When many people read the Bible or listen to the stories of ancient Israel – we think of it as being far away and over – as in it isn’t applicable to us anymore.

It is also hard to come to terms with what we would equate to these days as being genocide. A lot of people try to judge God based on what happened and what is documented in the bible.

Its kind of interesting how people pick and choose, when reading something they don’t like – aka the stance against homosexuality, perversion, adultery, etc. – people try to discredit what they’ve read because of how is speaks against the way they want to live. On the other hand when reading about how cities of men, women, and child were wiped out – those people say how cruel and unfair God is for doing so – and that a loving God would never do that.

I’ve spent a long time thinking about those things – having those thoughts sit in my mind, sifting over what God is doing here. God is always right and his ways are above our ways and that makes it hard to understand.

One thing is that we don’t get to judge God, we are the creation and we don’t get to throw stones are our creator. God didn’t take sadistic pleasure at the destruction of those Canaanite people(s). Those people practiced idolatry, child sacrifice, incest, bestiality, prostitution, murder and every other sin in between – to the saturation point where God righteous judgement was called over the grace he had provided those people. Even among sinful nations – there are levels of depravity that God will not tolerate forever. And eventually you are with God or against God and once you choose to be against, no matter how “good” of a person you are – you will eventually sink deeper into sick sin, it’s inevitable – I think that is one of the reasons why God put a limiter on people’s life span.

We all have are own sin, or our own personal vices that we need to overcome, for some it’s gambling, pride, excessive drinking, gluttony, arrogance, violence, sex, drug addiction, or just a rejection of bending to God’s will.

God won’t withhold judgement of pagan behavior forever, and we are going to pay for it, if not in this life then in the one to come.

Being a Christian means knowing that we are sinful, accepting his forgiveness and living a life worthy of Christ’s sacrifice for us. The important point I want to make is that we are just like the people of ancient times – we can either follow our lusts and desires into a place away from God or we can choose to follow him and deny our pull towards sin and live a Godly and transformed life.

Jason