Since September 11, 2001, America has been at war. We didn’t choose to be in this war, but we were violently awakened to the reality that we are under attack, and there are those in our world today who would destroy us if they have the opportunity.
Today, we are facing a war with Iraq, and many people in our very own nation and people around the world are calling us to do nothing. To sit and allow Saddam Hussein to continue developing weapons of mass destruction and continue the sort of violence he has wrought since he murdered his way into power in 1979. In the book "The War over Iraq", the authors write: “(Saddam) has imprisoned, tortured, gassed, shot and bombed thousands upon thousands of his own subjects. He has launched wars of aggression against his neighbors and still seeks to dominate the Middle East. He has expended vast resources on the development of weapons of mass destruction. He is at once a tyrant, an aggressor and, in his own avowed objectives, a threat to civilization.” They write about the murder of children, the raping of women in front of their husbands and children, torture, dismemberment and inhuman prison conditions. They profile the crazy dictator in ways that any sane person would say qualifies him as a blot on the human race.
Many Christians today are saying that there are no circumstances under which we should go to war. This is in direct contradiction to the Bible. Remember in Eccles. 3:8, in the chapter that says there is a time for every purpose under heaven, God’s Word says, there is:
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
As a church, we need to understand when that time is and what God says about this issue. In our Worship Center today, there are many opinions about this subject. We live in a time of moral relativism, where we say, “I think what I think and you think what you think.” But today, I don’t want to tell you my opinion of war. I just want us together to go to the Bible and find out what God has to say about this subject. His opinion is the only one that really matters.
What Does God Think About War?
First, we need to understand that
1. God doesn’t love war.
God is not hungry for war. That’s not the God of the Bible. In some religions, you have a god, little “g”, or gods that are war lovers, but you don’t find that in the Bible.
Look at Psalm 68:30
Punish that animal that lives in the swamp!
Punish that nation whose leaders and people are like wild bulls.
Make them come crawling with gifts of silver.
Scatter those nations that enjoy making war.
This says that there are some nations that enjoy war. There are some evil dictators that are looking for a good fight. And God says He will punish those nations. We need to understand that war is not a good thing. War is simply the result of our fallen, sinful nature. And at the very root of way is sin.
Norman Schwarzkopf, the general of the Desert Storm allied forces, was interviewed by Ted Koppel. The general was describing his own understanding and philosophy of warfare. He said, "I would never want to serve under a general who enjoyed war." He spoke about his heroes from World War II: Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower, and George Marshall. He mentioned a couple of others who he said hated war. It made them safe to be generals in a war. In the same way, God doesn’t love war.
But, even though God doesn’t love war, we also find in the Bible that:
2. God sometimes commands war.
And if you will look at 1 Samuel 15:1-3
Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. [2] This is what the Lord Almighty says: ’I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. [3] Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ "
And so we understand that war is sometimes necessary. Why would God command His people to go to war? Because, there will not be peace without war!
America’s peace with Germany and Japan are the direct result of America defeating them in war. Hitler wouldn’t have stopped if no one had stood up to him. If good people simply looked the other way when evil people did terrible things, this world would be run by people like Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden, and Saddam.
Good reasons that you might go to war are: freedom, defense, protecting the helpless.
In his book Fuzzy Memories, Jack Handey writes:
There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I just went back to paying the bully.
Too many people feel it is easier just to pay the bully than it is to learn how to defeat him. In our current situation, we can’t afford to pay the bully. We must defeat him.
Sure it’s easier to just pay the bully, but standing for what is right is more important than a life of peace and comfort.
We also find that:
3. God strengthens His people for war.
Leviticus 26:7-8
You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. [8] Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
In a time of war, we don’t have to rely on our own strength, but we understand that God is on the side of the righteous. Let me ask, in our world today, what other nation can take the high road and stand for God? And when we stand for God, I know by the power of His word, He will stand for us.
We see in the Bible that God approves of war also because:
4. God trains His people for war.
He is the One who prepared His people for the battle.
2 Samuel 22:35 (NLT)
(God) trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
Whenever God calls you to do something, whatever it is, you can be sure that He will give you all you need to accomplish it. And when He called His people to battle, He trained them to win.
And when He sent His people to war, where was He. Does He just stay behind? Does He wait for the soldier to return? No.
5. God involves Himself in war.
He goes with the army.
Deut. 1:30
The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes,
In fact, He is going before His army to prepare the way, and He involves Himself in the battle. Now, let me ask you, who is going to win a battle that the living God is fighting? And so you can rest assured:
6. God will win the war.
Proverbs 21:31
Do your best, prepare for the worst—
then trust God to bring victory.
God has never come in second place. He is the clear winner in every battle. God is the Victor. And He says, when we do our best and prepare for the worst attacks from the enemy, we can trust God to bring the victory. He will win the war!
God’s Rules of Engagement
There is a right and a wrong time for war. There is a right and a wrong way to fight a war. And God gives very specific instructions for war. Look with me at Deuteronomy 20
1. Don’t be afraid. (Deuteronomy 20:1-4)
Deut. 20:4
For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."
Remember, God is with you, so there is no need to fear.
2. Only the brave are to fight. (Deuteronomy 20:5-8)
Deut. 20:8
Then the officers should also say, "Is anyone here afraid? Has anyone lost his courage? He may go home so that he will not cause others to lose their courage, too."
God says that anyone who doesn’t have courage will be a hindrance and a discouragement to the other soldiers, so let them go home.
During World War I, a British commander was preparing to lead his soldiers back to battle. They’d been on furlough, and it was a cold, rainy, muddy day. Their shoulders sagged because they knew what lay ahead of them: mud, blood, possible death. Nobody talked, nobody sang. It was a heavy time.
As they marched along, the commander looked into a bombed-out church. Back in the church he saw a statue of Jesus on the cross. At that moment, something happened to the commander. He remembered the One who suffered, died, and rose again. There was victory, and there was triumph.
As the troops marched along, he shouted out, "Eyes right, march!" Every eye turned to the right, and as the soldiers marched by, they saw Jesus on the cross. Something happened to that company of men. Suddenly they saw triumph after suffering, and they took courage. With shoulders straightened, they began to smile as they went. You see, anything worthwhile in life will be a risk that demands courage.
That is in true in every area of life. God calls you to be strong and courageous with whatever you are facing today.
Then He says,
3. Give peace a chance (Deuteronomy 20:10-11)
Deut. 20:10
When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.
The people of a city that surrendered were not to be harmed, but would become subject to Israel.
In the just war theory, this is known as the Last resort—You should go to war only as a last resort. See if there is anything else you can do, whether it’s diplomacy or economic pressure or anything else. And certainly, in our current situation, America has tried every means available to us and it hasn’t made any difference.
4. Don’t destroy the land in a rage of battle. (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)
Deut. 20:19-20
When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them? [20] However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.
Let me ask you, what other country wins a war and goes back in and spends millions of dollars rebuilding that country and helping them get back on their feet again? That’s the kind of country we live in that sees every person as valuable with potential to repent and live a peaceful future.
And then fifth, and this is the one that people have trouble with, if they don’t surrender,
5. Do not allow them to continue living. (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)
Deut. 20:16-17
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. [17] Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as the Lord your God has commanded you.
Did you ever hear your momma say, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it.” That is true of God, He brought us in and He can take us out. He is the Creator of all life. Life is a gift. But sin is serious business.
We need to understand the seriousness of sin. The simple fact is, none of deserve the life we are living or the next breath we are breathing. But because of God’s grace, He gives us life.
These nations were so corrupted by paganism and immorality that they deserved God’s punishment, just like Sodom and Gomorrah. But God was using His people, instead of fire from heaven.
Also, complete destruction was necessary. They were to be totally wiped out, “otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God”
Deut. 20:18
Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.
And once again, time would tell that God knew just what He was talking about. Israel did not completely destroy the inhabitants of Canaan. And generation after generation was led into idolatry and away from God by the people Israel allowed to survive.
This was true of the Nazis. When people think about the Holocaust, they think about the crimes against Jews, but they were also looking to eliminate Christianity."
Fragile, typewritten documents from the 1940s lay out the Nazi plan in grim detail: Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers. Discredit, jail, or kill Christian leaders. And re-indoctrinate the congregants. Give them a new faith—in Germany’s Third Reich.
Says Mandel, "The best evidence of an anti-church plan is the systematic nature of the persecution itself. Different steps in that persecution, such as the campaign for the suppression of denominational and youth organizations, the campaign against denominational schools, and the defamation campaign against the clergy were supported by the entire regimented press, by Nazi Party meetings, and by traveling party speakers."
And that is what we are facing today, if we allow evil to go unchallenged, we will see our children and their children in chains and wondering why we didn’t stand up for righteousness and truth in the face of evil. That is not God’s will for America. God wants to continue to use us, as He has in years past to share the Gospel with our world. Those that would destroy us hate us because they hate our God, they reject Jesus and they would want to wipe Christianity off the planet. But today, God is calling us, to stand up to this evil.
How Should We Respond to War?
So, how are we as Christians supposed to respond to war? First,
1. Trust in God.
During these times, when there is a lot of fear of terrorism and they want us to go and buy a lot of duck tape and seal ourselves in a room, we need to not panic, but put our confidence in God.
Exodus 14:14 (NCV)
You only need to remain calm; the Lord will fight for you."
2. Submit to the government.
The Bible tells us in Romans that God puts the government in place to protect the people. As Christians we are to submit to the authority of the government.
Romans 13:1-5
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. [2] Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. [3] For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. [4] For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. [5] Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.
God says He is the one that puts the government in place to promote good. One reason He does this is to punish those who would murder. And so if the government calls you to fight for your country, you need to go and fight! That’s the purpose of the government.
Now, you need to understand that you obey the government, unless it is in clear violation of the Word of God. Our allegiance is first to God! There may come a time when we have to obey God rather than our government, but only if it is a clear and direct violation of God’s word!
3. Pray.
We need to pray more than ever before. When you close your hands in prayer, God opens His hands.
Retired U.S. Marine Corps General Charles Krulak recounted a critical event in the Gulf War of 1991:
The prevailing winds in the Gulf area blow from northeast to southwest.
If you attack from the southwest, your enemy can release biological weapons into the air, and the chemicals will blow right into your face. It was a tremendous concern for the military in the southwestern desert and a grave prayer concern for many, both overseas and back home.
On February 21, 1991, American forces began an attack from the southwest at four in the morning. Only three hours before, the prevailing winds had shifted from southwest to northeast, exactly 180 degrees from the direction the prevailing winds normally blow.
The winds blew in that direction for four days, the four days of the duration of the war. Within thirty minutes of the surrender, the winds shifted back. That is the unbelievable power of prayer.
So, pray for those in the military, pray for our President and our leaders. Psalm 112:8
His heart is secure, he will have no fear;
in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
4. Remember that life is a gift from God.
C. S. Lewis said, War does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason why the cancer at 60 or the paralysis at 75 do not bother us is that we forget them. War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it.
Now the stupidest of us knows. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.
There will never be a heaven on earth, but there is a heaven, and there is coming a day.
5. Look forward to the day when wars will end.
Micah 4:1-3
In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.
[2] Many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
[3] He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
There will come a day, not in this lifetime, but it eternity, that there will be no more war and no more bloodshed. That’s the day that we are looking forward to.
God says that price that we pay for our sin is death. Death is seperation from God. When we sin, what we are saying to God is, "No thanks, I can do it my way." And that puts us at war with Him. In Romans 3:23, God says that every one of us has sinned. When God judges our sin, He gives us a taste of life without Him — a world full of death and suffering and war. But you can experience peace in your life today. That peace comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ. Put an end to the war in your life by trusting in Jesus today.
