I came across God’s command to “utterly destroy” several times this morning, and it got me wondering how many times the circumstances were so dire that the only thing left to do was utterly destroy.
Running a search, I found that the combination of those two words, “utterly destroy,” appears in the Old Testament 51 times as both a verb and a noun. This led me to wonder about the utter destruction with Noah and the flood. As I read the story, it said God utterly destroyed all flesh, man and beast, from the face of the earth, including the high mountains, using the word “face,” which one might interpret as surface or upon, which also might be interpreted as on the surface.
A few evenings ago, I sat and watched a show about an imaginary end-of-days apocalypse in modern times. The people went to underground bunkers and held out for five years underground. I hear tell that is what the deep staters are planning for the end days now.
Oh well – not so interested in what “they” want to do to avoid destruction, but more interested in understanding the survival of cities, giants, and the fallen angels after the flood, and the need to continue to have God command His people to wipe out these corrupt nations.
I’ve talked in class about the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites. There were as well the Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
This morning in my studies, I read about Og and Sihon, both Amorite kings who were utterly destroyed along with their people. Og himself was a giant. He had a very large bed made of iron to support him while he, as a giant, slept in his palace. This meant, of course, his people were corrupted by the fallen angels, giants, and sons of giants.
And I wonder, why were humans, as the second angel group, so corruptible, so gullible, and so easily swayed to follow the shiny object in front of them rather than the one true God, who is constantly faithful and present with signs and wonders every moment of every day?
Maybe we are the strongest of God’s creation. We are given the opportunity to live on earth where there are many ways to see and view the world. God is in front of us, leading us, and we can choose to follow or become distracted. If we follow consistently, the rewards are great. I don’t mean money and happy days, though that may happen if that is God’s plan for you, but rather that through adversity we get to draw closer to God. We become so powerful we can, with a thought, defeat evil.
It looks like God has great faith in us. He knows what the human heart is capable of because we have His heart, created in the image and likeness of God, the Father of all creation.