Leviticus 18,19

18:24 "Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled."

God condemns the nations of Canaan. The context is the ordinances against sexual immorality, so it seems that the land was inhabited with Sodom and Gomorrah wannabes.

I have heard some people argue against the Bible or God in general because of the conquest of the promised land. They posit that there is an inherent evil in arbitrarily choosing one particular tribe of man and giving that tribe land at the expense of the wholesale slaughter of other tribes. There is a tacit misunderstanding of the situation in this argument.

First of all, there's a problem with casting doubt on the decision making abilities of the Creator of all (including the one doubting), but we won't go into that here. There were two sides to the giving of Canaan to Israel. One was the promise of the land to Abraham. God chose Abraham's line, promised the land to his children, and that's that. We all know that the Israelites weren't perfect, so it wasn't based on their merit. It was based on God's merit. God chose to show His faithfulness by choosing a line of people for a special purpose and seeing it through.

The other side of the conquest is expressed in this verse. The people being expunged were downright evil. What the "make love, not war" crowd need to see in this chapter of the Bible is that peace is great, but God desires righteousness. And God knows that true peace will only come in righteousness. If you read chapter 18 of Leviticus and imagine a community that "by all these... have become defiled", there cannot be any peace there. As long as that type of lifestyle is permitted to exist, families will be broken, the weak will be exploited, and those that excel in an imagination rooted in evil will rule the day. Thank God He does not tolerate this kind of stuff.

It's too bad the world thinks there's nothing wrong with it. But I can keep the conquest going by spreading the gospel and letting the Holy Spirit wage war in the hearts of sinners. Let's just pray those we witness to submit rather than resist. We all know the eventual fate of the Canaanites.

Lord, thank You for Your righteousness. Help me to take Your standard of holiness much more seriously. Help me to clearly explain to those around me the truth of the blessings of Your righteousness and the curses of sin.