Is God Pro-War?

Well, I’m going to try to answer the question, “Is God pro-war?” today.

Before this series started I committed to doing this topic.

When I started studying I thought to myself, “What was I thinking?”

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I’m going to take the best shot I can at this.

If some things that I say don’t make much sense, I’ve had the flu real bad all week, and I’m heavily medicated.

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This subject today has troubled people for a long time. And it’s a real serious one.

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In the second century, a character named Marcion said there was an irreconcilable gap between the loving God that Jesus taught about… versus what he said was the cruel, violent God of the Old Testament.

His solution was to do kind of a cut and paste job and remove the Old Testament from the canon of Scripture.

Is that what we should do?

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Or should we just ignore hard passages — just avoid them and not think about them?

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Well, today we’re going to face this subject head on.

I want you to know up front I do not have all the answers on this. There are aspects of this subject that I still find quite hard to understand.

And I’m going to ask us all to just work real hard today, because there is no way to have a deep, authentic faith in God — there’s no way to do that if we don’t, with as much maturity and patience and sobriety as we can muster, just real honestly face topics like this head on.

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So I want to start with the hardest passage in the Old Testament.

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In Deuteronomy 7, Moses is talking to the Israelites before they enter the promised land.

And he tells them the rules that will govern the warfare as they enter into Canaan, the promised land.

Deuteronomy 7:1-6

[SLIDE_02]
When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites,

These were all peoples who lived in what was called Canaan, the promised land.

[SLIDE_03]
seven nations larger and stronger than you — and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.

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Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

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for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

[SLIDE_06]
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (Deuteronomy 7:1-6)

And he goes on to say more about this.

Look at one more verse — verse 16. These are very striking words.

[SLIDE_07]
You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. (Deuteronomy 7:16)

And if you’ve read through the Old Testament, you know at certain points this is exactly what we’re told happened.

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We’re going to look at a number of passages today. This one is from Joshua 6:21.

[SLIDE_08]
They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it — men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. (Joshua 6:21)

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Now, what’s going on? Why this kind of devastation?

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Well, in this message, all I really want to do is make fundamental observations about the key features of the role of war in the Old Testament.

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[SLIDE_09]
I want to let you know up front we will not be doing much in the way of application today.

And I want to say a word about that.

Sometimes people in churches have a way of over-spiritualizing these texts.

They’ll read passages about battles and then talk about how what it means is, “God will strengthen me in battles against fear or other obstacles in my life.”

And, of course, that’s true.

But to honor Scripture, you have to start with the literal text.

These were real battles with real people. And that’s what we’re going to look at today.

Our goal, essentially, in this time together, is to understand that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the Father Jesus describes who he loves so deeply in the New Testament.

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So several observations about key features of the role of war in the Old Testament.

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The first observation is this:

[SLIDE_10]
The term “holy war” is never used in Scripture.

It’s a phrase used a lot in our day.

The word “holy” is used to describe many things that are set apart for God — many things.

But in the Old Testament, it’s never applied to war.

There’s nothing holy about war.

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Scholars debate where the phrase comes from. They think it has a Greek origin, but it’s not found in Scripture.

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The first episode of violence in Scripture does not occur until after the Fall.

This is not the case in virtually all other religions in Israel’s day, where the gods themselves were violent by nature.

In the Bible, violence does not occur until after the Fall when Cain kills Abel.

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And thereafter, the primary indicator of the fallenness of the world — what’s most displeasing about it to God — is its deep violence.

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In Genesis 6:

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Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. (Genesis 6:11)

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[SLIDE_12]
So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.” (Genesis 6:13)

This is deeply disturbing to God.

You will never understand the Old Testament world unless you understand the extent to which it was just dominated by violence and war.

This is why the Hebrew word for war is used over 300 times in the Old Testament.

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[SLIDE_13]
I’ll show you how common it was to give you kind of a backdrop to this.

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When I say the word “Spring” what association comes to your mind?

Turn to the person next you — just one word — when you think of the word “spring” what comes to your mind? Just tell them real quick.

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How many of you associate it with recreation, something outside, or Spring break?

How many of you associate it with baseball — Spring training?

How many of you associated it with Spring cleaning? My mother would be disappointed.

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I want you to notice this. You may have seen this verse before and kind of passed over it — 2 Samuel 11:1. It tells the story of David and Bathsheba. Look what the writer says.

[SLIDE_14]
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war… (2 Samuel 11:1)

Then the writer goes on to tell the story.

It was that time of year — as casually as we would talk about the baseball season rolling around.

It’s just the context of that world.

It’s so different from our society.

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But not all parts of our world are real different from the ancient world in that regard.

Take Syria for example.

[SLIDE_15]
Since 2011 war has been raging in Syria creating the largest refugee and displacement crisis of our time. About 6.7 million Syrians are now refugees, and another 6.2 million people are displaced within Syria. The population of Syria in 2011 was 20 million.

The war in Syria has claimed the lives of an estimated 500,000 people.

That’s part of our world.

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In the ancient world, people lived in what might be called a culture of war.

And what sounds like cruelty to us, was not for them. It was just standard operating procedure. — “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war.”

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Now, I want to say this — war is one of those institutions like polygamy, divorce, or slavery, that pervaded the world into which Israel was born… because of the fallenness of the human race.

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And God forms a nation… and moves one step at a time all the way through to Jesus’ day to teach the human race a better way.

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But violence came when the Fall came, and God was deeply disturbed by it. It was not holy.

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A second observation:

[SLIDE_16]
The wars in the Old Testament are to be understood as judgment on evil by a holy God.

The wars that we read about in the Old Testament as commanded by God are, in part, an expression of God’s judgment on the evil of the Canaanite culture.

There’s a very important statement in this regard in Genesis 15:16.

God is promising to Abraham land for his people, but he says they cannot occupy it yet.

And God gives a real important reason why they cannot occupy it yet.

He says:

[SLIDE_17]
In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. (Genesis 15:16)

“In the fourth generation” — this is a way of saying, “some time now in the distant future.”

“In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here.”

Abraham is in Canaan, in the promised land, when God is talking to him. He says, “You can’t have the land now. It will happen in the future because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

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[SLIDE_18]
Now, Amorites here is basically shorthand for the people who live in Canaan, in the promised land.

God is saying, “In Abraham’s time, their culture is defiled. It is quite wicked, but not yet past the point of no return.”

So, in effect, God is going to offer mercy to the people who live in Canaan — give them time to repent.

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We know from Joshua 2, from Rahab, that even in Jericho the people had heard about the God of Israel and his deliverance of his people, the great works that he had done. And Rahab herself put her trust in this God.

But the Canaanites as a whole did not repent, and their sin reached its full measure.

This is reflected many places in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 18 is a catalogue of all kinds of twisted practices that were part of the cult of Canaanite religion.

One of the practices listed is the sacrifice of children to a god called Molech.

And there is evidence from the culture that this was practiced regularly with firstborn children in the Canaanite religion.

It happened so long ago that we tend to kind of brush over it.

But you will not understand God’s concern over the Canaanites unless you let this sink in.

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So I want to use a more contemporary example of a culture that just started to approach the full measure of sin — Nazi, Germany.

“One Instance, One Child” is written by a historian named Philip Friedman.

This is an eyewitness account of what happened to one Jewish girl in a Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation. This actually happened.

“Zosha was a little girl. One of the Germans became aware of her beautiful, diamond-like, dark eyes.

‘I could make two rings out of them,’ he said. ‘One for myself and one for my wife.’”

His colleague is holding the girl.

‘Let’s see whether they really are so beautiful. Better yet, let’s examine them in our hands.’

“The soldiers begin to laugh.

“One of the wittiest suggest they cut her eyes out.

“What happens next is that the fainting child is lying on the floor. Instead of eyes, two bloody wounds are staring.

“The mother, driven mad, is held by the other women.

“Soon after, they decide it’s necessary to annihilate the blind child.”

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That’s one child. Multiply the murder of one child after another after another, generation after generation.

Imagine that being done in the name of God.

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Think about what it does to the children who survive and are brought up in such a culture.

Then you begin to get some sense of what it means for a culture to reach the full measure of sin.

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And God says it has to be stopped.

These wars are to be understood, Scripture teaches, as part of the expression of the judgment on evil by a holy God.

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Next observation:

These wars are not just an expression of judgment on evil. In addition…

[SLIDE_19]
The Canaanites had to be removed if Israel’s worship of the one, true God was to survive.

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It is very clear to God that Israel’s devotion to him is very immature and very fragile.

And if the Canaanites are allowed to remain in Israel, the Israelites will be seduced into the same kind of practices.

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[SLIDE_20]
More rules are found in Deuteronomy 20 for warfare, and God says,

“When you go to cities outside the promised land, begin by offering peace. However, for the cities in Canaan, destroy their populations utterly,”

Deuteronomy 20:18, God says:

[SLIDE_21]
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. (Deuteronomy 20:18)

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I’ll give you one example of this, and this comes from a tablet excavated from a city that was near Canaan.

A lot of excavation has taken place there that has shed a lot of light in our century on Canaanite religious practices.

The information on this tablet tells us about the god Baal, who is the god of fertility.

In the Canaanite religion, he’s killed by another god called Mot, who is the god of barrenness and death.

Mot, in turn, was killed by a goddess named Anath.
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[SLIDE_22]
Baal comes back to life — and again, this is the religion that these people are learning, their children are learning — Baal comes back to life, and Baal, having sexual intercourse with Anath, is what ensures the fertility of the earth for another growing season.

And for the Canaanites every year when the rain stopped, which was in May, it was as if Baal had died.

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So for them, sexual activity with cultic prostitutes was designed to induce Baal to make the earth fertile again.

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One scholar says this: “Sexual intercourse with temple prostitutes was as much a part of the job of a farmer as actual operations of agriculture.”

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This is the main activity of Canaanite worship.

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Again, you have to think about this in terms of real people. Think about how protective dads are of our daughters in our society.

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I know a dad who, when his daughter was not a year old yet, just learning to talk, he taught her this little routine. “What does a girl on a date say?” “No!”

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Now, you imagine a culture where fathers are used to their daughters growing up and being involved in this kind of activity… and that’s their religion.

This is one of the reasons why in Old Testament languages, as you read through the Old Testament, so often it uses this language, this imagery, of Israel being seduced by other gods. It was literally so.

And God says, “This must be stopped.”

If worship of the one, true God — if monotheism, which had never existed in the world before, was to survive, it has got to be stopped.

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Let me give you an analogy that is kind of helpful.

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In the world of medicine, a surgeon does not hesitate to amputate part of the body to save the life of the patient.

Amputation will cause real pain. It will involve enormous loss, but when life is at stake, the doctor will do it in a heartbeat.

And in a real sense, the spiritual destiny of the world God wants to bless and save through his people is at stake.

So God orders surgery.

There’s no other way for the worship of the one, true God to survive.
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And, in fact, as history played out, this concern is absolutely justified.

Wherever Israel allowed Baal worship to continue, Canaanite populations to go on, Israel gets seduced into it.

And you see this all the way back in Numbers 25.

Numbers 25 says,

[SLIDE_23]
While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. (Numbers 25:1-3)

“While Israel was staying in Shittim,” — as they’re getting ready to occupy the promised land — “the men begin to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods.”

So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor.

So, in a very real sense, these wars were about not just the physical survival of the Israelites, but also about the spiritual survival of the worship of the one, true God.

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The fourth observation about war in the Old Testament is:

[SLIDE_24]
God plays no favorites.

Just as God could and did use Israel as an instrument of judgment against other nations, so God could and did use other nations as an instrument of judgment against Israel.

Israel would have to learn that God was not a genie in a bottle to be their secret weapon anytime they went to war… just because they were his people.

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Now, God starts this teaching real early. Joshua 5:

[SLIDE_25]
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

[SLIDE_26]
“No,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence. (Joshua 5:13-14)

Now, there’s a kind of dark humor to this encounter. Joshua sees this man, his sword is drawn. That’s like having a gun pointed, being ready for action.

And notice the question is, “Whose side are you on? Their side or our side?”

And the guy says, “No.”

That’s not one of the choices. This was not a yes/no question. This is an either/or question.

[SLIDE_27]
But the man here is saying, “Joshua, the question is not is God on your side. The question is are you on God’s side?”

God will fight for his people, but if they defy him, God will fight against them as well. The judgment deal cuts both ways.

Just because Israel is the chosen people, have the ark of the covenant and so on, it doesn’t mean they’ll automatically win.

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And we begin to see this in the next chapter. Joshua 7:1.

This is after the battle of Jericho, before the next battle that’s listed in the Book of Joshua, the battle of Ai.

[SLIDE_28]
But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel. (Joshua 7:1)

Now, that little phrase “devoted things” — “unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things” — is a real important phrase in this business of warfare.

It was the Hebrew word “herem.”

It means things that are under the ban.

It’s used about 80 times in the Old Testament. It talks about things that were to be set apart, and generally set apart for destruction.

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[SLIDE_29]
Now, part of the idea here is that soldiers were not allowed to keep plunder.

But Achan does.

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And you can tell right away he’s in trouble.

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You know when parents are happy with their kids, they just use their first name or a nickname.

But if your parents use your middle name, you’re in trouble.

Achan here gets a pretty formal treatment — “Achan, son of Karmi, son of Zimri, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah.”

This is like a real formal deal here. He’s being identified real carefully. He’s in deep trouble.

Part of the idea of “the devoted thing,” is that soldiers were not allowed to keep plunder.

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In most armies of that day, soldiers got paid by defeating enemies and taking all their possessions.

And professional soldiers got rich this way — by plundering cities. They’re kind of working on commission if you want to think about it this way.

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And that’s one of the ways that nations got addicted to war.

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God, in a sense, is saying, “No.”

There were exceptions to it, but as a general rule, that was the case. Soldiers would not be allowed to profit from war.

Now, Achan violates this rule. He tries to profit from this battle, and he is treated very severely.

He had, in effect, sided with the Canaanites. And so he is destroyed as they would have been.

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Now, this story, the story about the campaign at Ai, shows another distinctive aspect about Israel’s war.

Look at verse 3.

Ai was probably not a very large place. The word actually means “ruins” in Hebrew. It was probably a settlement not worth a whole lot.

The spies came back.

[SLIDE_30]
When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.”

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So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes.

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At this the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening.

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The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads. And Joshua said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? (Joshua 7:3-7)

Now, you notice Israel sent two or three thousand men. How many died in the attack?

36

Normally in warfare, 36 casualties out of 3,000 soldiers or so would not be cause for alarm.

But Joshua falls down on his face and cries out in distress. Why?

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Well, generally the idea of Israel’s wars here were that God would do the real fighting for them.

Deuteronomy 20:4

[SLIDE_34]
For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory. (Deuteronomy 20:4)

Jericho is kind of the example in this regard. God brings down the wall and the soldiers just kind of mop up afterwards.

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The reason Joshua is so concerned with the loss of 36 men is he can tell the protection God has around Israel has come down.

Now without God to fight for them, they’re doomed.

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[SLIDE_35]
Part of why I point this out is to say this is one of the ways in which war in the Old Testament is quite different from say ISIS.

ISIS fighters are taught to covet martyrdom.

And you may have read that as soon as a martyr dies, he’s promised entrance into paradise according to ISIS theology.

And what does he get as his reward, do you all know?

72 virgins

One thing I have not been able to find out is what did the 72 virgins do to end up in that situation?

Maybe it’s paradise for the martyr but eternal punishment for the 72 virgins, I don’t know.

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But in these wars in the Old Testament, the thought is that God will fight for his people.

And if it works out right, if they’re obedient and so on, Israel’s soldiers are not supposed to die.

There is no exultation of martyrdom here.

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Now, once the sin of Achan is resolved, God does fight for his people.

And even in the first two battles recorded in Joshua, we find this pattern.

Rahab, though she’s a Gentile, is saved.
Achan, though he’s an Israelite, and his pedigree goes all the way back, he is destroyed.

These are just early indications that God’s concern is faith and character. It’s not about being on the right side.

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And having kind of established these patterns then, most of the other battles in Joshua are summarized quite briefly.

In Joshua 9, a group of people called the Gibeonites deceive Israel. A key verse in Joshua 9 is verse 14. They deceive Israel, claim to have come from a long way away so they ought to be able to settle in. And it says,

[SLIDE_36]
Israel did not inquire of the Lord. (Joshua 9:14)

They allowed the Gibeonites to stay in the promised land, and they enslaved the Gibeonites.

Much later, the Gibeonites tempt Israel into Baal worship.

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Joshua 10 is a story of another battle.

Five Amorite kings attack at Gibeon. This time Israel does consult with and obey God, and he enables them to win.

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[SLIDE_37]
Then the next couple of chapters — latter part of 10 and chapter 11 — summarize the whole rest of the military campaign. The Southern campaign first then the Northern campaign, because really what Joshua is interested in is kind of establishing the paradigm.

And the results are listed in Joshua 12.

It’s a list of all the kings that get defeated. Verse 24 says “31 kings in all” — 31 to nothing is the score. God fights for his people.
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And the rest of Joshua is about how the land gets divided up.

So they’re occupying the land, but they don’t remove all the people… and they don’t live happily ever after.

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The era of the judges is very up and down.

Then they ask for a king… and that’s not a solution either.

That leads to the final observation I want to make.

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[SLIDE_38]
Israel’s most important learning from wars came not in military victory, but in military defeat.

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I want to kind of draw out Israel’s history as a nation.

It starts in oppression in Egypt.
They’re in Egypt but they’re delivered, and they go into the wilderness.
And then there’s the conquest — that’s what the Book of Joshua is about.
Then they enter into the united kingdom.

Now, every step in their ascent is marked by violence.

They leave Egypt, there’s the destruction of the firstborn, the destruction of Pharaoh’s armies.
They go into the wilderness.
The conquest involves one battle after another.
They say, “We want a king,” and that united kingdom involves violence.

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The first guy who is crowned king in Israel is not Saul. He’s the first to reign.

The first guy to be crowned king was the son of Gideon. The people say to Gideon, “We’ll make you king.”

He says, “No.”

But his son, Abimelech, says, “I’ll be the king.” Abimelech is one of 70 brothers.

You know what Abimelech does? He kills all of his brothers. He kills his brothers because he wants to be king.

That leads to violence.

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But later on the people still say, “We want a king.”

And Samuel says to them, “If you have a king he’ll make your boys soldiers. He’ll march them in front of his chariots.”

“We don’t care. We want a king to lead us in battle.”

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And so they get a king — Saul, then David, then Solomon — kings of the whole country.

And there’s violence between Saul and David and David’s sons.

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Then after Solomon this kingdom is divided. No more “one” people. It’s split into a Northern kingdom and a Southern kingdom in about 930.

And that lasts for a couple hundred years.

Then in 720 the Northern kingdom, which is known as Israel, is defeated by the Assyrians — it’s just destroyed.

The Southern kingdom lasts for a little while longer until 586. The Southern kingdom is called Judah, and it is attacked and destroyed by Babylon.

And every step in the descent of Israel is marked by violence.

In a sense, their descent is kind of a reversal of their rise.

And some of them begin to reflect on it, and they say, “When we rose as a nation, we were used as instruments of God’s judgment against these other nations. And when we fell, God used these other nations like Assyria and Babylon as instruments of judgment against us. And when we were rising as a country, the walls of Jericho came down, but when the Babylonians come, the walls of Jerusalem come down.”

They beat 31 kings there, but now their king, Zedekiah, is the last king in Judah.

And the last thing he sees are the execution of his sons. Then his eyes are cut out, and he’s led to Babylon and he dies in exile.

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You have to understand this is the great crisis for Israel.

Israel ends up exactly where they started out — under subjugation of another power.

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This is the great spiritual and theological crisis in this nation’s history, because now they have to ask, “Is the covenant gone? Are God’s promises wiped out?”

And some of them, a lot of them think what’s going to happen is, “We’re going to get more power… and by force we’re going to make it back up to the top again.”

And maybe their history would be just like a series of rises and falls based on power.

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But among God’s inspired prophets, at this great crisis, arose a new and better vision, something no human being had ever conceived before.

Jeremiah 31

The Prophet Jeremiah is alive during these days.

He calls the people to repent, and they don’t. And he sees what looks like the end of this nation, of these people.

He comes to the conclusion that what’s needed is not another shot at the old covenant, not the power to wage war with greater violence at their enemies.

Because you need to understand in the whole Old Testament — the problem is not that Israel failed and maybe some other country or ethnic group would have done better.

Their story is our story.
Their sins are our sins.

What was needed was a new kind of person.

So Jeremiah says in 31:31,

[SLIDE_39]
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

[SLIDE_40]
It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

[SLIDE_41]
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

[SLIDE_42]
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

“There will be a new kind of person,” God says.
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One of the most striking prophesies to come out of this history came from a prophet named Zechariah a long time after Judah fell.

Zechariah 9

[SLIDE_43]
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

Now, a king would conjure up to all kinds of oppressed people images of military power.

Then he says, “Riding on a donkey.”

Do kings ride on donkeys?

No, they rode on chariots pulled by stallions, war-horses. A donkey is a farm animal.

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[SLIDE_44]
If you want to understand this in contemporary language it would be like saying, “The Commander in Chief comes riding into Washington on a used Hyundai.”

Or a John Deere tractor — something that’s used in agriculture.

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What kind of king comes riding into an occupied capital on a donkey?

Well, one did one day.

Verse 10:

[SLIDE_45]
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:10)

And it took this long in the human race for a few, at least, to understand that the old way did not work — that violence and force which seemed to sinful people still to be the strongest tools in the world, are not nearly strong enough to usher in God’s kingdom to transform the human heart.

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[SLIDE_46]
Finally, God would judge in God’s good time that at least a few among the human race will be ready for a king who would arrive on a donkey.

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And on the night that he arrived on this earth, God’s angels would sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.”

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Finally, God judged in his good time that a few, at least, were ready to listen to the Prince of Peace.

[SLIDE_47]
You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. (Mathew 5:38-39)

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You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:43-44)

A few would be ready to follow him when he said, “Not blessed are the warriors. Not blessed are the conquerors, but

[SLIDE_49]
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

The Prince of Peace said, “Now at last it will be clear that the people of God will not be a political nation armed with swords and chariots, ready to inflict suffering on the rest of the world…

But a Church armed with love and prayer, ready to endure suffering on behalf of the world.”

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That’s why events like the Crusades were so tragic.

Because they completely misread Scripture as if Jesus had never come, as if the Church had not been born.

They forgot that when Jesus came he did not kill infidels. He died for them.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

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[SLIDE_50]
So, I want to ask us to end today by just spending a few moments praying for peace.

Sermon Summary

Is God pro-war?

Marcion, a 2nd century theologian, said there was an irreconcilable gap between the loving God that Jesus taught about versus what he said was the cruel, violent God of the Old Testament. His solution was to remove the Old Testament from the canon of Scripture.

Is that what we should do? Or should we just ignore hard passages?

This Sunday we will face this subject head on. We will work hard to understand this because there is no way to have a deep, authentic faith in God if we don’t, with as much maturity and patience and sobriety as we can muster, just real honestly face topics like this head on.

I hope you join us Sunday!

Scripture References

Deuteronomy 7:1-6
Deuteronomy 7:16
Joshua 6:21
Genesis 6:11
Genesis 6:13
2 Samuel 11:1
Genesis 15:16
Deuteronomy 20:18
Numbers 25:1-3
Joshua 5:13-14
Joshua 7:1
Joshua 7:3-7
Deuteronomy 20:4
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Zechariah 9:9-10
Mathew 5:38-39
Matthew 5:43-44
Matthew 5:9

Next Steps

I will study what Jesus meant by “Love your enemies.”
I will begin to pray for those who persecute me.
I will pray for peace in our world.
I will take action that leads to peace in our society.

Deuteronomy 7:1-16, 20:4-18
Genesis 6:11-13, 15:16
2 Samuel 11:1
Numbers 25:1-3
Joshua 5:13-14, 6:21, 7:1-7
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Zechariah 9:9-10
Mathew 5:9, 38-44