How can a loving God destroy whole civilizations like He did in the Old Testament?

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled “Invite”. During this series we are looking at several events from history where Jesus engaged and invited those who were far from Him to follow Him and live in relationship with Him. During this series, we are going to discover what Jesus said to invite those who were far from Him to follow Him and live in relationship with Him. During this series, we are going to discover how Jesus said what He said to invite those who were far from Him to follow Him and live in relationship with Him. And as we go through this series, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands in a way that equips and empowers us to follow the example of Jesus when it comes to inviting those who are far from Jesus to follow Jesus and live in relationship with Jesus.  

This week I would like for us to look at an event from history that is recorded in a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew. And it is in a section of the gospel of Matthew that we see Matthew give us a front row seat to an event from history where Jesus invited someone to follow Him and live in relationship with Him. So let’s take that front row seat together, beginning in Matthew 15:21-22:

Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²² And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."

Matthew begins to give us a front row seat to this event from history by providing the context in which this event from history took place. After having a confrontation with the self-righteous religious leaders of the day over His unwillingness to have His disciples follow their man-made rules, which we looked at last week, Jesus and His disciples withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. Now Tyre and Sidon were cities that were located north of the region of the Galilee that marked the northern edge of the territory of the Jewish people. And historically these two cities were enemies of the Jewish people.

And because of the history of animosity and hostility between the Jewish people and these cities, Jesus traveled to this region to get away from the opposition that He was experiencing from the Jewish religious leaders of the day. You see, no self-respecting Jewish religious leader would consider traveling to such a place where there were people that they viewed to be enemies of the Jewish people.

Upon arriving near these cities, as Jesus and His disciples remained outside of the city, a Canaanite woman approached them to request that Jesus heal their daughter. As a Canaanite, this would be a woman who was not Jewish ethnically or religiously. Instead, this woman was from an ethnic group who were considered the enemies of the Jewish people and who worshiped false gods instead of the Lord. This was a woman whose descendants the Lord had commanded the Jewish people to conquer and destroy from the land that they had been given by the Lord, which the Jewish people referred to as the Promised Land.

Now, as we have talked about in the past, so often when I talk with people about God and Christianity, one of their biggest push backs is “How can a loving God destroy whole civilizations like He did in the Old Testament. Your God sounds like a God of wrath, not a God of love. If that is what God is like, I want no part of Him”. Maybe you are here this morning, and this is one of your biggest reasons for resisting or rejecting Christianity. My response to that objection or push back is this: to understand why God commanded the Jewish people to destroy the nations that inhabited the Promised Land and to possess the Promised Land, we first need to understand two things about these nations, which are referred to in the Bible as the Amorites or the Canaanites.

The first thing that we need to understand is that the people who made up the nations that inhabited the Promised Land were some of the most inhumane and cruelly wicked societies that ever lived. These were societies that sacrificed their infant children to false gods; these were societies that were involved in sexual behavior that was so twisted and perverse I cannot even begin to describe in mixed company. In these societies young children were often suffocated and buried alive in the foundations of their homes as an act of worship to their false gods.

In fact, many historians and archaeologists describe the Canaanite society as being perhaps the most wicked society that ever lived. In another section of the Bible God made it clear to the Jewish people that they were not receiving the Promised Land because they were especially good; they were receiving the Promised Land because the inhabitants of that land were exceptionally evil.

The second thing that we need to understand is that God did not simply wake up one morning and decide to wipe out an entire culture and society as a wrathful, angry God. Some 400 years before commanding the Jewish people to conquer and destroy the peoples that lived in the land of Canaan, God predicted and proclaimed to Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, that after being enslaved in Egypt, the Jewish nation would return to and take possession of the land that was promised to his descendants.

For 400 years God endured the incredible wickedness of the Amorites and the Canaanites. God extended grace for 400 years in order to provide that society the opportunity to change their evil ways. And after 400 years, God chose to use the Jewish people as an instrument to exercise His justice and judgment on the people of the land of Canaan, who had refused to change and were left with no excuse or defense for their wickedness. 

In addition, God also used other nations to exercise justice and judgment upon the Jewish people as a result of their wrongdoing and injustice. Throughout the Old Testament, God used the Assyrian Empire and the Babylonian Empire to exercise His justice and judgment upon the Jewish people for their wrongdoing and injustice. And during the period of history in the life of Jesus, the Jewish people were living as a conquered people under the Roman Empire as a result of their selfishness and rebellion. Throughout the letter that make up the Bible, we see God use nations to exercise His justice and judgment of the wrongdoing and injustice of other nations. 

Now, with that background information in mind, Matthew tells us that this woman, who was familiar with the Jewish religious system and their hope in a promise of a Messiah, called Jesus the Son of David. You see, God had promised the Jewish people that He would send a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah, who would bring the Jewish people back to God and back to prominence in the world. And one of the titles that was used to describe the Messiah was the Son of David, as the Messiah would be a descendant of the Jewish people’s most famous king, King David. 

So this woman, fully aware of the history and animosity that existed between her descendants and the Jewish people, approached Jesus from a distance and shouted a request that He would heal her daughter. In addition, this woman, in making her request explained the reason behind her request. Apparently, this woman’s daughter was possessed by a demon and was being treated cruelly and severely by this demon. So this woman, in spite of the risks of approaching Jesus and His disciples, took the risk to approach Jesus from a distance and request Jesus to do what she believed He could do to help her daughter. Matthew then recorded Jesus response to the woman’s request in verse 23-24:

 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." ²⁴ But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Matthew explained that Jesus responded to her request with silence. Now for this Canaanite woman, this response would not have been that unusual, based on the history of the ethnic hostility and animosity that existed between the groups. The woman, however, responded by persisting in her request, which would have challenged the social and cultural expectations of the day. You see, this woman was prepared to suffer ridicule and rejection and even physical danger in order to bring her daughters need to the attention of Jesus. The strength of this woman’s love for her daughter drove her to see her need for Jesus.

Now, while Jesus listened to the woman, but failed to respond to the woman, the disciples had a much different response: "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." The disciples response, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: Do what she wants so that she will go away and leave us alone. While Jesus listened to the woman, the disciples wanted nothing to do with the woman. Instead, they wanted Jesus to drive the woman away.

Matthew tells us that Jesus responded to the disciples request by explaining, loud enough that the woman would have been able to hear, that "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." With this phrase, Jesus was basically saying to His disciples and to this woman who was within earshot of the conversation “the Messiah was sent to the Jewish people, not those who were not Jewish.”

Once again Jesus response would have been what would have been expected by a Jewish person to someone who was viewed as an enemy of a different ethnicity. This response would have challenged this woman as to why she was asking Jesus to do for her what she was asking Him to do. At this point, the disciples were hopeful that this woman would be on her way and leave them alone.

However, that is not what happened, as we see tomorrow…