Day 179: God's Just Wars 1

Today's Connected Passages: 

• Exodus 17:8-16 [Deuteronomy 25:17-19] 
• Numbers 21:1-3; 21:21-35 [Deuteronomy 2:24-37, Joshua 2:10, 9:10; Judges 11:19-22 Nehemiah 9:22; Psalm 135:10-11] 
• Numbers 31:1-12 
• 1 Samuel 23:1-6, 30:7-20 
• 2 Samuel 2:1-4, 5:17-25 [1 Chronicles 20:4-6]; 8:1-18 [Psalm 60] 
• 1 Chronicles 14:8-17 
• 1 Chronicles 18:1-17 [Psalm 18:50/2 Samuel 22:51] 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Hi, welcome you to day number 179 of the Canon Connected. And today we're starting a two-day study which follows up on a five-day study of the promise, giving, and distribution or division of the land of Israel, the physical, geographical land of Israel in the Old Testament, with a two-day study on God's just wars, by meaning God's ordained wars. And I know wars are a very controversial topic in the modern times, and I won't delve into that at all because that's not the point of this podcast, even a little bit. But the point is to remind us again of what the connections in the Bible and whatever themes there are that connect, and we could divide the Bible a number of ways, but the 340, however many um days that we have that deal with connections in this plan center around themes. And this one is around how we can see all throughout the Old Testament that God ordained war. And in some cases, he didn't explicitly say go to war, but he still endorsed it, he still supported it. And there sometimes it's very, very strongly implied, as we'll see with this first story, that this was God's will for them to go to war with people because that was just the culture of the time. And even today, there are some places in the world where that's still a reality. That doesn't seem controversial to me at all. But in the Old Testament times, especially, if you wanted to go in and take land, I mean you had to war over it. And it's not like God's, you know, choosing Israel because he's a partial God. It's because the people that lived in that land and the people who tried to prevent them from getting to those lands were evil and they were wicked, and God used his people to execute justice. And I think that's totally fair and totally honest of us to say that. And I think it would be it would be disingenuous to imply or to state otherwise. We start with with uh with Moses in the book of Exodus because again, the people are traveling to the promised land, and so anything that prevents them from getting there is outside of God's will, you know, so they have to go to war um with the warriors of Amalek. That's who attacks them, you know, in Exodus 17. And it's the story of Moses lifting up his hands, you know. But Moses commanded Joshua, choose men to go out and fight the army of Amalek for us. And this is clearly ordained by God, okay? This is what God wants, and God gives them, you know, um, he gives them blessings at the end of this story. And they even build an altar, you know, which means the Lord is my banner, you know. Um, and uh, and he said, I have raised the fist of against the Lord's, they have raised the fist against the Lord's throne, so now the Lord will be at war with Amalek generation after generation. And then Deuteronomy 25 is a commentary on that, strong connection there. That was the next one. And then Sihon and Og, this has been a huge part of what we've been studying. Again, so much of what we're probably 80, 90 percent of what we're reading today and tomorrow, you know, is directly connected to what we've read the last several days. Again, they could not, you know, be given the land or before they could divide the land, and after God promised the land, the giving of the land involved God's just wars. And so we've seen how you know the two and a half tribes took the land where Sion and Og were, and this is where we see those wars at, Numbers 21, um, the first three verses, and then then we read 21 through 35, and then a whole bunch of commentary on this all throughout the uh the the new the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 2, Joshua 2, that's you know Rahab's you know uh um um testimony. Joshua 9, this is even the Gibeonite deception, uh which uh which is a part of a different reading as the whole story, but it's still this is something that they use, you know, as as a way to deceive Joshua, which is you know a sad story for Joshua's leadership and an otherwise very pristine record, I think. But this is what they part of what they use, which they're being honest here, just like Rahab and Joshua too, and and Joshua 9, this is something they could testify that they had actually heard about, you know, what they what they did to Sihon and Og and through God's just wars. Judges 11, Nehemiah 29, 22, Psalm 135, look at all these times again. God reminds us and he repeats because this is how God works. So much of what we're reading this year through connections is just God repeating things because it proves again who he is, and it proves again that he is faithful and he keeps his promises, and we need to constantly be reminded of that. We need to constantly celebrate those things. In Numbers 31, the Midianites leading the people into idolatry, and this is what it says God's just wars. Then the Lord said to Moses, on behalf of the people of Israel, take revenge on the Midianites for leading them into idolatry. God's just wars. He ordains this. You know, sometimes it doesn't say it quite that outright, but I think he may as well have in these other stories. But when he says it outright, as we'll also see with David over and over again, David asking him and God telling him what to do, this is how we know it's God's just wars. Yes is what he says. This is what he says to do. I mean, this is again God using his people as as a means of of vengeance, as a means of justice, even, you know, for for people doing evil. Um and this is how this is the the way of the world and in this time. And so it's not it's not unfair, it's not violent, it's not, you know, anything that negative at God at all. Everything God does is good. Everything God does is just. And so what he does in these stories is the goodness of God, it's the fairness of God, it's the justice of God, and it's even the anger of God too, because those things are good and fair and just. Then we get to David, several readings on David, a lot of David today, because David asked the Lord, Should I go and attack them? 1 Samuel 23. Yes, go and save Kayla. And all of these stories that we read today of David have that in as a connection. David asked the Lord, David asked the Lord, you know, David asked the Lord, Um, Should I go and fight the Philistines? Should I move back to one of the towns of Judah? The Lord replied, Yes. Which town should I go to? Hebron. You know, and so all of these things are centered around God telling David to fight, to fight. And some of them are, you know, parallel stories from Samuel and Chronicles. And then it ends today, by the way, with Psalm 60, is uh is this it says in the heading for the choir director of some of David using for teaching regarding the time David fought Aram Ahariam and Aram Zobah and Joab returned and killed 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt, which is part of what the story we read today. And I put Psalm 60 right after that story in 2 Samuel 8 for that reason. Strong connection there. And we're gonna see a lot more of those later this year, too. Psalms that connect to historical passages, especially David. All right. A lot of those in this reading plan, because those are connections. Psalms were written so often out of real world experiences and not just as a way to praise God, you know, or speaking of God's faithfulness and his character. A lot of it is this is what God did. And we see more of David in 1 Chronicles, and then I end it today with this testimony from the same Psalm, truly, two different places we find at Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, which we've seen connections through several times this year. You give great victories to your king, you show unfailing love to your anointed, to David and all of his descendants forever. And it starts by talking about God's just wars through David. So again, it's not it's an unsettling topic in the manner of speaking. I have no clue about the re actual reality of war. I know that William Tecumseh Sherman described it as hell, and I have zero doubt that that's true. But regardless of how we feel about it or whatever emotions or revulsions it brings, you know, into a person's mind, it is a reality of the Bible. So we discuss it, we talk about it, and we definitely want to see these connections because this is not just something God commanded a timer to, you know. This is something that a thread that runs all through the Old Testament, because again, in order for God's purposes to be achieved, all right, sometimes people had to pay a price. It's just it's just the reality of the fallen and sinful world. So tomorrow we're gonna finish up on the uh the God's just wars, and we're gonna go back to Joshua, not really back to it, because uh we were going chronologically for these two days in order, but for the whole seven days we're going back to Joshua, and we'll see uh even one from Judges as well, which is very interesting. But this will definitely tie into the other five days tomorrow's day because the passages are straight from Joshua. And so we'll come, hope you'll come back and be with us again tomorrow for day number two on God's just wars, and we'll continue to read, see, and study the connections. Thank you.