- 10 - • It was one and the same Christ who preached the conception of God that you find in the New Testament and who commanded the destruction of those idolatrous peoples. In one case as in the other, Christ appears as the Saviour. By ordering the extermination of those peoples, he preserved them from sinking still further into disbelief and depravity. • Christ indeed gave them the opportunity of working their way, in a new existence, out of the depths into which they had fallen. The underlying motive was the same as that which, in earlier times, had led to the [near] extinction of the human race in the Flood and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. An even more important motive was that of preserving faith in God among God’s people. When men make war, they do not hesitate to shoot anyone who tries to induce a soldier to desert, a measure that you accept as perfectly justified. Was not God equally entitled to order the death of those who wanted to instigate his chosen bearers of the faith to desert their colours and to go over to the Powers of Darkness? Besides, it was through God’s people that the hour of the Redemption of all mankind was to be prepared. Was Christ, then, to stand idly by while this work, difficult enough at best, was ruined by those who were enemies of God and instruments of Lucifer? You mortals become very tender-hearted when God in His wisdom and justice orders the destruction of utterly wicked and irretrievably depraved people, lest they corrupt millions of others and in order that they themselves may as spirits be brought back into the path of salvation. Remember, also, that it was God who did these things, the Master of life and death, who had shown these people unmerited forbearance, even though they had committed everything abominable in His sight in their idol worship, going to the length of sacrificing their own children as burnt offerings to their idols. (Deuteronomy 12: 31) When making war upon other tribes the Israelites were commanded to conduct themselves humanely. Deuteronomy 20: 10: ‘When you approach another city to besiege it, you shall invite them to come to a peaceful agreement.’ They were forbidden even to injure fruit trees when laying siege to a city and were commanded to build their catapults of the wood of trees bearing no edible fruit. Moses received his first taste of the danger of idolatry in the story of the golden calf. Soon afterwards also, when they approached the land of Moab, Numbers 25: 1-2: ‘When the Israelites had settled down in Sittim, they began to engage in harlotry with the daughters of Moab, for these invited them to the sacrificial celebrations of their idols and the people of Israel took part in their sacrificial feasts and worshiped their gods.’ The harlotry alluded to here was part of the pagan ritual and was demanded by the demons through the mediums as particularly pleasing to their gods. It was part of the idol worship, as among all other heathen peoples. Armed with the weapon of idolatry and its attendant vices, the Powers of Evil subsequently did much harm among God’s people and thereby to the preparations for the Redemption. Almost entire generations of the Lord’s chosen people later forsook the true faith in God.
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