When YAHWEH freed the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land (Canaan), He gave them specific instructions. In order for them to successfully build a thriving nation, based on God’s Covenant, they had to completely remove the pagan, Canaanite influences from the entire region. This meant the complete destruction of all of the Canaanite nations and peoples, all of their religious imagery and buildings, and every single pagan practice the former residents sought to share with the Hebrews.
This idea sounds like a form of genocide to the modern
mind. It is often pointed to by
criticizing atheists as to why belief in the Bible’s God is untenable. It also seems foreign to the goals of the
Christian Church as taught by Jesus.
But, this is but a cursory, surface examination of the
historical events and God’s motives. The
reality is that God so cherished His chosen people, the only nation He ever formally
made a covenant with, that He wanted to protect them from all evil influences
in the world which would hamper their faith and cause them to ignore their
special relationship with Him – hence the colorful metaphor in Scripture of God
being “a jealous God.” He knew their
experience was that of pagan, polytheistic Egypt and He wanted far better for
them.
We must also understand that God was using His people as the
instrument of His judgment against the Canaanite nations for their gross sin,
immorality, and evil. The ritual
sacrifice of infants was not unknown to many of the Canaanite nations –
sacrificing children to Moloch is reported in the scriptures; despite the
protestations of the “PC” liberal scholars.
Temple prostitution was also a requirement for many in
Canaan. Both husbands and wives would “serve
their time” in temple brothels for periods of time each year. The ramifications for Canaanite families were
devastating.
Violence, abuse, slavery, civil corruption, and economic
fraud were all rampant – often the norm in many of the Canaanite city-states.
God knew just how devastating this debauched, pagan, polytheism
would be to His people. So, they were
ordered to utterly destroy all in Canaan.
He had promised them they would have the homes, vineyards, flocks, and
lands of the people they were dispossessing, but they were not to allow any of
the influences of the people to warp their God-ordained destinies.
Ultimately, the Hebrews failed to keep God’s command and
this led to their eventual downfall and destruction as a nation. Throughout almost all of its Old Testament
history, Israel flirted with idolatry and pagan immorality.
God was patient and kind enough to hold off judgment for
many centuries. There were periods of
foreign oppression and invasion during the period, but the Hebrews generally
repented and were restored in their covenant with God for a time. But, the end would come in both the 700s and
500s B.C. with successive invasions and the destructions of both halves of the
Jewish Nation.
The underlying cause for all of their troubles as a nation
was the fact that the Jews just couldn’t stay true to God. They always seemed to have one eye looking at
what their pagan neighbors had that they might want to also experience. They allowed the influences of the pagan
Canaanites and other pagan regional neighbors to influence their culture to its
downfall.
This was exactly the thing God wanted to help them avoid by purging
the land of evil before they came to dwell there permanently. Yet, they failed to trust Him and left
vestiges of Canaanite paganism intact.
Now, let’s fast forward to today’s modern Christian
Church. What parallels can we draw from
the Hebrews’ conquest failures? How has “the
Canaanite plague” infected the Christian Church today?
First of all, we must confess to having failed in similar
ways as our Hebrew brothers and sisters.
We, too, have failed to heed God’s warnings to keep the pagan influences
out of our churches. We haven’t been
willing to purge the heretics and subtle evils from our midst in order to
protect the flock from ruin.
Let’s look at how this has happened. The cancer goes back almost two centuries
already with the advent of the German higher critical theological
movement. When those
Enlightenment-warped theologians from continental Europe began to denigrate the
truth of the Scriptures; to subjugate God’s Word to their highly speculative
textual and sociological theories, the wells of orthodoxy were poisoned.
Once God’s Word was seen in light of some pseudo, superior “scientific”
methodologies, the Church began its slide to oblivion. It didn’t take long for basic, historic
Christian doctrines to be disbelieved and impugned. Darwin replaced Moses as the author of the Creation
account. Jesus was stripped of His
Divinity. The authenticity of the
Biblical texts was dismissed.
A glaring hole formed in the heart of Christianity; a hole
which would soon be filled with all kinds of humanist mischief. Liberation theology mutated out of Marxism
and grew many heads of its own as each supposedly aggrieved social grouping
formed their own version. Everyone
became a victim needing special consideration and prominence in the church. Finally, any notion of a Biblical Christ was
completely pushed out the church doors and replaced with the lazy, bloated god
of “tolerance.”
Today, the institutional, mainline Church says or does
nothing Biblical anymore; except for badly quoting Scriptures out of context to
reinforce radical fantasies. And, true
believers have been shepherded behind church walls so as not to offend anyone
in today’s “enlightened” society.
But, that still was not enough for modern enraged
secularists. They remained cranky that
there were any “ignorant” religious fanatics left out there who still disagreed
with their self-revelatory enlightenment.
As King Théoden once famously said, “How did it come to
this?”
What we see today is the exact same result as the Jews
experienced because they disobeyed God’s command to “remove the Canaanite from
the land.” The Christian Church has
repeatedly refused to purge its ranks from heretics and the “boasting sinners.”
We have allowed those with obviously unbiblical beliefs to
remain among us and even put them into positions of leadership. After all, we don’t want to appear “unloving”
do we?
And we have allowed those who want to sin openly to become
members and leaders within our churches.
Let’s face it, the result from that hasn’t been their conviction and
repentance, it has been the leading astray of the physically and spiritually
young among us.
In American society, the Church shifted. At first Christians demanded that society
practice at least a nominal form of religious devotion and consistent Biblical
morality. Even if not all professed
faith in Christ, all at least were respectful of those who did.
But, amidst the theological confusion created by the
denigration of the Scriptures, the Church retreated behind the philosophy of “live
and let live.” After all, who were we to
claim to speak for God as to how all people should live?
Heterosexual monogamy after the benefit of a Christian
marriage ceremony might be our preference, but who were we to tell others that “shacking
up” was wrong? Who were we to declare
that children born out of wedlock were illegitimate?
Soon, our churches had pews and boards with open fornicators
on them. Never mind the concept of sin
and repentance. The “new gospel” said, “I’m
OK, you’re OK.”
When the homosexual rights movement began, the Church also
cowered to the “tolerance police” who claimed that we should just allow others
to seek love in whatever manner they chose.
Instead of standing against this destructive behavior, the Church
largely ignored it for a time.
As the militant homosexual movement grew, so did their
demands. HIPAA laws were passed to protect
the privacy of promiscuous homosexuals who might become stigmatized if others
knew they had AIDS.
What then followed was the demand for “civil union”
rights. “We don’t want to change the
definition of marriage”, they said. “We
just want the right to share in the same insurance benefits as heterosexual married
couples.”
How gullible and naïve the Church was! Every new “invented” right for those who
practice homosexual behavior led to the demand for more and more rights.
Next came the demand for marriage equality. Why should homosexual couples be seen as some
kind of second-class citizens, they argued.
Five lawyers in black robes agreed and 6,000 years of basic human
understandings of marriage were thrown into the “trash can of history.”
But, that was still not enough. Next, all Christian businesses were to be
made to bow the knee to the “god of tolerance” as well. One’s own religious convictions were now
second class to wishes of the “gaystapo.”
Those battles are still raging, but the “rainbow jihad” has already
moved on to attack new societal ground.
Leaving all semblance of reality, the latest LGBT push is to
accommodate those with severe psychological gender issues as if they were the
second coming of Gandhi. Now, even if
someone wants to pretend they are the opposite sex, everyone else in society
must be forced to play along with their fantasy.
And, this is especially designed to target children because
they are the most impressionable and the schools are open to indoctrination
since God hasn’t been welcome there in decades – also because of the Church’s prophetic
impotence.
So, what happens next?
We have already seen the mainline Church openly embrace all of the “rainbow
jihad’s” agenda. I remember a UCC clergy
speaker demanding churches remove “male” and “female” signs from church
restroom doors as far back as 2002.
What is to happen to the evangelical Church? Are we still the faithful remnant? Or, have we also tainted our hands and souls
with the “Canaanite plague” as well?
Do we have the spiritual wisdom and strength to take a stand
against lies and evil as they have crept into our churches as well? Or, have we so compromised our witness by
excusing the blatant vulgarisms of Donald Trump since “at least he wasn’t
Hillary”?
The Church’s only hope is repentance and humility before God
Almighty. We must ask for His
mercy. We must recommit to His
Truth. We must stand on His Word to
rebuild our foundation.
And, we must be willing to purge our ranks of the heretics,
the con men, the false prophets, and the squishy theological cowards who refuse
to call out those who lead the sheep astray.
No, God hasn’t called us to destroy the Canaanites in a
literal sense. Jesus still motivates us
by His Love. But, part of His Love is
His Truth and it is in that Truth we must stand.
We must tell the world that what we proclaim is reality, not
just some subjective opinion. We must
stop apologizing for making the sinner feel guilty and the pagan feel silly in
their beliefs.
And, we must not continue to confuse our own cowardice with
Biblical meekness. We are always called
to confront evil whenever and wherever we see it. We are called to be shepherds of the flock –
driving off the wolves and jackals that seek to devour the precious lambs of
our Lord.
If the Christian Church is to survive the “Canaanite plague”,
we cannot continue doing either nothing or the same old, same old. Dangerous times call for a dangerous faith.
God didn’t send the women and children into Canaan
first. He sent Joshua and his armies;
along with the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Today, we need Christian warriors for truth. We must be bold, fearless, loving, and
charitable; all at the same time. The
time for hand-wringing and cloistering is over.
If our nation is to survive, it desperately needs our
Biblical witness. We need to tear down
the strongholds of the enemy. We need to
pray to shake loose the powers of heaven. And, we need to challenge every soul on the
planet to believe in Jesus or face a hellish eternity.
In other words, the spiritual Canaanites must die and new,
redeemed souls must arise – within and outside of the Church’s walls.
