Joshua

I feel I have to ask this.

Some might say it's sinful even to ask this question. Some might say I should not test the faithful. Some might say I have no right to ask it. But then some might say that there's no heaven - and go and tell that to the man who lives in hell.

Some might say I should just preach on being bold, being strong, for the Lord Your God is with you.

But it's this.

Joshua - a paragon of faith, bravery, dedication to the Lord. He is told to cross the Jordan, go and find out the various tribes of the Canaanites - I would list them all, but we're due to have another service next week, and I'm not sure I can get through them all in time - and he has to...

There's no easy way to put this. He is told to kill them all. Mostly just the males, but in some instances - Jericho, for instance - everyone. Man, woman and child. And destroy their belongings.  And, in the case of Jericho, obliterate the place.

Some might say that I'm just a bleeding-hearted old liberal. But I have to ask myself - how does that work? How can a loving God do that to people that He created?

And I've thought hard about the answer. And this is what I have concluded.

He did it because they deserved it.

I mean - what other answer can there be? There they all are - men, women and children - living in the Land of Canaan. A land that they may have thought was named after them - after all, they were  the Canaanites. Joshua turns up, blowing his own trumpet, as it were. The walls fall. The Israelitest kill them all.

So they must have been guilty. It stands to reason.  Baal-worshipping, Asherah-pole-building, Molech-stoking. What else could they expect? Genocide was too good for them.

But it still seems a bit rough on the children.

And now we sing that great old hymn - "Troops of Midian Prowl Around".