Before we get into our text study of Numbers 31, there’s a major elephant in the room concerning the contents of this chapter that needs to be addressed.
It concerns the fact that we’re dealing with a tremendous amount of killing and bloodshed in this chapter.
Not only are we dealing with a tremendous amount of killing and bloodshed, but we’re dealing with a tremendous amount of killing and bloodshed ordered by God Himself.
Well, it seems like a lot of people have a problem with that.
They have difficulty reconciling the idea of a loving God as a being who would also order the extermination of an entire people group.
If you struggle with this issue, you’re not alone.
Many scholars, writers, theologians, rabbis and pastors have also struggled with this issue.
The problem is that while the God of Israel is a God of love, “love” is NOT the only attribute He possesses.
He has many other attributes as well such as “justice” and “holiness” which are also just as much a part of His character as the attribute of “love” is.
Difficulty in accepting these parts of Scripture is what has led to this false man-made division of the “wrathful God of the Old Testament” versus the “loving God of the New Testament“, as if we’re dealing with two totally different beings.
Well, that’s not the case.
Consider this.
Is it not both ridiculous and hypocritical to despair over and apologize for the slaughter of Midianites here in the Book of Numbers while at the same time…
…cheering and raising our voices in song over the coming of Armageddon which is depicted as the total grisly and merciless extermination of the billions of gentiles and the nations they belong to who will not submit to God?
And let’s not forget that prior to this incident we’re reading about here in Numbers, we’ve already witnessed incidents of mass extermination by the hand of God Himself.
How about the flood which wiped out every human being on the planet save Noah and his family?
Or how about the night of the Passover in Egypt, when the Angel of the Lord killed the first born males of every living being, both human and animal, in Egypt?
We haven’t come to it yet but later on God will instruct that every man, woman and child be killed when Israel conquers Canaan.
And when we study about David expanding his kingdom, we will read about the Lord literally laying to waste about a quarter million Assyrian soldiers in one night to thwart their plans to overthrow the city of Jerusalem.
Look, here’s what you’ve got to understand.
FIRST, it doesn’t matter whether we’re dealing with the TANACH (the Old Testament) or the BRIT HADASHAH (the New Testament), we’re dealing with the same God with the exact same attributes.
SECOND, a proper objective reading of ALL of Scripture will show us a divine pattern that God has always chosen moments to exterminate those who are not His.
The reason may be for divine retribution which is what we’re dealing with here in Numbers 31 or…
…it may be because God is sacrificing those being exterminated for those who are His, as was the case with Passover.
THIRD, let us not forget that the worst and most horrific slaughtering at the hand of God is yet to come and it is NOT depicted in the Old Testament, it is depicted in the New Testament (I’m talking about Armageddon).
You know what our problem is?
We want a God that our human sensibilities would prefer to have, instead of accepting the reality of who HASHEM really is.
That’s precisely why we come up with these ridiculous ideas that the God of the Old Testament has somehow morphed into I-would-never-hurt-a-fly God of the New Testament.
It kind of reminds of a quote I read once from Mark Twain when he said “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand”.
Folks, I know this might sound a bit harsh but we don’t have an “intelligence” problem when it comes to these parts of Scripture.
We have a FAITH problem.
That’s right and let me say it again.
We have a FAITH problem.
Why do we have a faith problem?
Because instead of accepting what the Word plainly and clearly says, we opt for constructing a God we can be more comfortable with, which by the way is the very definition of idolatry.
Idolatry is molding, shaping and ascribing attributes to God based on our own nice-sounding and comfortable human philosophies, characteristics, and desires.
We literally recreate a God based on the figments of our imagination and when we worship such a man-made concoction, that is nothing more and nothing less than idolatry.
Are you stating that Armageddon is only meant for unbelieving gentiles? Or was this a mistake? Shouldnt this statement include all unbelievers, Jew or gentile?
I meant all unbelievers regardless of ethnicity or national origin.