Does God Destroy The Innocent?

Q. I was having a conversation recently with a believer who is struggling with his faith.

He started to point out that every time God punished the enemies of the Jews, thousands of innocent people died. For example women and children.  He named in particular all the first born in Egypt, David’s baby (from Bathsheba) and the innocents in Caanan when God instructed the Israelites to conquer the land.

He concluded that God was never ‘good’, just ‘one sided’ towards the Jews; that those people who died were still created by Him, so why did he watch them be slaughtered?

I am afraid I am at a loss as to what to say to all this and would appreciate your thoughts.

A. The first problem with your friend’s view is that the people God destroyed were not innocent.  They were all sinners who had rebelled against their Creator.

Noah spent 120 years building the Ark and warning people that a judgment was coming.  Then the Lord allowed seven days after the ark was finished for anyone who so desired to get aboard.  Although there was plenty of room, no one did.

The Egyptians had rebelled against God and had been worshiping a whole batch of demonic creatures for centuries.  Then they made slaves of God’s people and refused to let them go, in spite of 10 clear warnings that judgment was coming.   You may say it was only the leaders who did this, but God accepted every Egyptian who joined up with His people and spared them all as well. Very few came along.

David’s baby went straight to heaven to be with God, as have all the children who have died since the beginning of time.

The so-called innocents of Caanan had rebelled like their Egyptian neighbors and were given 400 years to repent before the judgment.  None did, even after they witnessed the effects of Egypt’s rebellion.

Of all the people on Earth, none has faced more severe punishment for rejecting God than the Jews have.  So much for being one sided.

At the end of the  age, everyone who who has deliberately rejected God will similarly be destroyed, because God has made His presence so clear that no one in his right mind can deny His existence.  Those who reject Him, like all who have done so throughout the ages, will have declared themselves to be His enemies and will be dealt with accordingly.

All this information is clearly stated in the Bible.  Your friend is trying to justify his own rebellion against God, and is ignoring 6000 years of examples of the futility in doing so. It’s a losing strategy.