The Absolute Destruction

Joshua 6:12-21

Amputation is always the last resort; but when a disease endangers the whole, it becomes necessary. The Canaanites were deeply infected by a malignant disease. The symptoms included (from Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 18):

1. Incest.
2. Fornication and adultery.
3. Homosexuality.
4. Bestiality.
5. Idolatry.
6. Child sacrifice.
7. Divination.
8. Witchcraft.
9. Sorcery.

The Canaanites had become an oozing, throbbing, cancerous tumor in the land. Their destruction was necessary to preserve God's people, Israel. And so, Joshua utterly destroyed them. Men and women. Sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Uncles and aunts. Nephews and nieces. Newborns and senior citizens... Absolute destruction.

Is this blood-stained God unrecognizable to you? Have we focused so exclusively on His grace that we've forgotten His wrath and hatred for sin? Have we focused so exclusively on our new life that we've forgotten Christ's bloody death? Indeed, the blood that flows from God's wrath against sin is a cornerstone of the gospel. Go check out Romans 5:8-10.

We must see sin for what it is. Not merely a choice, a lifestyle, an orientation, a weakness, a mistake, an addiction, a bad habit, a character flaw. We can live with these things. Yet, here we see that sin should send us running to the surgeon, begging for the scalpel. It must be carved out of our families, our churches, our homes, and our hearts or we'll be destroyed like the Canaanites.

We're infected and it's spreading, but there's hope: we must submit every naked corner of our hearts to God's scalpel wielding hands. The only path to freedom from the disease is to leave our dead, sin-ravaged bodies behind and walk in newness of life. This is what Jesus offers in the gospel