By ALLEN WALKER
painting God as a cruel tyrant, any more than I
should believe God told the Ge mans to kill the
Belgians?’ ”’
Arguments of this nature are being presented to
students in many of the colleges and institutions of
learning in our land today. There are very few who
are sufficently informed to meet these subtle reason-
ings, and their faith in the Old Testament is wrecked,
as well as all respect for the God who directed the
affairs of the children of Israel.
SaME COMPASSIONATE FATHER
T IS the purpose of this article to prove that the
God of the Old Testament is the same loving
and compassionate Father whom Jesus revealed to
man, that there is no difference between the God of
the Old Testament and that of the New, that both
are one and the same Person.
There is no disputing the fact that God repeatedly
instructed the Israelites to destroy the nations about
them. But this was never done until they had be-
come so steeped in such unspeakable sins and
degradations that they were past all hope of any
improvement, and their living would only serve
to contaminate all others who came under their
influence.
As an example let us take the Amorites. In
Deuteronomy 2:24, 32-35 we find the following:
“Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the
river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand
Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land:
begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.
. . . Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his
people, to fight at Jahaz. And the Lord our God
delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his
sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at
that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the
women, and the little ones, of every city, we left
none to remain.” In dealing with this destruction
of the Amorites, we wish first to show that God bore
long with them until they had completely filled up
their cup of iniquity and that they were beyond all
help. Then we will read how low they had sunk in
the depths of sin and vice.
Hundreds of years before the Israelites were in-
structed to destroy them, we find that God, in speak-
ing to Abraham, said, “Know of a surety that thy
seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their’s,
and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four
hundred years; and also that nation, whom they
shall serve, will I judge: and afterwards they shall
come out with great substance. And thou shalt go
to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a
good old age. But in the fourth generation they
shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amor-
ites is not yet full.” This language makes it plain
AUGUST, 1929
that so long as there was any hope for these people
God would let them live. ‘It is also plain that the
time would come when their “iniquity” would be
so intolerable, and their offspring so poisoned with
the depraved nature of their parents, that divine
wisdom would direct their destruction. When looked
at from this Scriptural viewpoint we readily see that
instead of their destruction being an act of ““ cruelty”
on the part of God who gave them life, it was a act
of mercy to deprive them of it when they used it
only to degrade themselves and to deprave others.
Speaking of the depravity and vices of those
nations which God instructed His people to destroy,
Deuteronomy 9: 5, and 12: 29, 30 declare: “For the
wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth
drive them out from before thee.” ‘When the Lord
thy God shall cut off these nations from before thee,
whither thou goest to possess them, . . . take heed
to thyself that thou be not snared by following them,
. . . for every abomination to the Lord, which He
hateth, have they done unto their gods: for even
their sons and their daughters have they burned
in the fire to their gods.”
These nations had forfeited their right to live.
They were unspeakably debased and brutalized.
Their forms of religion were corruption itself. The
screams of their children dying in agonies and torture
could be heard daily as they burned them alive to
their gods. It was when their manner of living
reached this state that their “iniquity” was “full,”
and divine justice and mercy alike demanded their
extermination, and the children of Israel were used
of God to bring about their destruction, just as the
state today could put parents to death who were
guilty of burning their children alive. When we get
at the Bible truth of these matters, we plainly see
the reason for these things, and find that the God
who executed these judgments is a God of justice,
love, and mercy and the same loving Father whom
Jesus revealed to the world.
ADORATION UNSURPASSED
N THE writings of Moses we find descriptions of
the character and nature of God just as beautiful
and appealing as anything found in the New Testa-
ment; and, moreover, there can be found nothing in
the writings of Moses, when properly understood,
that is in any way to the contrary. In Exodus 34:
5-7 we read: “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful
and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in good-
ness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, for-
giving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that
will by no means clear the guilty.” Again: *‘ Because
I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye great-
ness unto our God. He is the Rock, His work is
perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of
truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.”
Deuteronomy 32: 3, 4. We do not recall that Jesus
ever said anything about God or ever taught any-
thing about Him that is more sublime and beautiful
than the presentation of God (Continued on page 33)
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