A Fundamentalist Explanation for 1 Samuel 15:3

Previously, I gave CS Lewis' rambling argument for how the Bible can have error, even moral error, and still be the Word of God.  Since he put in a little jab against Fundamentalists, it is only fair to list a fundamentalist in response to this very verse.

Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don't spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

1 Samuel 15:3 World English Bible 

Lee Strobel interviewed Norman Geisler in his book, Case for Faith.  The topic of conversation was God killing children and more particularly 1 Samuel 15:3.

Let's start with the Amalekites. Listen, Lee, they were far from innocent.  Far from it.  These were not nice people.  In fact, they were utterly and totally depraved.  Their mission was to destroy Israel.  In other words, to commit genocide.  As if that weren't evil enough, think what was hanging in the balance.  The Israelites were the chosen people through whom God would bring salvation to the entire world through Jesus Christ...

...The destruction of their nation was necessitated by the gravity of their sin.  Had some hardcore remnant survived, they might have resumed their aggression against the Israelites and God's plan.  These were a persistent and vicious and warring people.  To show you how reprehensible they were, they had been following the Israelites and had been cowardly slaughtering the most vulnerable  among them - the weak, elderly, and disabled who were lagging behind.

They wanted to wipe every last one of the Israelites off the face of the earth.  God could have dealt with them through a natural disaster like a flood, but instead he used Israel as his instrument of judgment.  He took action not only for the sake of the Israelites, but ultimately for the sake of everyone through history whose salvation would be provided by the Messiah who was to be born among them.

Let's keep in mind, that technically nobody [including the children and nursing infants] is truly innocent.  The Bible says in Psalm 51 that we're all born in sin; that is, with the propensity to rebel and commit wrongdoing.  Also, we need to keep in mind God's sovereignty over life.  An atheist once brought up this issue in a debate, and I responded by saying, God created life and he has the right to take it.  If you can create life, then you can have the right to take it.  But if you can’t create life, then you don’t have the right. And the audience applauded.

[My fingers are tired, so I will sum up the next few pages.]

• Geisler goes on to argue that all the children the Lord ordered killed went to heaven, based on Isaiah 7:16.  The Amalekite children had no hope with such evil parents.  “In a sense, God’s action was an act of mercy.”  
• The Amalekites were given 400 years to repent during period of Egyptian bondage.  A couple of more centuries if you count until the reign of Saul.
• Most of the people would have fled, only the stubborn evil parents would have kept their children there.  Most of the women and children would have been part of the fleeing, so it is really questionable how many children Saul actually killed when he "utterly destroyed the Amalekites".
• The Canaanites were guilty of "brutality, cruelty, incest, bestiality, cultic prostitution, even child sacrifice.  
• Whoever repented would have been saved.  The purpose was to destroy the "national structure", not the people who repented.
• Under Mosaic Law, peace would have been first offered.  It is fair to kill those that rejected the peace.  
• God is not capricious.  He is not cruel.  Those that repent could be saved.  He is graceful, merciful, and kind.  In the end we will see God's fairness.