THE DOCTRINE OF ANNIHILATION
Love is a great motivator of people. It is also what motivates so much of what God does for us. John 3:16 clearly tells us and teaches us For God so loved the world… Why did He give His only begotten Son? Because He so loved. But there are other things that motivate mankind. Things like bitterness, jealousy and anger. We carry malice and greed around in our hearts towards others and they motivate us to say and do things that we would never do if we loved them. What causes this hatred, this bitterness this malice within us? Differences. Differences of opinion. Differences in skin color. Differences in nationality. Differences in religion. There was a time in the Old Testament when God taught His people to be this way. God clearly instructed His people when they went to war that they were to totally annihilate the enemy. They were to kill the men, the women, the children, the livestock and then to burn and destroy all of their possessions. In fact, we all remember the problem at Ai. Akin took some things that were supposed to be left behind and God punished him. There were laws on the books such as if a child was caught be rebellious to his parents he was to be taken outside and stoned. This was the law of the land as God set about to purify his people. God set about to show man what sin what and what it’s effects were and ultimately how man would fall short of what God required.
But particularly as it pertained to non-Jews, Gentiles, heathens annihilation was the name of the game. Take no prisoners. Now with that in mind let’s read a story in Luke 9:51-56.
The story begins with a mile marker in Jesus’ ministry. I want you to understand that God has a timetable. A perfect plan for His world and in this story His Son is on that timetable. Jesus has been in Galilee. Here He has taught and healed the people. He has taught His disciples many things. Not only has He been preaching and healing and teaching but He has been preparing Himself as well. As a man, it took preparations for Him to ready Himself for what lay ahead. But the time has come. It is time for Him to depart for Jerusalem and all that will happen to Him there. He will not go directly there but will fulfill all that the Father has planned for Him enroute to Jerusalem.
Now as we see that He has an appointment to keep in Jerusalem I want us to notice something else. The Bible says He steadfastly set His face. In these words I can see the intensity of Jesus change. There is now a growing urgency in His actions. From this time forth He will not be sidetracked from His destination. He will still heal, He will still forgive, He will still touch lives along the way but there is a determination about Him as He looks towards the city of Jerusalem. I can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t try to draw some parallels between our lives and that of Jesus here. Do we have urgency in what we are doing? Is there a defined purpose in what we do? Are we sure of our calling? Is there steadfastness in us? It is not that Jesus neglected His friends, it is not that He ignored the needs of those who would come to Him from this point forward. But He steadfastly set His face on Jerusalem from this point forward.
And then we come to a couple of interesting verses regarding some villages in Samaria. As Jesus traveled along with His followers He began to look for a place where He might spend the night. Looking down the road a ways He could see a village, a Samaritan village. Now if you were looking at a map you would realize that to get from Galilee to Jerusalem you must pass through Samaria as it is directly south of the area. Jesus sends some messengers ahead to prepare a place where they may eat and sleep. Now from the wording it is hard to say exactly what transpires here but I want to give you an idea of a likely scenario.
It is likely that at the messengers’ arrival the people were quite excited that Jesus might come and spend some time with them. You see it was nearing the time of the Passover. The Passover was important to these Samaritans as they were half Jew and half Gentile. But of great importance is a long standing squabble between the Jews and the Samaritans over the proper place to worship. This squabble is eluded to in John chapter 4 and verse 20 when Jesus is talking to the woman at the well. She says Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye (the Jews) say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. The land of Samaria held great history for the Jewish people. In fact, the well at which He met this woman was one that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. And there was a place near there where the Samaritans went to worship. They believed this was the place while the Jews insisted that true worshippers should come to Jerusalem. It was perhaps hoped by the citizens of this first town that Jesus coming to their town at this time meant that He was taking their side in the debate. But then what happened? Jesus comes and they realize that His visit is just for the evening. They turn Him away.
They turned Jesus away. They turned the Son of God away. They didn’t want Him for just a few hours. That didn’t fit into their plans for Him or for what they wanted Him for. Do you realize the blessing that they missed out on? They turned Jesus away. They would not receive Him. Oh my! Earlier we drew the parallel between the steadfastness of Jesus and our own steadfastness in serving Him. Now I want to draw a parallel between this first Samaritan village and the precious time that they had with Him to the precious time that we have with Him. Our daily time in prayer and in the Word when He wants to meet with us. The times we meet on Sunday morning for Sunday school, for church, for evening service. Wednesday morning or Wednesday night. How many times do we turn Him away? Are there times when we have agendas of our own? Do we ever come to church with other things on our minds and miss out on the time that we could have had with the Lord? They would not receive Him. Let’s not make that mistake.
Enter the Sons of Thunder. Did you ever think about how they got that name? Did you ever know a kid that always seemed to be into something that was dangerous, something that was loud, something that went boom? I think that there was a reason why James and John, the sons of Zebedee were named the Sons of Thunder. They were mighty perturbed by this little village in Samaria. Fortunately they asked Jesus His take on the situation before acting. Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did? Now that’s zeal for you! Let’s go back to the Old Testament days and let’s light ‘em up. Boom! Forget the sniper rifles, get the flame throwers out!
I can’t help but think of the sentiments that I so often hear in regards to some of our neighbors. There are those who live just to the east of us in Dearborn. There are those who live to the south of us in Romulus and on into Detroit. There’s a whole other group that live to the west of us in Canton. Their skin color is different. Some have dots in the middle of their foreheads. Some wear what looks like a towel around their head. Sometimes they smell different. They eat different foods than we eat. And so many times just like James and John we talk like we’d like to see somebody light ‘em up. Send them back where they came from!
But I want you to look very, very carefully at what Jesus says to these two men. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. You see the Bible clearly teaches that what motivates those thoughts within us does not come from God. It is not the Holy Spirit moving within us that stirs up those thoughts of anger, hatred and resentment. Instead, here’s what the Bible says in Ephesians 4:31. Let ALL bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. It does not say that you may occasionally entertain these thoughts and be blessed of God. It does not say that some of these thoughts are justifiable if the person is black or homosexual or from the Mideast, and heaven help him if he’s a gay black man from the Mideast. But it says Let ALL…be put away!
For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. We began our study today in John 3:16. Consider now John 3:17. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. I am not a Pacifist. I believe in what our young men and women are doing over in Iraq and the Mideast to keep our country safe. America has been attacked and there is a war to be fought against terrorism. The war in which we are currently engaged is a very difficult one, one that I’m not sure we can ever win. I’m also not blind to the response of those from the Mideast who now live in America to the terrorists attack. I realize that there was no great outcry by them and I am very cautious about there presence so close to home.
But we are in the age of grace, not the age of annihilation. We are in the age where Jesus has taught to hate the sin but love the sinner. Christians, especially those who call themselves conservative and fundamental have a hard time dealing with that. Let me ask you a question mister conservative Christian, mister fundamental Baptist. If you meet a man who has come out of the closet and he comes to you because he knows you’re a Christian how will you respond? How would Jesus respond to him? Maybe if Jesus stood beside you and began to write your sins on a piece of paper your tactic would change. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.
Our message today has had three points. We considered the steadfastness of Jesus as He looked toward the plan and the purpose which He must fulfill. We looked at the wasted opportunity of the little Samaritan village to meet with the Savior. We’d say Oh but for a few hours with Jesus, but how many times when we can meet with Him do we fail to receive Him. And then finally, does our love for people compare with that of Jesus? Are we judgmental? Do we harbor hatred for those who are different? Do we want to destroy them because they are not like us? Or will we show them the love of God? For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.
By the way, often we don’t consider the open door that was left here. Had Jesus allowed James and John to destroy this city they would have never heard the Gospel. But because they left the door open, perhaps one day as they were traveling back through, they were able to stop and share the good news that this Jesus they had once rejected had since died for their sins, was buried and rose again.
