untitled

Preached on 01-23-00

THE SLAYING OF THE MALES

A Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"And when the LORD your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword." (Dt. 20:13)

MUCH OF WHAT WE READ about in the Old Testament has to do with war and with the horrors of war. We read, time and time again, of whole armies, and whole cities, being slaughtered. Occasionally we may wonder why it is that the pages of Divine Revelation treat so much of bloodshed, of cruelty, and of death.

The answer, though, is basically a simple one. The Word is Divine, not because of its literal sense, but because of its inner spiritual meaning. The story of the Israelites and their enemies is not, in itself, holy. They were people typical in many ways of the age in which they lived. Death and wholesale slaughter were for them a part of life. Rarely did they see anything wrong with cruelty. We of course read of the Lord commanding them to attack and annihilate whole multitudes of people. But such are the appearances of the literal sense. The Lord did not desire bloodshed. He desires nothing but blessedness, happiness and peace. Many of the commands given to the Israelites were permissions, things the Lord allowed, reluctantly, in order that even great misery might be prevented. So it is that the Old Testament, when understood only superficially, is often far from pleasant reading.

Yet the Old Testament is not to be understood superficially. Though on the surface it talks about the life and times of the people of Israel, it has been written -- dictated -- by God Himself in such a way that every least detail portrays a Divine and eternal truth. It is this meaning of the Old Testament which has now been revealed in the Writings, and insofar as we come to understand something of this meaning, something of the spiritual sense, then what we read begins to be seen in its true light -- no longer as a document portraying life during a cruel and bloodthirsty period of history, but as a textbook, a wonderful textbook, containing an infinity of beautiful, wonderful, gentle, life-giving Divine truths.

Our text, therefore, is not talking about bloodshed and slaughter, but rather about how our spirits might be lifted above the dark misery of evil, and raised into the warmth and light of heaven.

All of us, if we look within our own minds, can see things there we do not like, things which are evil, things which make us feel thoroughly miserable. They are the evil thoughts and feelings -- and everybody has them -- which we mostly keep hidden from the world, but which nevertheless motivate many of our actions, and haunt and terrify us when we reflect upon them in states of repentance.

These hidden evils are our spiritual enemies. Feelings of pride, of selfishness, of bitterness, of envy, of lasciviousness, and so on, can make us miserable in the present, and threaten our happiness to all eternity. If we are ever to be happy, truly happy, then we must rid ourselves of them. They must be faced. They must be fought. And they must be destroyed.

This is what the story of Israel is all about. The Israelites, of course, had their promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. But that is all it was -- a promise -- for, in reality, the land of Canaan was swarming with hostile nations, nations whose cruelty and decadence can scarcely be described. In that land there were, for example, men who had fallen so low that they would take their first-born children, little babies, and sacrifice them in the fire to the cruel god, Molech. They practiced the most horrible depravities and abominations.

Now we, like the Israelites, also have a promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. We were created by the Lord in such a way that one day our minds might be filled, filled to overflowing, with love, charity, kindness, gentleness, and peace. This is what the land of milk and honey really is. It is the human mind after this mind has been blessed by the Lord. This also, though, is only a promise. To begin with, our minds aren't filled with love, or with charity. They are contaminated with hidden evils, evils which hide in the background and make us miserable. The horrifying truth is that if the evils within us were allowed to grow without restraint, we would all be more than capable of committing the most horrible crimes. Yet at the same time there is this wonderful promise of the land of milk and honey. It is a promise that can come true. Heaven is not a dream. It is a reality which we can attain. After all, we were not created for hell, for evil and misery. We were created to become happy, to be filled with delight. Our minds can indeed become a paradise -- if we but fight against our evils, our spiritual enemies, and, with the Lord's help, defeat them.

This is what our text is talking about. It is not really talking about the killing of men -- but tells rather about the process by which the human mind can be saved from misery, by being transformed into a heavenly paradise. More than just this, our text is also giving us some very practical advice, advice which can help us enormously as we face and fight against the evils which infest us.

When we are faced with a task we don't enjoy, it is natural to look for ways to avoid it if at all possible, or else to find some way of making it easier. This is also the case with the task of fighting against evils within ourselves. Right at the outset, though, we must face up to the fact that there is no way of avoiding the fighting that is necessary if we are to receive happiness. Evils, by their very nature, bring misery and wretchedness. We cannot cling to them and expect to be happy. We must fight them. On the other hand, this task of fighting them can be made less difficult if it is approached in the right way.

Here the teaching of our text can help, for it shows us one way in which the task of regeneration can be made a lot easier than we might imagine. In essence, what it is telling us is this: don't make the job more difficult than it needs to be.

Contrary to what we might suppose, the Israelites were not to destroy everybody they met. Obviously, if they were to inhabit the land of Canaan, the hostile peoples of that land had to be destroyed. Indeed, they were commanded -- and remember that this command was only a permission -- to save nothing alive in those cities they were to inherit (Deut. 20:16). When it came to the peoples in surrounding lands, though, the case was different. The soldiers of Israel, when they approached a city in an adjoining land, were to proclaim peace. If this call for peace was accepted, the inhabitants of the city then became servants. They weren't to be killed. If, on the other hand, the city refused peace, and made war against them, they were to besiege it, and, when victorious, were to kill all the men of that city. Even then, though, only the men were to be killed. "And when the LORD your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. But the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; . . . " (Deut. 20:13-14).

Now it is obvious that the peoples actually in the land, that is, the evils which are an actual part of our minds, must be destroyed -- must be laid to rest forever. If, for example, our minds are consumed with feelings of hate, there is no avoiding what must be done. We must fall upon our knees, and pray to the Lord for the strength to resist such evil emotions. Then we must do everything in our power to turn our thoughts away from such feelings.

But what about evils that are not a part of ourselves . . . evils which we are not yet accustomed to, but are perhaps considering. There were other nations besides those in the land of Canaan, neighboring nations which posed threats of varying degrees to the security of Israel. So too with ourselves, there are many evils which as it were threaten or influence us in one way or another. In the course of our lives, all kinds of ideas influence us. There are evils which, regrettably, we have made a part of our lives, evils we might call our favorite evils. These we must urgently and strongly resist. But then there are other evils which also occur to us, which have not yet enslaved us -- evils which perhaps attract us, and which we may have even indulged in, but only on the rare occasion. What should we do about these evils? In general we must ascertain whether they pose a threat to us, and if so, we must remove that threat.

There are, in fact, evils which pose very little threat to us at all, in the sense that we have no active desire to commit them. As long as this state of affairs continues, we don't have to worry about them. These evils are similar to those cities outside the land which did not make war with the Israelites. But there are other evils which, because we are attracted to them, pose a serious threat indeed. The way they do this, the way they threaten us, is through the medium of falsity, that is, by means of false ideas.

This is how evil habits begin. They come to us first as an idea, an idea that perhaps it wouldn't matter that much if we tried doing something. Let's take an example. Let us assume that a certain man is honest. He has never been in the habit of stealing. He occasionally feels that it would be nice if he could just help himself to something. But then he instantly dismisses this idle feeling, for he knows that theft is wrong. Suppose, however, that he then begins to think more and more about it. Perhaps, he thinks to himself, it wouldn't be that wrong to steal just occasionally. After all, he supposes, what he took wouldn't really be missed, and he would just be doing what many other people do. Once the man starts to think in this way, he is in grave danger. He is coming to a belief that an evil, in this case the evil of stealing, is not that bad after all. It is this belief, this idea, which can lead to his downfall. Once he convinces himself that it is not always wrong to steal, there is little to prevent him from gradually acquiring this wicked habit.

Evil feelings, the feelings that from time to time pop into our heads, are of little threat to us by themselves. We can easily dismiss them. But once these evil feelings are supported by false ideas -- and specifically the idea that certain evils are really not that wrong, then they become a serious threat.

It is these false ideas which are represented by the men of a hostile city. The evil feelings, though, are represented by the other inhabitants, primarily by the women. The women, or the evil feelings, are not much of a threat by themselves. But together with the men, or false ideas, they are a danger. Therefore, the men of such cities were to be killed. Ideas which favor the doing of evil must be destroyed. This destruction is accomplished by the men of Israel, that is, by the teachings of the church. We must, when we are attracted by such ideas, ideas that condone evil, turn to the teachings of the church found in the Word, and remind ourselves, clearly, and without deluding ourselves, that such things are wrong, and should not be considered (cf. AE 725:8). If we do this, if we remind ourselves, when necessary, of what is right and what is wrong, then we do not face the danger of entering upon new evils.

This is the secret to easy regeneration, or, at least, easier regeneration. The Writings make it plain that in itself it is easy to get to heaven. It only becomes difficult if we have made it difficult. Obviously the greatest obstacle to regeneration, the thing that makes it more difficult than anything else, is allowing ourselves to degenerate instead.

This, though, is often overlooked. How often we read of people, people who had previously led honest lives, stupidly committing some fraud or other crime! And how often, in our own lives, do we allow ourselves to become worse, rather than better?

We have our evils, evils we have probably become accustomed to. These must be fought. They must be attacked head on. Though this task may prove painful for us, with perseverance, and with the Lord's help, we can overcome, for we were all created for heaven. The Lord is expecting us to go to heaven, as long as we allow Him to lead us there.

But let us not make this task more difficult. Whatever we do, let us not do this. We must not add to our evils. We must not acquire new habits of evil. It is the height of stupidity to allow ourselves to consider evils in a favorable light -- to fool ourselves into thinking that they are not that wrong after all. If we do this, we make it very difficult indeed for the Lord to save us. This applies also to evils we may have committed in some impulsive way. We may have done something wrong, or thought something wrong, which we do not normally do. What we have done is then indeed wrong. But it is one thing to make a stupid mistake under impulse. It is far worse to then say to ourselves that it wasn't that bad after all, and to consider doing it again. This is how an isolated evil, a one-time offense against the commandments, becomes instead an habitual evil.

Never forget that the Lord is merciful. The Lord is always willing to forgive. But the Lord's forgiveness has no effect on a person who doesn't want forgiving. And a person does not want forgiveness if he maintains in his own mind that what he has done isn't wrong. Certainly he does not want forgiveness if he not only continues in his evils, but adds other evils as well.

Therefore, whatever we may have done in the way of evil, whether it be in deed, word or in thought, let us not add strength to that evil by harboring the thought, indeed the falsity, that our evil was not wrong. This would be like allowing the men, the soldiers, of a hostile city, to continue to fight and threaten us. It would be to give strength to the enemies of our spiritual life.

We were created for heaven. The Lord's kingdom in the other world is our destiny, our land flowing with milk and honey. Let us therefore fight against our spiritual enemies, and, with the Lord's help, destroy them, that we might enter upon our spiritual inheritance, into a eternal land of peace and happiness.

Amen.

Lessons: Dt. 20:10-18; Rev. 1:9-16; AE 725:8