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Saving Private Ryan

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lareli:
Hi extol

I agree with you and I totally understand and agree with your point and I understand the spiritual lessons of all the gentile nations being slaughtered. It doesn't take away from the fact that literal infants were literally ripped to pieces at the command of God. Unless you believe all these stories were just myths. I haven't heard anyone ever claim that. These were real babies and God commanded real humans to slaughter each and every one.

Do you believe these stories are myths? Or do you believe God commanded babies to be slaughtered, blood, guts, infants screaming in pain... Their mothers screaming in pain, throwing up at the sight of it, only to be ripped to pieces themselves?

I would love to hear someone say these are myths or stories and not to be taken literally just like I've heard the creation story does not involve a literal tree of knowledge of good and evil. But if these stories are real and literal than I don't think we are learning the whole spiritual lesson by saying 'ya well God is sovereign' in the case of slaughtered babies while letting our hearts bleed over what happens in modern day warfare.

Extol:
Howdy,

 I do believe these things really happened, as Paul said in his letter to the Corinthian church. The important thing for me in reading the Old Testament is the parable aspect---how it points to Christ, and foreshadows us being made into the image of God. I believe these things happened, but I stress the parable part because a) it's more important, and b) there are many people who do not believe in the God of the Bible because of the Old Testament violence, or more generally, the existence of evil. For unbelievers and those on the fence, the "problem of evil" is the most powerful argument against God. We know, of course, that God creates evil and uses it often for His purposes, so it is not even an argument.

Please don't misunderstand me though---this is very sad stuff, whether it is 1940s warfare or 2000 B.C. warfare. It's easier to see the "spiritual" in things that happened thousands of years ago. I admit it would be more difficult to say "It's all of God" if we saw the Amalekites being killed on TV today. But God is sovereign now just as He was then, and we have to have faith that He knows what He is doing. There is an appointed time for men to die, and that has always been the case. It is foolish to think otherwise. Christians blame Adam, and skeptics blame God, but the Bible never said there wasn't supposed to be death. It is a major part of our experience of evil, and that's always been the plan. Sadly (from our perspective), dying is not as easy as going to sleep when you're 100 and not waking up; many millions of people have suffered horrible deaths.

But as sad as all of this is, we have something that very few people have--hope for a future resurrection, not just for believers, but for all people. Even those Amalekite babies are going to come back. Instead of learning war as they would have in ancient Amalek, they will learn righteousness.

Kat:

--- Quote from: largeli on May 27, 2015, 01:09:52 PM ---Hi extol

I agree with you and I totally understand and agree with your point and I understand the spiritual lessons of all the gentile nations being slaughtered. It doesn't take away from the fact that literal infants were literally ripped to pieces at the command of God. Unless you believe all these stories were just myths. I haven't heard anyone ever claim that. These were real babies and God commanded real humans to slaughter each and every one.

Do you believe these stories are myths? Or do you believe God commanded babies to be slaughtered, blood, guts, infants screaming in pain... Their mothers screaming in pain, throwing up at the sight of it, only to be ripped to pieces themselves?

I would love to hear someone say these are myths or stories and not to be taken literally just like I've heard the creation story does not involve a literal tree of knowledge of good and evil. But if these stories are real and literal than I don't think we are learning the whole spiritual lesson by saying 'ya well God is sovereign' in the case of slaughtered babies while letting our hearts bleed over what happens in modern day warfare.
--- End quote ---

Hi largeli,
Now you have focused on God having commanded babies should be killed in the OT, along with the rest of the pagan population, when the Israelite army sweep through to rid the land of the pagans, this is true. Do you not realize that babies have been casualties of pretty much every war? The innocent die everyday, but I guess the idea that God is shown to have actually commanded it is what is disturbing... maybe because babies are really harmless.

In those cases in the OT where God condemned those pagan nations to ALL were to be completely removed/killed from the land that the Israelites were to occupy. It's like what Jesse was saying, this is an allegory, and to save any part of them (even a single baby) is to harbor some part of the paganism and to rebel against what God had commanded, for them to completely clean the land (Eze 39).

Can't you see a connection in this (first the physical) and what God, and the elect, will do in the next age... God will bring the chosen (sheep) into His kingdom, but the rest (goats) will face "eonian destruction" (destroying the carnal flesh).

2Th 1:7  and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
v. 8  in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
v. 9  These shall be punished with everlasting (eonian) destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

But just like you are concentrating on the physical/literal of the OT, so the church does the same with the NT meaning of destruction. But yes there was the death of the innocent babies in those OT Israelite wars, just as there is in all wars. Death is a absolute part of this age, but the most important thing is that all those babies had the chance to live and they will be given a better life to live out in the next age, where all thing will be put right by God.

Rev 21:3  And I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God  is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Heb 8:10  "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Jer 31:33  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Jer 24:7  Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.

Eze 37:23  They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
 
Zec 8:8  I will bring them back, And they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be My people And I will be their God, In truth and righteousness.'

mercy, peace and love
Kat

repottinger:
I think you did a great job of differentiating between the physical, Old Covenant aspects and the spiritual, New Covenant application of the Old Testament warfare, Extol and Kat. I can only add a couple of verses to those you already mentioned which help us to focus on when God will be all in all rather than this present veil of tears; I hope they might be helpful to you along with the other verses, largeli.
Romans 8:18-21 (AKJV):
 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
II Corinthians 4:17-18 (AKJV):
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Your brother in Christ,
Randy

Extol:
Largeli,

Something else I would like to add....the evil in the world is often hard for us to accept because we are projecting our human thoughts and emotions onto God. We say, "If I was God, I would end the suffering, or not have suffering at all." We are thinking--with a human brain--what we would do if we were God. As if we know better than God! Anyone who thinks like that is a fool. It's like thinking "I don't know why goldfish just sit in the pond all day. If I was a goldfish and could breathe underwater, I would want to swim across the ocean!" We are thinking with our human brain what we'd like to do, ignoring the fact that goldfish don't live in salt water, and can't swim nearly that far. Or it's like a bird thinking "Why do humans just stay on the ground? I have these two little wings, and they have FOUR long limbs. If I had limbs like that, I would fly to the moon and back!" The bird is thinking with its bird brain and projecting it onto the human, ignoring the fact that a human cannot do what a bird does, and thinks and behaves very differently. These silly examples are only a very small glimpse of the foolishness of thinking how we would do things if we were God. The reality is, God is far bigger than all the humans and all the goldfish and all the birds in the world.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.…" Isa. 55:8-9

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