A Nation At War
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Fear Looms as our nation faces war |
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Families tearfully say goodbye as troops are headed to the Gulf |
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Weapons of mass destruction loom and the real possibility of world war has shown its head once again. |
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The peace that we have known all of our lives is threatened for the first time in our lifetimes. |
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What is God’s viewpoint about human war and how do we respond as Christians? |
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The Bible is clear |
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A time for war and a time for peace – but no matter what – we are not to fear! |
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When the Lord ordered Joshua to cross the Jordan He said [Joshua 1:9] |
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Just as the Lord was with Joshua – so also he is with us. He will not leave us nor forsake us. I am speaking of us as believers, not us as a nation – what is true of us as believers is not necessarily true of us as a nation. |
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Nothing is outside of God’s control. This is why a high view of God’s sovereignty is important. If we believe that men ca frustrate God’s plan and void His desires – then we, as believers, are in trouble! |
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Let’s look at the Lord’s purpose for a Nation at War. |
Does God Approve of War?
Are there Biblical reasons for going to war?
What are the consequences of going to war?
How is it that good people can disagree so violently and profoundly on the issue of going or not going to war?
What are the consequences of not going to war?
When a man is in combat against an enemy – and he shoots the enemy – is it murder?
What should be our response should our nation go to war?
How do we reconcile all of this with the instructions of Jesus that we must love our enemies, and turn the other cheek?
All questions that have a legitimate Biblical answer.
We hear a lot of different answers from a lot of different directions.
1. Some come from fear
2. Some from some philosophical viewpoint arrived at before any consideration of the current facts.
3. Sometimes it is a political decision
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The criteria ought to be “What does the Bible say” about this whole issue of war? |
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That must be what settles the issue for us |
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God’s people need to understand fully what does the Heavenly Father say about war? |
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We need to share that viewpoint with others around us so they can understand as well. |
“A Nation At War”
Romans 13:1-4
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Speaking of our relationship with the Government and its relationship to us and its authority over us, and how we ought to respond to it. | ||||
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Read | ||||
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There are exceptions to those rulers and Paul’s instructions here are to be taken as a general guide for one’s relationship with the Government. | ||||
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There are good governments – who care for their people. | ||||
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There are bad governments – vicious dictators, etc. Ungodly men, etc. Men who enslave, kill, destroy, and dominate and abuse the nations and peoples they are ruling over. | ||||
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God calls them an abomination to Him and that God’s judgment will rain down on them in one fashion or another. | ||||
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Paul is saying a couple things to us here just to get us started in our thinking:
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God’s intention in instituting human Government was that the rulers be men and women who understand the truths of Scripture and rule over their people for good.
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There are some questions that need to be answered whenever a nation considers going to war. | ||||
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What is God’s viewpoint? | ||||
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What has he said about it? | ||||
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Human opinion [for or against] is not good enough for us – we need to hear from God. | ||||
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As in any other area of life – we need to be willing to hear from God and willing to be instructed by the Word of God in this issue. |
Why do nations go to war?
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expand territories
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economics
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hatred for other peoples
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desire to rule dominate or control other people (dictators)
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spread of religion
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Liberation or freeing those under domination of bad leaders.
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Defense of the nation.
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Protecting other nations.
What is God’s viewpoint concerning going to war?
God does not like war
We must remember that God is dealing with fallen people – wicked and sinful above all things (Cp. Jer – heart deceitful and desperately wicked)
Cp. Rom. 3:10-18 (Read) - this is how God views the unregenerate mass of people
This is what God is dealing with – a mass of people who are opposed to him and fighting against him. When God comes to this issue of war – God sees war in a very particular way - He uses war to accomplish His purpose and plan in their lives (even though He hates it).
God does choose and will choose to use war as a vehicle to accomplish His plan and purpose in the lives of people – his own and others.
Eccl. 3:1, 8 – A time for peace and a time for war.
Does God favor war? We ought to ask God what He thinks…cp. Dt. 20: - God is preparing His people to go in and to take the Promised Land, promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What we need to see is that, under certain circumstances that He ordains, God is in favor of war.
We say this because God here gives, by means of His servant Moses, the blueprint by which the people of Israel were to carry out war once they were in the land.
He is getting ready to send them into the land and war would be the result of that sending into the land – this is His guidance in anticipation of that coming conflict.
Deuteronomy 20
Don’t be afraid (1, 4, 8) – God knew that a meek and faint hearted person would only be a discouragement to the others. He says that they need to remove themselves from the situation.
Offer terms of peace (10-14) – Don’t just go in and attack. HOWEVER – if they refuse the terms of peace offered – then go to war and wage it to win!
Note: This is the way to treat the nations that are afar off (Leaving the women and the little ones alive, etc.) – not the ones that are near by. Why? What about the nearby ones? They were to be utterly annihilated. Why would god say this?
Cp. V18 – so that they might not teach Israel their detestable practices and lead Israel into sin.
Two ways to go to battle:
1. This land – nothing left alive.
2. Far away land – leave some alive.
We’ll come back to this. - We are looking now at God’s general attitude toward war – how does He view it? Admittedly this is difficult to reconcile with a God of love and mercy.
Concerning the nearby nations – we are to give the enemy opportunity to surrender. Our nation has done that time and again. We give ample opportunity to surrender and then, after war, we have spent Billions upon billions rebuilding it. No other nation in history has ever done that.
Does God approve of war – we can give a qualified yes – with the understanding that it must be entered under just circumstances. We know this because God gives the blueprint for war to Israel.
He also uses warfare as a form of judgment. (Jeremiah 5:15-17) both upon the wicked and upon His own people when they fall into idolatry and immorality like the nation of Israel did many times.
i. God will use Babylon to chasten and discipline his people and to punish the wicked in the land.
ii. He will teach them what sin is really like and what sin is truly all about.
iii. Compare the time when God commanded Israel to go into the land on the other side of the Jordan.
iv. Moses sent spies and they came back with a negative report.
v. They didn’t want to go to battle – they didn’t want to fight
vi. They didn’t want to go to war.
vii. Families will suffer – everyone will suffer.
viii. We’re not going!
ix. God said: You’re not going?
x. This was God’s command for them to go in and destroy and remove the enemies of God.
xi. There are times when if you don’t go to war – you suffer the consequences.
xii. God tells them the penalty for not going to war – wandering in the wilderness for 40 years – everyone an adult will die in the wilderness.
xiii. It cost them a generation for not going to war. Sometimes the cost of not going to war is too high to pay.
Another reason to see that at times God approves of war is that God gave great place and highly exalted men who were mighty men of war.
i. Gideon
ii. David
3. God is not always against war.
a. When someone says that God is always against war – we need to ask where they get that from in the Bible. This is too big an issue for human opinion.
b. What about the New Testament – so far all we have spoken from is the Old Testament - we’ll get there.
c. What we want to establish so far is that God is in favor of war in some circumstances – and even different reasons historically.
d. How do we explain that He told Israel to destroy all of those alive in some cities? (Num 33:55-56)
i. How could a God of love ever possibly do that?
ii. How could He require this and even attach penalty for not doing it?
iii. God was saying that if they didn’t do this – here is what would happen.
iv. They didn’t drive them out – and those they did – they only drove out for a season.
v. They got tired of war – they wanted peace.
vi. God did the very thing He said he would do.
vii. The Midianites, the Philistines and etc. all were exactly what God said they would be.
viii. The got entwined economically, marriages, etc. all with a Pagan society.
ix. They were destroying God’s purpose for themselves. God had desired for them to live as a pure nation in the midst of the sinful pagan nations around them.
x. He warned them that if they did not do as He said – he would allow them to be ######, etc. – and He would do to Israel what He was going to do to them.
xi. He told them clear why they were to destroy them:
xii. Dt. 9:4-6
1. God isn’t into jut destroying people
2. He knows the impact of evil in the world and He wishes to restrain it.
3. He wishes to protect His nation.
4. He wanted them to remember that He wasn’t doing it because of their righteousness – but because of His own promise and His own faithfulness. It was for His own reasons.
xiii. How could this be consistent with God’s goodness and mercy?
1. Think about Sodom and Gomorrah – God could have destroyed them in many different fashions – He didn’t have to do it the way He did it.
2. They were a symbol of paganism and immorality – that was God’s opinion of them.
3. God hates wickedness – and He especially hates it when it stands against that which He loves.
xiv. This is what he Says here in Dt. 9
e. There is little question that given the right circumstances – God favors and uses warfare for specific ends:
i. Punish the wicked
ii. Chasten the Righteous.
f. God has divine reasons
i. God has preserved the Gospel through the ages – and has used violent means to it from time to time.
ii. There are nations today that are set in following after ways that are opposed to the Gospel.
1. They would force the gospel out of existence and destroy it if they could
2. God will not stand up for that.
3. God loves the Gospel and He loves the nations that promote and allow the Gospel to flourish.
4. America is and has been a bastion of spiritual truth and freedom.
5. We have led the world in the sending forth of the gospel to the world.
6. Satan hates this!
7. The Worldly enemies of God hate this!
4. There is abundant evidence that, given the right circumstances – God favors warfare.
5. Some will object that war is murder.
a. Killing under the command of government for just reasons is not murder.
b. Murder is for an entirely different set of reasons.
i. Animosity
ii. Vengeance
iii. Gain
iv. Jealousy
v. Etc.
c. It is possible to commit murder on the battlefield – that is certain
d. But not all killing on the battlefield, not nearly so, is murder.
e. It is done under the authority of government.
f. Many think that all war is murder precisely because they have lost sight of the Bible and the revelation of god and they see no authority higher than their own.
g. Rom. 13 tells us that we are to be in subjection to the government.
h. That same passage tells us that the Government carries the sword. That applies to Capital punishment – but also to war.
i. The commandment to abstain from murder is not applicable to war.
6. Are there Biblical Grounds for a war? Yes
a. Defense
i. We’ve been at war since 9/11
ii. The question is how do we respond to these things.
iii. Look at Luke 22:35 – Jesus tells His disciples to buy a sword! To defend themselves! Violence in self-defense is acceptable.
iv. Jesus was not a pacifist.
v. Why didn’t he fight in the Garden?
vi. Because He was going to fight the bigger battle on the cross!
vii. The Jews and the Romans didn’t really kill Christ – the Father did!
viii. The cross was what He came to do!
ix. Cp. Nehemiah and defending the bricklayers on the wall!
x. There is not a single verse in opposition to war.
b. Liberation of other enslaved by dictators and unjust leaders.
i. We have a Biblical responsibility to defend the weak.
ii. Where would we be if we had not defended ourselves in WW2?
iii. It is easy to sit in comfort and affluence and security and pontificate about what we ought and ought not do!
iv. the question is why are we where we are? Because someone died to give them to us and to defend them.
v. The privileges we have we have because someone died to give them to us.
vi. We cannot ignore that!
vii. We cannot use the Scriptures to deny this!
7. How do you justify war in light of what Jesus said?
a. What did He say?
b. Luke 6: - Some clear statements about how we respond to enemies. The beatitudes according to Luke
c. V 27-31
d. This is Jesus’ command to us as individuals.
e. This is true of individuals and NOT of nations.
i. Because nations are made up of innocents – children and the like.
ii. We have a responsibility to defend them from those who would destroy them.
iii. Jesus’ words are about me personally – not about those who attack the innocent.
iv. Rom. 13 addresses the government’s responsibilities.
1. It is the Government’s job to strike against evil.
2. Punish wickedness.
3. Defend the innocent.
4. Strike against oppressors.
v. You cannot equate personal responsibilities before oppression for the gospel’s sake and the oppression of ungodly nations upon the innocent.
f. Were Jesus wholesale against violence – He would have said that and not counseled His disciples to buy a sword.
g. He never said he was against just violence.
h. He respected the army and the military – Remember the Centurion?
i. When someone says that Jesus was against violence and the military use of force – we need to ask them what exactly He did say? Not a word!
8. What should our response be?
a. What is the proper response of citizens when a nation goes to war?
b. A Couple things:
i. If you are called – you must go.
1. We are to submit to the government
2. Only one reason to disobey the government – Acts 5:27-32 – when they command the disobedience to the clear statement of the Word. This is the ONLY time we can disobey and we must then be willing to bear the consequence.
3. Cp. Num 32:
a. People under Joshua’s command – Moses still alive
b. Ready to cross over
c. Commanded to go over and take out the nations there
d. 2 ½ tribes don’t want to go. (Reuben, Gad and ½ Mannaseh)
e. V5-7
f. Moses denounces them and commands them to Go!
g. V16-18 – By the time Moses is done with them they are ready to go!
h. V23 – If they don’t go – their sin will find them out. It would be sin for them not to go!
i. Those who protest and refuse to go are guilty of sin and rebellion and in sin before God!
j. Some don’t want to serve this government – we don’t get to make that decision!
k. Think about all of the men who have given life for their country on a foreign shore!
l. How can we justify protesting in that kind of context!
m. Ask the same question Reuben and Gad were asked!
n. Is there room for discussion and disagreement? Of Course!
o. Is there room for rebellion – never!
4. It is sin to refuse to go.
5. It is sin to create disharmony concerning that which is not a violation of the statement of the Word of God.
6. We need to take care that we do not put ourselves in the position of necessitating God’s sending of a foreign army in here to chasten and judge us because we have allowed ourselves, as a nation, to remove Him and His Word from the national presence.
ii. We ought to offer ourselves to work, help, serve in any way we can.
iii. We need to pray
1. For those we know and those we do not know.
2. We need to Pray for leadership
a. Psalm 112:7
b. A President who begins the day on his knees with the Word of God is worthy of all our prayers. Please pray for President Bush in the following areas:
c. Protection for the lives of him and his family
d. Peace and clarity of mind as he stands in leadership and the defense of liberty
e. For the perfect will of God to be revealed to him
f. That God will provide wise and godly counsel in his administration
g. That he will draw aside to fast and seek the Lord
h. Godly character and decision-making
i. That he will perform the will of God relating to world events
3. We need to pray for God to unite this nation in this matter.
a. There comes a time when my opinion is not a priority.
b. There is a time to forget our differences.
4. For the details of the war – that God will make it short, protect innocents, etc.
5. Prayer for the Soldiers
a. When we think of our fellow Americans serving in the military, and the sacrifices and demands that their job places upon them and their families, we are in deep gratitude. Whether they are serving in our homeland, or overseas, their task is a great one.
b. We have been called upon to pray for them during these desperate days. In an effort to pray more consistently and effectively this list has been compiled. There is one prayer focus and related verse for 31 days.
c. Let us be faithful in prayer. As long as "the war on terrorism" exists, let us be faithful prayer warriors in behalf of our fellow citizens who have committed themselves to defending our America.
i. Protection—Psalm 34:7, Psalm 32:7
ii. Wisdom—James 1:5
iii. Peace—John 14:26, Philippians 4:7
iv. Presence of God—Psalm 46:1
v. Inner Strength—Ephesians 3:16
vi. Clear Mind—2 Timothy 1:7
vii. Security—Psalm 17:8
viii. Health for Physical Body—Philippians 4:13
ix. Courage—Joshua 1:9
x. To Help Others—Philippians 2:3-4
xi. To be aware of God’s love for them—Psalm 42
xii. Family concerns—1 Peter 5:7
xiii. Rest—Matthew 11:28-29
xiv. Adjust to time change, sleep—Psalm 4:8
xv. Unity in purpose—1 Peter 3:8
xvi. Loneliness—Deuteronomy 31:6
xvii. Children of military—Isaiah 54:13, Psalm 68:5
xviii. Spouses of military—Isaiah 40:11
xix. Patience while waiting—Psalm 33:20
xx. God directing their steps—Psalm 32:8
xxi. Diligent in their work—Colossians 3:23
xxii. Resist temptation—1 Corinthians 10:13
xxiii. Discernment—Philippians 1:9
xxiv. Traveling safety—Psalm 121:7-8
xxv. Fighting Depression—Psalm 42:5
xxvi. Protection from Evil—2 Thessalonians 3:3
xxvii. Encourage those around them—Proverbs 11:25
xxviii. Personal prayer life—Jeremiah 33:3
xxix. Deliverance from the enemy—Psalm 31:15
###. Angels to guard them—Psalm 34:7
####. Persistence for the task—Galatians 6:9
6. For the enemies – that the gospel will go forth.
7. For the end results of the war.
iv. We need to honor them and remember them.
v. We need to actively speak out and make the truth known.