Okay, as a little bit of a wake-up call, we are now going to begin by rehearsing the Kings of Israel and Judah. A very wise person once said, repetition aids learning, and so we will repeat these things from time to time just to keep you alive. I see people are rapidly opening up their books and finding that. I'm going to take a chance because I don't have mine in front of me, so I'll take a chance. We'll do the Kings of Judah first. These are the Kings after the division of the Kingdom. Of course, they begin with real poem. Remember the hand motions? You remember what the hand motions mean? We have the 10th century, 9th century, 8th century, 7th century, 6th century. And in the Kings of Judah you have 3 in the 10th, 5 in the 9th, 5 in the 8th, 5 in the 7th, 2 in the 6th. And so we do those hand motions to remember what century we're in. And it's more fun that way, and it makes a better choral presentation if we ever do that at the Christmas banquet or something. All right, so beginning with reaboom, it goes like this. Reaboom, abidja, asa, jahoshafat, jahodam, ahazaya, atalaya, johwash. Amazaya, azaraya, jahum, ahaz, hesakaya, menasa, amman, johsaya, jahoa has, johoyakim, johoyakim, zirakaya. If I babble on, then I would be a liar. Oh, I love it. All right, good. That is, by the way, copyrighted. So that will be on my first CD release, so take it easy. All right, good. Now, the advantage of that, if someone says, where did menasa come in? You know, you can run down there and do the hand motions, you can find out approximately where he came in. Remember, however, that they didn't die on Q at the turn of the century. So there's a little, it's a rough kind of estimate there. All right, Jeroboam, beginning with Jeroboam, these are the kings of Israel, of the northern kingdom. And again, in this instance, it's 3, 9, 8. So we only get 3 in the 10th, 9 in the 9th, 8 in the 8th, how appropriate. Okay, so that's a little different. Okay, with Jeroboam, Jeroboam, Nadab, Basha, Eilah, Zimri, Tivni, Amri, Ahab. Ahaziah, Jehorim, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam, Menachem, Pekaya, Pekah, Hoshaya, Vincame, Assyria, them all the way. Good, all right, I'm sorry I messed up in there, but it was a glitch in my memory bank, hard disk needs to be recoded, I think. All right, in addition to a number of other things. All right, well, we need now to move to the first of two major debating points that we want to talk about tonight. This one we'll talk about in this before the next break, and then we'll talk about the emergence of Israel and Canaan after the next break. I think what I'll do is put the outlines up here, so when we take our next break, maybe you could just come by and grab one, so we won't have to do the distribution, so I'll put those outlines out at the next break. First of all, however, the debating point of Holy War, or you might put it another way and say the genocide of the Canaanites, the command that they be annihilated. Many are troubled with what they read in the book of Joshua, and we can understand that we want to understand how to assess it, because we claim to worship a righteous God, a loving God, a merciful God, yes indeed, a just God, but how in the world can we justify this kind of behavior? As an example, look at Joshua 6.21, look at what's written there. These are the kinds of verses that cause consternation as people read the Old Testament, and one of the reasons that some people are disenchanted with reading the Old Testament, and really don't do it, and go to the New Testament only. Joshua 6.21, they devoted the city to the Lord, and destroyed with the sword, everything living in it, men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, and donkeys. This goes significantly beyond the Geneva Convention, and the protection of civilian life, and the limitation of warfare to military personnel, and so forth. Everything, everything that lived. Look at 8.25 after the victory over the city of I, chapter 8, verse 25. 12,000 men and women fell that day, all the people of I, going on in 26, for Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in I. We can see how people are ourselves and others are rightly disturbed by this. Now, were we able to rationalize this behavior as simply the mistaken notion of a primitive people living in a particular time, who were simply accommodating themselves to their surroundings, and everyone else was doing this, and so they really didn't know better, but through the progress of revelation, we know that really this was not God's will, and they were simply mistaken. Then we would have at least one possible escape route, but the problem is the text does not allow us that option. For the text says that the annihilation of the Canaanites was at the specific behest of Yahweh himself, at the command of God himself. Look at chapter 10, verse 40, chapter 10, verse 40 of Joshua. So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Nagav, the western foothills, and the mountain slopes together with all their kings. He left no survivors because he was a primitive individual living in a very difficult time and was doing just what all his neighbors did. It doesn't say that, actually, it says he totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded what he did was God's command. Or, chapter 11, verse 12, Joshua took all these royal cities, he totally destroyed them as Moses, the servant of Yahweh, had commanded. Now, there is an illusion in the text that we might want to follow up on. Where did Moses make this command? What's he talking about? Is this something that is recorded in Scripture? Somewhere in the books of Moses, can we research this? Or is this just a vague reference? Well, I think we can find it. Look at Deuteronomy, chapter 20, beginning in verse 16, chapter 20, verse 16, begins this way. Deuteronomy, 2016, however, of course, whenever you read, however, that means you're going to have to go back and read something earlier, but we're going to start here for now. However, in the cities of the nations, the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Do not leave alive anything that breathes, completely destroy them. The Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Parasites, Hivites, and Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Very explicit. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God. Again, in 1 Samuel 15, we will have Samuel saying to Saul that he is to exercise the so-called pattern or place under the ban, devote to destruction, the Amalakites. And there's a historical reason for that because the Amalakites had resisted the people of God when they came out of Egypt. And at that time, God said, you're under a curse now because of what you have done to my people. And this is the fulfillment of that curse. In 1 Samuel 15, God is behind this. And we need to understand what's going on. Was it CS Lewis or Tolkien who said, I guess it was CS Lewis and one of the Narnia Chronicles has one of the characters say, you know, Aslan is not a tame lion. I think sometimes we think God is a tame God, someone that we can make after our image and kind of make him according to our light. But God is God. He has a reality of his own. We don't create him in our minds. And so we need to understand who he is and what motivates these kinds of actions. Now, how could he make these kinds of commands? Well, let's look from the biblical problem that we've been discussing to some biblical principles that I think will help us at least in part to understand. Now, I'm not claiming that we will fully understand or feel fully comfortable with all of this, but it will help us to begin to understand, I think. The first principle that I find in scripture is that the slaughter was particularized. I think it's fair to use the word slaughter, the annihilation, the band, the order that these people be devoted to destruction was particularized. It wasn't just indiscriminate. You know, go in as a marauding band and anyone who gets in your way deal with them, got one fist diviner and the other of steel. If the right one don't get you then the left one wheel. I'm sorry for quoting Tennessee early or any for it, but I'm from Tennessee. You know, it's not that kind of thing. It was particularized. Look back at Deuteronomy chapter 20. Maybe you're still there. I said when verse 16 begins with however we're going to have to go back and read a few verses earlier. Look at verse 10 and following Moses is here giving instructions to the people who will enter into the promised land and he says when you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. We like that better. That sounds good. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, they siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. Ooh, that raises a whole different issue that is somewhat difficult to deal with, but you have to think of the alternative. If the men are to be killed, the combatants, this is more like Geneva Convention in a sense. If those who have resisted, if the fighters are to be killed for their unwillingness to make peace, what is to happen to their families? It may be more merciful to take them into the people of God and make them part of the people of God than to just leave them there at the mercy of the next band of travelers that come along. So we can't really get into wrestling with that one completely, but as he goes on, he says in 14b, and you may use the plunder the Lord gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. So here we see that when God commands the destruction of a people, it's not just, I want you to be out destroying people wherever you can. He has a specific program for those cities that are at a distance from the promised land, and then he has a different order for those who are within the promised land. So it's not indiscriminate destruction, it's discriminating, it's particularized command that certain populations be driven out and or destroyed. So that's the first principle I think we see in Scripture. The second is that the slaughter was purposive. It had a purpose. It was not just senseless slaughter. Well, what might have been the purpose? A couple of things come to mind. What do you think might have been the purpose? We just really read one of them. What about verse 20, verse 18? Otherwise they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God. The people left in the land will become snares, they will teach you to follow their gods. They need to be driven out or destroyed so that they don't pose that temptation to you. So one principle is protection from idolatry or apostasy, protection from falling away from God. Again, we don't adopt that procedure today. We don't start killing non-Christians or anything like that. We shouldn't. Unfortunately, there are a few that do that kind of thing, but that's not really what we're called to do today. But we ought to be careful to what extent we live amongst and walk according to the counsel of the wicked and such on you. We do need to guard the gates of our minds and our hearts so that we're not just constantly allowing these foreign forces into our psyches and into our hearts and into our minds so that we begin to become like them. There is a certain sense that we need to be protected as well. Deuteronomy 7, verse 2, is also related to this notion of protection.
After verse 1 mentions all these Hittites, Georgia Shites, Amorites, Canaanites, Parasites, Hivites, and Jebysites. Seven nations larger and stronger than you. When the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally, make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their asha, repuls, and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession. It is one of the purposes of the destruction of the Canaanite population was that God might protect His treasured possession from that which would tempt them to depart from Him the only source of good. To move a step away from God is to move a step away from light into darkness, move a step away from that which is good, into that which is less good and ultimately evil. So it was protection was part one of the purposes. There is another purpose however, because that alone I don't think would justify the annihilation of the Canaanites. Just to say, well I think my people would be safer. You feel pretty bad about the Canaanites. Yes, comment back there. Right. That is the next point. The issue of judgment, the issue of punishment on the Canaanites. This is alluded to as early as Genesis chapter 15 when God made that first covenant with Abraham. Look back at Genesis 15 or I'll look it up for you and you can just listen. Genesis 15, 16, God is talking about the fact that Abram would eventually occupy the land of Canaan. The call of Abram if you remember had involved the promise of progeny, of descendants that Abram would become a great nation that he would and in order to have a great nation he needs to have a place to stay. He would have a land and then he would also be blessed and himself would be a blessing. That is his through his line would come a blessing to all other nations. And so in this particular covenant making in Genesis chapter 15, God is specifying where that land will be, what that land will be. And it says in verse 15, you however will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age and in verse 16, in the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, come back out of a land of captivity which has been described. Your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Emirates has not yet reached its full measure. God is waiting until the cup of iniquity is full. He doesn't strike too soon. He doesn't strike when it's undeserved. He doesn't strike when the situation is still redeemable. He waits until their iniquity is full and it is time that they be judged. Archaeological discoveries have shed considerable light on the nature of Canaanite religion. It was William Albright, William F. Albright, a very famous archaeologist that once described Canaanite religion as the most, perhaps the most depraved religion known to man. Well, we have the privilege of watching television so we can probably come up with something maybe even worse. There was a certain depravity to this religion. There was a fertility religion that involved often ritual prostitution. It involved child sacrifice and the kinds of things that are pretty horrible. Very interesting today, beyond the lookout for this, there is in these days sometimes an attempt to rewrite the books and reinterpret the data and what was once regarded as these symbols, these little figurines, these fertility figurines and such that were to symbolize a debased sort of fertility religion, the kind of thing that God felt was a nathema and that which he told his people to free themselves from not to become involved with. In this day and age there is a movement of foot to say, well, you know, those religions weren't really so bad. The problem is that all the archaeologists who have written about them are male and they don't appreciate woman's spirituality and there's a lot of wacky stuff going out on there and I probably shouldn't be putting this stuff on tape. But be on the lookout for it because it's rewriting the interpretation of the archaeological evidence. It's not denying that it's there, but beginning to try to turn us back to the worship of Mother Earth and all of these things that are really not the new age so much as the old paganism resurfacing. So be alert to that, it is happening and makes it an interesting time to be alive. Another thing that is important to notice about the purposes of God's order that the Canaanites be destroyed is that he goes out of his way to make it very clear it's not because the Israelites are so righteous. And he's not saying, I'm not doing this to them because you're so much better by comparison. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 9 beginning in verse 4. Again Moses is anticipating the time when Israel will be in the land and will be driving out the Canaanites. Deuteronomy 9 verse 4, after the Lord your God has driven them out before you do not say to yourself, the Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness. No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going to take possession of their land, but on account of the wickedness of these nations. The Lord your God will drive them out before you to accomplish what he swore to his fathers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, alluding to the patriarchal promise. Understand then that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess it for you are a stiff-knacked people. It kind of gets repetitious there and I think with the purpose because when God blesses us it is so tempting to think, yeah, I know about grace and I know about all of that, but in a sense somehow it really, I mean all that aside, I did at least have the wisdom to choose God. There is something about me that makes me worth his time. We are tempted to think in those terms and to that when God gives us the inheritance of being his treasured possession, he wants us to hear, if you are blessed, don't think it is because of your righteousness. All our righteousness as filthy rags, we are as they were a stiff-knacked people and we need to bear that in mind and it makes us all the more grateful for God's sovereign work in our lives because we would never have turned to him if he didn't turn to us. So it was the slaughter, the annihilation, the genocide of the Canaanites was particularized, it wasn't indiscriminate, it was purposive, there were several reasons for it, protection of God's treasured possession and also the punishment, the judgment of those whose inequity was full. Now one other feature of the biblical material that I think we need to really stress is that what we read here is not a pattern for today, this is not a program of Christian combat that we are to embark upon, except perhaps in the sense that as Paul puts it, we struggled not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against those forces of wickedness in high places. And I don't think he's talking about high political office, some people do try to interpret it that way but I think our warfare is really against, is a spiritual warfare that we fight through prayer and that we fight through submission to God and through obedience to him and through reaching out to others who were lost in darkness. What we have here in the Old Testament, in the Bible, at this particular juncture in history is something that is called Hadam, which means holy war. The verb from which we get the noun Hadam means to ban or to devote to destruction or to utterly destroy something. So when we talk about Hadam, the holy war, we're talking about God placing under the ban, placing under the order to destroy a certain city or a certain locality or a certain people. And the idea is that what is taken is not to be taken by human hands but it is to be destroyed if it can be destroyed so it's not something from which humans profit or it is to be devoted to God and certain things can't be destroyed like gold and silver or even vessels of brass and iron. Those are a bit difficult to utterly destroy. You can melt the gold down but people can be digging it out of the ground if you leave it there. So the idea when an item like that is placed under the ban then the idea is that it's to be brought into the temple. One of my colleagues, Dr. Vashels, was once puzzling about these kinds of things and in a slightly other area but I think it applies here as well. One of the reasons I think God would place sometimes an entire city like the city of Jericho under the ban was that he wanted to make it apparent both to the inhabitants of the land who were receiving now the judgment they deserved but also to the people of Israel that their entry into the land and their purpose for being there was not simply one of self enrichment. They conquered a city where there's a lot of stuff but they want to get any of it. There was a larger issue involved than what they might gain from the conquering of that city. Now once the point was made in the case of other cities, God did say the population is to be driven out or destroyed dispossessed but the possessions themselves, the material possessions are yours to enjoy. So there was a sense that after the point was made of what the people were about that God did then enable them to inhabit cities that they had not built and to harvest from vineyards that they had not planted. Well this brings us then as we think about the notion of holy war to that issue of intrusion ethics and I'm sure you all enjoyed reading intrusion ethics a real taste of scholarly writing by Meredith Klein he is again I shouldn't put these things on tape but he's a brilliant man who writes in a way that some people have trouble following. I think what he writes is well worth the effort and in fact one of his books that I found most influential to me and sort of sorting out my views of a baptism was a book called by oath consigned and in order to really understand it I had to read it twice and look up all the Bible references he gave and then I understood it and it was well worth the effort. Well I think this article this section that you read on intrusion ethics probably was taxing it's partially maybe the style in which he writes but it's also partially the fact that you're coming into a field in which you may not have read a lot of other things. You probably found Bimson's articles a little taxing as well okay. But again well they're well written articles and I was saying to someone beforehand that although it may have been a little aggravating waiting through it because it's sort of like diving into a medical journal if you're not medically trained or at least your medical training is still somewhat beginning. I understand that and in a way I mean meant for you to have that experience I'm sorry I'm smiling assassin you know but I think we should rather you know sometimes I'm saying all these things I probably shouldn't put on type but sometimes in in Christendom there's a criticism that sometimes one hears like well why don't you write a book I can understand why don't you write a book for me. I think we need to encourage people to write on all different levels commensurate with their training and their abilities so that we have a voice in the scholarly world. And Bimson you know needed to write in that fashion to make a credible case to those who are the thinkers who are the influencers in this in these questions and so I'm very thankful that he worked at that high level and believe it or not that that was published one of those was published in the Melios which the Greek means foundation which is a publication for the theological students fellowship. So even there you could go another notch or two higher in terms of pure scholarly consumption it was for theological students but I admit it was pretty high level work that he does there but I would encourage you to encourage those who write these things even if it times you don't find them easy reading. Or don't take to them immediately and only read them because I force you to and require you to I still encourage you to encourage them just as you might encourage someone who does cancer research or some kind of medical research and their report or their article that they write might be fairly opaque. It would be to me if I try to follow the argument because I'm maybe not in the field but I'm sure glad they're doing it because I know that ultimately the results of their research do find their way down to those who dispense the healthcare and in the same way you know I'm kind of pleading my own case to some extent but but I do encourage you to encourage us at seminaries. Don't don't always say to us write a book for me you know encourage us sometimes to say write a book for your scholarly peers you know I rejoice in that because it does influence them who then go into their teaching context and influence hundreds of other people that end up being the pastors or the teachers in churches. It does filter down okay I don't know why I got off on that I just did but we come back well I know why I got on to it because we're mentioning Meredith Klein's writing. I think what he has to say is very very important did you get the gist of it did you follow it basically the basic thesis is this. Meredith Klein makes a clear distinction between the period of common grace and that the age of the time of the consummation of the wrapping up of this world as we know it the time of the period of final judgment. And so if we can if I can moving to quickly if I can chart this out let's say that this is the period of common grace what do we mean by common grace. Yeah the fact that we are still alive despite our sinfulness and the fact that others who are unredained who are not God's children are still alive despite their sin the fact that the rain falls on the wicked as well as on the righteous speaking of those who are righteous in Christ in God. Common grace is distinguished from what special grace that special grace which is what what is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to bring us from death to life. We are dead in sins apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that it is a measure of special grace when God by his spirit reaches down and regenerates those who are dead in sin. Okay that special grace and that's what special grace is enjoyed only by those who are God's children by his choice. Common grace is something that everyone in this world enjoys. We live in a period of common grace when though we are sinful and deserving of judgment God is staying his hand not wishing for any to perish but all to come to repentance he's being patient with us. There will come a time however which will be the time of consummation I'll tell you what I'll do this as I'll do this as a little throne that's a little judgment throne and this is the the consummation to use merit of clients terms. Common grace would extend from the time of the creation to the cross and on beyond up to the second coming of Christ and the final judgment. So he distinguishes between period of common grace and the age of the consummation. He says that various aspects of Old Testament ethics such as implications in the Psalms you know the calling down of wrath on the Psalmist enemies remember that the Psalmist was God's representative on earth so there were God's enemies as well. But that invocation of wrath and of judgment on those people those those implications that aspect the total destruction of the Canaanites and various aspects of Old Testament ethics merit of client describes as intrusions of the ethics of the consummation into the period of common grace in which we live. In his words and this is why you know it's sometimes complex to know exactly what he's talking about. He says that is some of the actions ordered by God in the Old Testament represent quote and anticipatory abrogation of the principle of common grace. So you have to figure out anticipatory and abrogation and common grace and principle and you're pretty well there. No it makes great sense once you know what those terms mean. It is not that God has different standards for different ages but that he applies a constant standard under significantly different conditions at present the consummation is delayed by a period of common grace when we are called upon to love our enemy. But when the eschaton the final judgment comes the age of consummation arrives we will be called upon to imitate our God in hating sin and the products of sin. There will come a time when the wheat and the tears will be separated but right now we don't know who are the wheat and the tears. Now we have an idea of who some of the wheat are and we have an idea of who looks like tears but we don't know if those are tears that God will by his grace. Turn into wheat you know we just don't know so we are called upon to love our enemies now in this age of common grace. Thus if we think of this notion in relationship to the conquest we begin to see that the conquest itself is an example of intrusion ethics. The book of Joshua does not present a program or justification for warfare in our day and these events in the Old Testament as well as the events in our own lives must be viewed in terms of the sweep of redemptive history. Cline says this the conquest with the pattern of the Old Testament action it exemplifies was not as is so often stigmatized an instance in the ethical sphere of arrested evolution but rather of anticipated eschatology. Now if you know those terms that's brilliantly phrased you know if you don't you have to look them up and figure out what he's talking about but it's very well put he says it's not arrested in the ethical sphere an instance of arrested evolution. In other words ethical under development it's not just a primitive mindset or something but rather it is anticipated eschatology an anticipation of the final judgment and think about it you know it's not just an Old Testament thing. What about you know you have that you have you have the flood certainly which is the intrusion intrusion of judgment into the period of common grace you have the annihilation of the Canaanites. You have even an isolated instance such as the death of Aza who reached out and touched the ark which was being carted when it should have been carried on poles and Aza reached out and touched it possibly in all sincerity well meaning and so forth. But God needed to make a point and so he made a point by taking us as life and God's in charge of that life and he may have ushered him right into eternal life so he may not have done him a disservice at all but still we're shocked by that and we think well how often does that happen you know surely other people have done things that have been as sacrilegious as that they don't get struck dead immediately. Or what about Ananias and Sapphira those in the New Testament who came and sort of lied to the Holy Spirit and sold a parcel of man and brought part of the proceeds and said well it's really all the proceeds I mean I we're all tempted to be that kind of you know I wonder if I can make this dollar bill look like a five when I put it in the offering plate you know we you know I mean if she human temptation you know why is one written everywhere on this bill I hate to be so cheap you know. But God doesn't God doesn't strike us dead every time we do something stupid like that but in the case of Ananias and Sapphira he had to make a point he said look I take this very seriously don't be so casual about it don't don't think you can pull the wall over the eyes of the Holy Spirit come on and so they both died. Now again this is not just Old Testament ethics look with me at Luke 13 I do occasionally read the New Testament I don't know all for the better it's the it's the flowering and the fruiting of the three quarters of the organism which is the Old Testament look chapter 13 look chapter 13 very very curious instant instance in the life of Jesus in one that I think speaks volumes maybe or maybe it has a lesson for us today. When we have something like Kansas City bombing or we have hurricanes coming ashore hurricane hope or whatever and people around to say what's going on in the world what is happening time magazine or one of the news magazines had a cover story about nature going wild while back and it does seem like things are happening all the time what are we to what are we to make of that what are we to learn of that well look what Jesus does when people ask him that question chapter 13 verse one. Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood pilot had mixed with their sacrifices this would be you know a kind of an analogy to the Kansas City bombing this was a criminal act that took the lives of other people. And Jesus answered notice what he didn't say he didn't say well you know those people those poor unfortunate people just happen to be in that building that was a criminal act but think of all the wonderful people who came out to help. And how humanity banded together and how that proves you know that even though there's bad people there's more good people and bad he didn't say anything like that notice what he says it's kind of shocking Jesus answered do you think that these Galileans were worse centers than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way. I tell you know but unless you repent you too will all perish well thank you for those words of comfort. Then he goes on in verse four or they go on to ask or he can Jesus continues well what about those eighteen who died when the tower of salome fell on them. Now again that's kind of like a natural disaster even though it was a tower that was not a criminal act it just happened you know the tower happened to fall that's like what happens when we suffer a natural disaster. Look at how he responds do you think that they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem. I tell you know but unless you repent you too will all perish. Now what in the world am I saying here I think I'm saying I think I'm saying that when these bad things happen in life we should take them as warnings that unrepentant sinners those who are outside of Christ are heading for something much worse than any natural disaster we can imagine. You know they are heading for final judgment and an eternity in hell and we should we should respond in the same way that Jesus does. You know don't think that there was something special about those people that they suffered in this way. They didn't suffer because they were any greater sinners but it's not that we're not sinners we're all sinners and we're all heading there unless we repent. Outside of Christ that is the faith that awaits us all and so he takes a tragic event doesn't sugarcoat it but uses it as an example of pointing up the reality of human lives very desperately in need of Christ very desperately in need of repentance toward God that they may escape final judgment by being in Christ. Notice how it continues in verse 6 he begins to tell a parable which I think relates directly to this idea of intrusion ethics. Then he told this parable a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard for three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any cut it down why should it use up the soil. Sir the man replied leave it alone for one more year and I'll dig around it and fertilize it if it bears fruit next year fine if not then cut it down. So what he's talking about is a trig feed that's called a spoonerism I just wanted to introduce you to that particular idea of what a spoonerism is it's like there's nothing I enjoy more than gliding down a hill on a well boiled tree. Well boiled and that's one of the classics or the other one I like is you call up the office you call up the office and ask June dare or actually a B Patricia in this case you say is the bean busy and her response of course is beer fully fizzy. Those are those are spoonerisms and I just really wanted to bring in that digression into this serious subject so that's why I did that. At any rate this is a big tree enjoying common grace but under threat of judgment right. It's a fruitless fig tree we might say it's an unrepentant fruit tree and the gardener comes or the owner of the vineyard comes and says cut it down and the gardener says no no one more year one more year let's give it a little longer a little more common grace. And if it bears fruit fine if it doesn't then cut it down cutting down is coming if that fig tree doesn't bear fruit so what we have the basic idea is the ethics of the consummation being intruded in the flood the genocide of the Canaanites at God's command the death of Aza the death of Ananias and Sapphira and any number of other instances that are not common practice it's not what commonly happens. Every time someone sins in that way but occasionally God makes a statement you know this is what this is what this is leading to and so beware. Well that's the issue of intrusion ethics I'm not sure we solved the whole question of the annihilation of the Canaanites but maybe these are at least some biblical principles to bear in mind it was particularized it was with the purpose of purpose of protection and punishment. To those who whose iniquity was now full and it's not a pattern for today it's not something that we adopt it's an instance of intrusion ethics and that's at God's command we don't dare say you know we're the agents of judgment now God is the one in charge of that and if we feel that he has designated us to take up arms and become the agents of judgment I think we probably better do a second check and maybe talk to Richard Winter or someone else I think we need to be very careful. In that area seriously because there are those who have been trained in places like this that have gone out and shot people thinking that they're justified in doing so we are called upon to love our enemies in this period of common grace and it's not our decision when final judgment isn't rooted we continue to operate on this basis and allow the other to be at God's command now questions are comments on this particular issue yes. Right right well if you look closely at the the question is what she can buy the the idea of intrusion ethics for these instances in redemptive history that I've mentioned but what about the imprecatory songs it's probably better to talk about implications in the songs because there are no songs that are pure and simple imprecatory there are implications within the songs and have other elements as well but what about those because the the solter is the prayer book of the church and in a sense. They are God's words to us well if we look at them very closely we'll discover certain principles such as they really they're really concerned not with personal vengeance but with God's righteousness many of them were prayed by the king by David I mean he wrote more implications in the songs that anyone else but the king in Israel was God's representative on earth. And so treason against the king wasn't just treason it was rebellion against God but in in the person of his representative there so there's a there's a God would focus as the psalmist cries out that that God would bring justice that God would punish the evil doer that he would bring upon their heads there just deserves that's another constant element that there's a balancing of the offense with what God would like you know with with what these people deserve by virtue of their offense in one imprecatory psalmist says you know they are full of curses and they are and they never bless and so the psalmist says so let them be cursed and far from blessing in other words give them what they're you know give them what they're giving but the interesting thing about the implications is what are the alternatives when we are really really really mad what are our alternatives take matters into our own hands exact the personal vengeance fly off the handle do something horrible or take it to God and say look I turn this over to you I trust that you will write all wrongs you're the righteous judge you do the job you know because sometimes we are very upset and but that's the way to turn so they're they're good aspects in those implications that's probably another course however maybe we'll give a version of that in some future date well I think our time is elapsed for this session so come back this time when the big hand reaches the two can we do that again nine and a half minutes all right thanks