Portals of Prayer - July 2nd - "Liars Lie!"

Liars lie. That may be redundant information in its own right, but it is also very juvenile, espcially when considering the text is working with the war-driven, nomadic Israelites, who justify brutality with the supposed will of God.

The July 2nd devotion kicks off with the old ploy of the underdog stealing victory. "The mighty Israelites seemed certain victors over the tiny town of Ai. Yet the Israelites were defeated in battle..." And what defeated a mighty, blood-thirsty tribe such as the Israelites, whom had just slaughtered all the men, women, and children of Jericho? God's wrath over the Israelite, Achnan's, supposed lie. Achnan had "pinched silver and gold," from Jericho, so the God of Israel got his justice by handing the Israelites defeat.

The final paragraph hands the reader a saying from Psalms 51:6: "Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being." The text then asks the reader how anyone can ever speak the truth with lips that have spoken so many lies.

What's disturbing about all of this is the seeming neglect over the other sins the Israelites had committed. God, as this devotion has it, hates a liar, but revels in plundering and destroying entire populations of people. At least that's what the lesson might imply. God will forgive our "Liars Lie!" mentality, as long as we confess our sinful lies to him, but, if we're truly his people, as the Israelites were, and should still be, by rule of thumb (but that's a whole other issue), God will not hold us accountable for brutally killing scores of people, and maybe raping the females of the crowd, if there is time.

Of course, not everybody can kill people, only if God tells you to. Like the woman who drowned her small children in the bathtub because they were going to grow up as sinners and unbelievers in Christ. God told her to drown them, before they could grow up wrong. Is that any different than God leading his Israelites over the hills and through the blowing sands to create gory horror scenes of violence?

Hey, it's all in the plan, right? And the killers were the chosen ones, after all. They weren't just anyone, they were God's very own people. I'd take comfort in that, except it is the same mentality of someone like, say, Charlie Manson.