea that if discipline is not immediate, we always think we're going to escape it. And it's really a dangerous thought to think that we can act without God responding to it. To think that if he doesn't respond right away, he won't respond at all. But when we come to passages like this, literally 400 years, the judgment was declared. And now it's time to pay the piper.

You could look at that 400 years and say, what was the purpose of that 400 years? What does scripture tell us the purpose of that 400 years was? That they would fill up what was lacking in their rebellion. Could they have repented? Could have, they didn't. And so now it's time for them to get what's always been coming to them. And so you see, when we deal with God, I don't want you to think that because he doesn't discipline you right away, that he forgot. Or that he won't deal with you. Or that he won't deal with those who sinned against you. He is righteous and just. And this command that the Israelites are to carry out is a just command. As gruesome as it is, it's a just and good command. They deserve this. As they're told to consume all of the peoples, God gives them a couple of warnings. He says, your eye shall not pity them. What's it mean to pity somebody?

I'm in the middle of listening to a podcast right now about the difference between sympathy and empathy and apathy and all these types of things. And pity is a word that runs in the same herd as sympathy and empathy and compassion. It means to understand, to bear with, to sympathize, to walk along with someone in their hardship. But God tells them not to do that. pity them. Don't seek to understand their plight. Don't seek to mitigate it. Don't seek to protect them from it. Don't seek to lessen it. Don't believe the lie that surely they didn't mean it all that much. God has told them to consume the peoples and to have no pity as they do it. Do you want to be in that crowd? That'd be a rough place to be, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't you be glad to be a woman or a child at that point? Because largely it's the men who are going to have to do this, right? Jail, maybe, you know, that type of thing. But mostly it's the men. Your eyes shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods. Because if you do, that will be a snare to you. There is no mercy in this command. And as I mentioned earlier, when we read the accounts of this command being carried out, the bloodshed and the death. So while we know that it's a just command and a good command, we do still have to question in our own hearts of whether or not we agree with that. We have to get below the fact of the matter to see what we think about it. If we think that it's unjust, that there must have been another way, that the extent was...

Over the top. What we're really saying is that God isn't dealing with these people in the best way. That we know better how to discipline rebellion. Though we may not say it that plainly, that is what we're saying. Have you never had something that you knew God required of you to do and you thought, well, I think I know a better way to do it. Maybe I'll just do it a little later. Maybe I'll just do it without that one barb in it. Wouldn't be loving. They wouldn't understand. It wouldn't... Be received well. How do you think the nations are going to receive this judgment from God? Are they going to receive it well? Does God ever call us to do things that are hard and difficult and painful? Does he always call us to do things that are hard and difficult and painful? No. But the question is, if he ever calls us to do something that's hard or difficult or painful, will we do it? Or do we know a better way of accomplishing the same ends? Why doesn't he do for them what he did with Nineveh?

It's an honest question. It's a fair question. Why does he insist on their utter destruction? Don't they deserve another clear chance to repent? Maybe for the first time. These are the questions we ask ourselves as parents, as husbands, as mothers, as bosses. Maybe there's a better way than discipline. Maybe there's a better way than judgment. So what if you think that the command is just? and right and good? Does that mean you're in the clear? Does that mean you're right in line with the will of God and that you don't have anything to worry about? Perhaps and perhaps not. How can we look at the destruction of people and delight in it or be indifferent toward it? Do we think it's just because it serves our bloodlust? Because we like seeing people suffer and have a hard time? Do you like seeing people struggle? Do you make decisions?

To cause other people to struggle. To see if they can do it themselves. When they struggle, do you say, well, that's your own fault. You shouldn't have done that. There is no grace in that response. Is it true? Perhaps. But that doesn't mean that it's just and it's certainly not how God deals with us. If God were to leave you to fend for yourself, how would you do? Poorly. It's a good Presbyterian answer. Lawyer says, poorly, you should not delight in the destruction of other people. Even if the whole source of their destruction is their own choices. Did you know that Proverbs warns you against rejoicing in the destruction of other people? Proverbs 24, 17 and 18 says, do not rejoice when your enemy falls. I mean, that's the time to rejoice, right? When your enemy falls and you go, now.

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles. Why not, Lord? For the Lord will see it and be displeased and turn his anger away from him. That's a helpful word. That even when people are getting what they deserve, and the nations do deserve it. I'm not arguing that they don't. They deserve everything that they're going to get or that they got. As a Christian, you ought not to take delight in it. When people's sin and rebellion and idolatry has consumed them, it's no cause for rejoicing. Unless, of course, you delight in the destruction of the wicked. But what does God say about the destruction of the wicked and his delight? He says, I take no delight in the destruction of the wicked, rather that every man would turn.

So you really do have to do business with this passage as they're told to consume all of the peoples. On the one hand, we think it's too severe, that there must be a better way, a more moderate way. While at the same time, when we see destruction, we go, that's exactly how it should happen. Did you know all that corruption was in your heart? That you're both more gracious than God and more severe than him? So when we consider this command, we should accept it as a just command and glorify God for... saying it and doing it also while taking a warning to heart that while the nations deserve this sort of destruction apart from christ so do we you know what i woke up this morning thinking about i haven't even told my wife yet this year so she'll probably be mad at me for not for telling you something i haven't told her yet but it was just this morning i woke up and i went it's pride month that's what i thought this morning and then i thought i know people who go preach at the pride parade

But I don't know when it is. But it's probably in the next week or two. Some of you may know when it is. Joseph, you probably know when it is. Because Joseph would keep track of things like that and say it's not a good thing, not a Christian thing. And I thought, you know, there's lots I disagree with those Christians about that theologically and practically that go down there and make such asses of themselves preaching in front of such debauchery. And I thought, you know what? I should go. Yeah. I thought I should go. And I thought, you know, I have so many arguments with my kids about how to live like a Christian and how to be salt and light and how to honor God. I should take them, at least the older ones, to see what it actually looks like because they live in this bubble where pornography is the worst possible thing they could ever imagine or getting a girl pregnant out of wedlock, which is bad. And so much less.

than what's going to be paraded around for the next 30 days. It's a natural sin, or it's a sin arising from a natural desire as opposed to an unnatural and wretched desire. Have you ever gone to something like that before? I remember years ago, we hosted an abolitionist anti-abortion rally, our church did, before we had a building. And part of that... few days long event was that you had to go down to abortion clinics with all these Christians from every stripe and all kinds of places. And it was memorable. I think the most memorable part for me was seeing Dan George break up a fight between a large black woman and a garbage truck driver. You remember that, Dan? Oh, yeah. And I thought, we've got to be a Christian to be here and deal with this mess.

Like all your theology is just like, doesn't help there. There was light and darkness coming into conflict. And it was a good place to be. Not for women and children, I would say, necessarily, especially not young children or sheltered women. But it was a good place for men to be. Why is it a good place to be? Because in that moment, you could see the sort of things that God commands to be consumed. And while he's not commanded us to be the instrument of their consumption, he has commanded us to love our neighbor, to love our enemies, to love the lost. And so are you going to do anything this month other than share stupid memes about it in an effort to love your neighbor? I don't give a plug nickel for your memes, however true they might be. You will not score any points with your pastor. And I'd go so far as to say with the Lord. If you can't bring yourself to say anything,

Christian to anyone this month. And by Christian, I don't mean, yeah, isn't that terrible? Don't you agree? I can't believe they did that. We need a new civil government that won't allow them to do things like that. I mean, like, we're surrounded by death and destruction and we just sit here and we're glad for them to be consumed. We prefer them to be consumed because then we wouldn't and our children wouldn't have to deal with them. We think, but we think foolishly. So do you want to see the wicked consumed? That's the question. Do you think that's a good thing. If God commands it as he did in this passage, then we ought to say, yes, it's a good thing because God's clearly and obviously commanded in this context and in this situation the consumption of the wicked. But you do have to ask yourself, if you spend your life surrounded by the wicked and you've done nothing to lift a finger to see them saved, you failed them. I'm not saying it's your job to save them, but I am saying we should aim to be able to stand before God.

at the last day and say, I love my enemies. And I told your truth to people who didn't already believe it. And it cost me something. Look, I have a mark, just one. So this is a just command and a horrific command. And if God hadn't commanded it, you'd be right in opposing it. But since God's commanded it, we ought to rejoice in his command while at the same time saying, it's a terrible tragedy to see. those made in his image come to destruction. And we ought to work against their destruction. We really ought to. If we make common cause with them, if we sympathize with them, now you may not sympathize with the pride parade, but if you sympathize with sin, with sinners, with the difficulty, with their brokenness, if all you do is excuse it and accept it, and chew it and swallow it yourself, then scripture says that will be a snare to you. And so what really comes down to is, do we trust that God, when he says no to something, do we trust that his no is right? Or do we always have a kinder, more gentler, gracious way that also happens to be less painful for us, or at least less costly, or time-consuming? When we think better of God's commands,

When we think we know better how to accomplish his ends than he does when he commands us, we expose ourselves to corruption and, as a consequence, destruction, just as the nations were facing in this passage. One of the principal reasons God commands Israel to destroy the people is to protect them from temptation. But how many of us think that we can walk right into the center of temptation, sit down, build our homes and our lives in that land, and not be corrupted by it? You ought to think of Lot and his family. Does any of you want to name your kids Lot? You thought, there's a good Christian name. He's in the hall of faith. Lot, right? Right next to Rahab. Good names. Why did Lot get what he got?

Well, because when he and Abram were having their issue and Abram says, what land do you want? He says, I want the good land. You can stay up here on the mountaintops and in the weather I'd like to go down in the valley where it's green. What else was down in that valley? Sodom. Sodomy. Men who were so corrupt they didn't want to rape his daughters, they wanted to rape angels. He pitched his lot with them. And only he... With his two daughters, I suppose. Though we don't have an indication that they escaped final judgment. Scripture tells us that Lot was a righteous man, vexed daily. But I would submit to you that it would be foolish to take Lot as a strategy for godly living. Much more likely that you'll be consumed and destroyed as his wife was. And as his daughters learned from the place he lived.

And so God commands Israel to destroy these peoples as a protection from them. Do you need protection from God? Or are you good on your own? God's ways are a protection. When you as parents command your children, why do you tell them no? They think you tell them no because you don't care about them, because you don't understand, because you're just spoiling their fun. But why is it that you as a parent tell your children no? Isn't it because you love them and you want to protect them? And aren't they foolish whenever they miss that point? Same with God. He commands us to protect us. We can protect ourselves. And many times we're the worst for it. We're more sophisticated than God. And we suffer for it. It turns out that the reason that God tells us when we become Christians to count the cost of being his disciple is because we're notoriously bad at counting the cost of our decisions. We need help. We need his help.

We go through our lives half-blind, thinking that we see clearly. When you're a young parent, whatever it is you're doing, you think you're doing a good job. There's this thing in the back of your head that's like, I know I'm probably not doing it as well as I could, but I think I'm doing a pretty good job. I really try hard. And after all, I'm better than other people. But then you kids get older. You know what you realize? You weren't as good at it as you thought you were. But boy, you sure thought you were at the time. You thought you saw clearly. You thought you knew what was worth disciplining for and what was worth letting slide. You thought all of your lectures to your three-year-old at nine o'clock at night were really gonna bear some good fruit. You're really good at taking that speck out of their eyes because the kids are the sinful ones. We're much better off to obey God's commands than to sit in judgment of them and to decide that we know better how to accomplish his ends than he does.

The reason is because we don't perceive the danger that surrounds us. If you think that staying away from the pride parade will keep the danger away from you, respectfully, you're an idiot. You really are. You really are an idiot. Because if you think corruption is just going to stay over there and not invade your little bubble, you're really blind. So you have to decide, am I on God's side or not? And of course you say, well, I'm on God's side. And I'm like, well, are you on God's side if it's costly or dangerous or inconvenient? What if you get afraid? How many of you would be afraid to go to the pride parade? If you should say in your heart, these nations are greater than I, how can I dispossess them? You shall not be afraid of them. You shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out.

What does he tell them? In the midst of all of that, what's he say to their fear? Stop it. For you to be afraid is for you to be faithless. Faith and fear cannot occupy the same space. They can't. One will push the other out. That's just how it is. You've heard the saying that courage is being afraid and doing the right thing anyway. You guys heard that saying? That's the definition of courage. Sort of the common definition of courage is you're afraid, but you do the right thing anyway. There is also the potential that you'll be afraid and not do the right thing because of your fear. So instead of saying that that's the definition of courage, I would rather say it's the definition of faith. And in their account, at this time, for them to be afraid is to discount their deliverance from Egypt and all that God had done for them those 40 years in the wilderness preserving them. They had to forget about all of his faithfulness to justify their fear.

And so do we. Many times when we're afraid, what we have to do is shut our eyes to all of God's faithfulness and say, no, no, but I'm scared. Shame on us for forgetting so easily and so often the might of God and his deliverance in our lives. I mean, what's the worst thing that's going to happen if you go to the pride parade? You will get yelled at. You'll get flipped off. You'll see things that you'll remember. And not because they were pleasant. It's true. It's true. Maybe someone will beat you up. Would that be so bad? For some of you, it'd be good to get in a fight. Some of you are soft. You surely will not die. But man, we're scared. Fear really is gripping. And that's the real issue that's being addressed in this passage. God gives a simple command. Enormous, but simple. Go and consume them. They're bigger than us, and how can we dispossess them? Was Egypt bigger or smaller? Was Egypt more powerful or less powerful than these nations?

It was bigger. And Pharaoh was more powerful. And God just laid him low. And I realize I sound like a hillbilly or a hick or an idiot to say this to you. But God actually did that and he does that. And your fear requires you to deny that. And as a Christian, you may not. You may not give in to your fears and act like God is not mighty, powerful, or strong. He's not done these things in your life. Maybe he hasn't parted a Red Sea for you to walk through, but has he not shown himself faithful to you? Then we ought to repent of our fears. And we ought to, being free of them, we ought to then turn to obedience to God. Do you ever get frustrated when God calls you to do things you don't have the strength or the faith to do? Like you recognize God calls you to do things that you're like, that's why you called me this week. Timothy has to preach at Presbytery.

It's not a trick passage. And he was paralyzed with fear. He couldn't write a sentence. And he has to go preach on Thursday to be licensed. And he doesn't just have to preach like after lunch when no one's paying attention. He has to preach in the worship service at the beginning where ordained pastors normally do the preaching. And he has to stand up and preach. And he has to submit his manuscript ahead of time. And then he has to be evaluated on what he says in front of about 60 men. And he has to answer for his... His exams. It's scary. I talked to him about his sermon a week and a half ago. He called me. He's like, I don't know what to do. I can't write a sermon. I don't know how to read. It's how he felt. And I was his second phone call. He'd already taken up Eric's time with this stuff. We get scared. It really does affect us. And we really have to do it anyway. This is your life, guys. This is Christianity. If you're here and you believe this stuff,

You're going to get called to do things that paralyze you and you still have to do them in the strength that God provides for you. You won't do it any other way. So when you find that your strength isn't enough or your intellect isn't enough or your know-how or your grit isn't enough, there's no excuse for you to give in to fear and despair. Too often we use fear or frustration or despair as an excuse for our rebellion. When you stand before God, you're not going to be able to stand up and say, I sinned, but I had a good reason. It's not going to work. And so as Christians, we ought to live our lives saying, this crap I'm believing, am I going to say this to God? Like, seriously, am I going to stand before his throne and say, but I was scared? Like it's justifiable? Reasonable? Oh, you were scared. It's sort of like if you went to your boss and you were like, but I was tired. Why weren't you at work on time? I was tired.

I mean, what would your boss say? He might say you're fired. He might be just in saying, if you're so tired, why don't you just go home the rest of the week and get some sleep? I don't have a place for you here. Now, is that a good boss or is that a mean boss? Is that a just boss? Was he being unreasonable? All the same questions I just asked you about this passage. How hard is it for bosses to do that? It's a lot harder than you think. And good when they do it. In the end, when you stand before God, The excuses you make are not going to matter. We will each be adjudged according to our deeds, which means according to the things we did or that he commanded to do. That's it. You don't get to say, well, I had a bad dad. I didn't have any dad. You won't get to say, it was this woman you gave to me. It was that man you gave to me. You won't get to say any of that junk. Well, I got sick. We were poor. The Democrats won.

Whatever it is you want to say as some excuse for your bad attitude and your rebellion, it's not going to fly before God. So give it up now and just be a Christian and be committed to his word and to obeying it. And when you fall short and you fail, to repentance. That's it. That's our whole lives. God calls us to do things that we are not able to do as a mercy to draw us near to him. He uses our sufferings to reel us in. He uses our sins to call us back to him. So give up your excuses. Don't be afraid. Do what God says. That's the point of the passage. It's pretty simple. Let's pray.