Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Well, we Americans love our freedom. We've fought wars and created institutions of government to ensure that our freedoms remain uninfringed upon. And we're willing to wave the banner when our rights are threatened. But is this what Christ would do?

Welcome to Focal Point. Once again, it's time for our end of the week. Welcome to a Q and A session with Pastor Mike Fabarez. And today's topic is one people are listening to with interest because even within the ranks of Christians, you have people lined up on one side of the battle and yet just as many on the other side.

The question is, is it right for peace-loving Christians to wage war? To address that issue head on, let's enter the pastor's study with the executive director of Focal Point, Jay Wharton.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Dave. I am here with Pastor Mike. And Pastor Mike, we have a question. Someone asks, as Christians, should we be for war or should we be pacifists?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I wrote that with bombs bursting in air, right? Yeah. Well, I understand that there's a lot of war in our history as Americans and certainly in the Bible. We open the Bible and we find as we start reading in the beginning, there's all kinds of war going on in the Old Testament.

Now remember, the New Testament is a snapshot of just the ministry of Christ and the apostles. The Old Testament covers so much more ground, so many centuries of history. And in that history, we find that God is offering, often describing warfare, and oftentimes even implementing and organizing and prompting warfare.

I mean, you take the Canaanites for instance, that were sacrificing their children and the sin that went on in these countries that were just deplorable and unthinkable, the immorality, the murderous sacrifices going on, and God would prompt his people to be an arm of justice, to go in and deliver those who were under this kind of oppression.

In the Book of Judges, we see it 13, 14 times over and over again, the oppression of a foreign entity being overthrown by war. So, yeah, we see a lot of war in the Bible to right a wrong. Of course, there are descriptions of war that weren't for that purpose. But when God is showing some kind of favor toward warriors, it's so that the oppressor will be freed from his oppression and that some kind of organization or group of people or nation that won't listen to reason and won't respond to conviction ends up having to respond at the tip of a spear.

Speaker 2

So is there any room for pacifism in the New Testament and in our current lives?

Speaker 3

Well, I think we ought often misunderstand the principles of the restraining of evil in the church, for instance, that we're doing that with the proclamation of the truth. And certainly in that sense, the organization of the church is pacifistic. We're not engaging in warfare. We're not advancing the cause of Christ with bombs and guns.

And on a personal level, we're called to refrain from engaging in any kind of retaliatory acts or returning even a slap for a slap. That's just not what we're called to do on a personal level. But when it comes to the government, it has a unique role to avenge evil with the sword. That's what Romans 13 is all about.

So if you're saying, can I as an individual have a kind of a pacifistic philosophy as I deal with my fellow humans on the planet? Well, yeah, sure, in our own relationships we can. And as a church, we're not a militant organization, certainly not in a literal sense.

But the government itself has a mandate from God to avenge evil and if need be, with weapons of warfare. Literal weapons of warfare.

Speaker 2

So as Christians, do we need to agree with our government every time they're going to war?

Speaker 3

Of course not. And we can think about the Christians that may exist in another country that we have gone and fought a just war against. In that case, you'd have to say, well, if there's any kind of justice in this war, then some Christians on one side or the other, in terms of the government, are going to have to rightly look at God's word and say, hey, my government is on the losing side of this. At least the argument of standing up for and fighting for what's right.

So this goes back to a long and drawn-out discussion of what it means to be a theological thinker and engage only in just war. We have to make sure that the reasons we go to war and take up arms against another country or group of people are for a just, a biblically just cause. And that's not always the case.

I think we have to be very careful and not just say, well, if the government's there to bear the sword, it can bear the sword whenever it wants to whomever or against whomever it wants. That's just not the case. No, we need to be very discerning about it.

Speaker 2

So what is our responsibility as citizens of the United States for us in terms of war and pacifism or objecting against war? Should I join the armed forces? Is there other ways I should support these things or not support Them, Right.

Speaker 3

Well, there's no problem serving in the armed forces. You look at this even in the scripture when people were converted, for instance, at the preaching of John the Baptist. I mean, here were warriors with weapons of war in their hand, and they ask, what should we do if we repent? And John the Baptist had a great opportunity to say, well, you shouldn't be in this line of work. But we never find that. As a matter of fact, we find God choosing people to save in these professions. I think of Cornelius in the middle of the Book of Acts, people that were leading in armies, that were never called to abandon their jobs.

So we can certainly argue that the Bible does not see being in military service as anything that is inherently or necessarily evil or wrong or sinful. Christians can and should serve their countries and engage, if they're called to, in just war, if that is what's before them, but that doesn't mean everyone has to.

There is a sense in which there really is a conscientious objection to engaging in war, either because the war is not, in our minds, a just war, or maybe someone just says, that's just not something I could ever see myself doing, and I would want to accommodate a conscience that says, I just can't do that.

We find a lot of groups that have differed with me on my view of warfare throughout church history that have said, we won't take up arms against another country, but we want to support the cause in some other way. A lot of Christians went into the medical corps, went into a lot of other diplomatic kinds of arms of the government to try and do their part to win a just cause, but not by taking up arms against other people. And certainly, that would be a fine way to go about it if your conscience will not allow you to engage in actually taking up arms against an enemy.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I trust this has been a helpful and timely discussion for our listeners. We're going to continue this conversation with a message you gave called elections, activism and civil disobedience.

Speaker 4

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. Now, I mean, if you want to put it in classic paradigm terms, it's the state and it's the church. Church and state. It's my relationship with God and my relationship with the government. It's being a good Christian, being a good citizen, and those are overlapping spheres that I live in, and I live under both. And Jesus now says, well, there's stuff you've got to render, give or defer to Caesar. And then there's things you need to defer to God. And that sounds hard, and I want him to explain it, that it's not as hard to figure out as you might think.

Because you do this to your kids and you expect them to know intuitively how to live with two authorities in their lives. Put them on a sports team, for instance, just by way of example. My middle kid, 12 years old, John, he's playing again this year on the Little League District 55 All Star Baseball team. And he's got a coach, and he lives under the authority of the coach. I don't even have to tell him this because he knows I expect him to be a good player, respectful to the coach, obedient to the coach. When the coach says run a lap, run a lap. If he says pitch five more times, you do it. You do what the coach says. You live under the authority of the coach.

But then again, here's what he needs to understand and probably never needs to be told, and that is when you're a baseball player on that team, you don't cease to be my son. My rules and my authority and everything I've taught you does not somehow go away because you're on the baseball team. Now, the baseball team can be a kind of environment that is different than the environment at home. Just to drive this point to our point of application, I mean, certainly the government operates with a different set of values and different set of principles than does God's kingdom. So, I mean, they're in conflict at times.

And so it is with my kid's baseball team. For instance, I was dropping him off the other day and we were running late and he needed some hydration. I stopped at the 7:11 across from the ball field and I said, go in and get yourself some Gatorade and off to the game you'll go. And he said, oh, this is where my coach stops off before the games to get his chewing tobacco. He said, oh, okay, that's great. Now, my coach is a decent baseball coach, but he's not a great model for life for my kid. For instance, chewing tobacco, I've told him, need you chew tobacco, cut your tongue out. I mean, I don't know. We've threatened him. This is not good. We don't want you coming home chewing tobacco.

And I know my kid's coach's language is a lot more colorful than what he'll hear at home. He knows the rules about profanity and he knows that that's not acceptable. I mean, the Bible is our constitution and it says, let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth and you won't hear it from mom and dad and you're not going to have it. We don't want you to not use those words in our home alone. When you're on the baseball field, you can't use them. He could come home and he could say, well, you know the coach, he's told us he's a really cool coach. Everybody in the dugout can cuss if they want to, he could tell us that.

But he knows that even if his coach allows something that his authority, his dad knows, is not allowed, he's got to balance this because he recognizes it doesn't matter what the coach says if it has to do with something allowed by the coach but not allowed by his father. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't run laps when the coach says run laps or do push-ups or whatever, the weird things that they do, or do more drills, he's got to do that. If the coach at some point imposes a new rule that before you go out and play the game, the championship game, everyone has to chew tobacco for half an hour, right? This is all an illustration. I don't think that he's doing any of this.

Of course, my son now wouldn't just say, I'm not going to do what he allows. Now he has to actually be disobedient to his coach, right? Because he knows his dad has said, you can't do that. You understand? That kind of dual authority is not something complicated for a kid. It may be uncomfortable at times and it may even be difficult and costly at times for him. And it may cost him his reputation among the other players. But that kind of balancing act is not something that needs lecture after lecture to explain to him how this works.

Particularly because he already knows and hears from dad from time to time that when it comes to baseball, that's not your life, it's a part of your life now. Ninety-six percent. And these are just rough and dirty numbers I'm throwing out. It's a Mike Fabarizzm. But let's just say 96% of the New Testament is going to hammer this at us. Be loyal to God, be faithful to God, be obedient to God, follow God. And then about 4% of the New Testament, as you open up the Bible, you look at Titus 3:1-8, you look at passages in Peter, several of them, and you look at this passage in Romans 13, you recognize that a lot of the scripture, at least a small portion of it, I guess, by comparison is going to tell us that you need to be loyal to the coach, to the government, because they're a rightful authority.

That authority is in your life because God has determined for it to be, and you are to be a good citizen. Now, just by the preponderance of proportionalism here, we have a clear understanding that God does not equate these authorities. Even though I live under the authority of my government, we are citizens of heaven. First, I'm a Christian first. I'm a citizen of the United States second. And if I can start to get some of that in perspective as a kid kind of innately gets in his own family life before he joins the baseball team, it may help to answer some of the more thorny or difficult questions that arise as a Christian in a country under a government that is not living by the same values as God or his kingdom.

I must obey my government until obedience to my government makes me disobedient to Christ. I must obey my government even if taxes get crazy. Even if the things that they ask me to do to fill out forms before I can plant a tree in my yard if it gets nuts. I've got to obey my government until obedience to the government and its rules specifically lead me to be disobedient to Christ. We looked at, I don't know, a big idol in the valley that was erected to Nebuchadnezzar. And they said, you got to bow down and worship it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, no, can't do that. So they arrested him. They heated up the furnace. They said, we're going to throw you in the furnace. They said, fine, throw us in the furnace if you want, but we're not going to do it.

They were evangelizing in Acts 4 and 5, and they said, stop evangelizing. Don't do it. Don't make disciples of all the nations. And they said, I'm sorry, we have to. Now, that was the clear and simple example. God blesses that kind of civil disobedience, if you want to call it that. But before we go too far with this, let's make sure we clarify what we're saying and what we're not saying. We want our governments to be like a church. They can't be. That's not what they are. They're led by unregenerate people. There is an anti-Christian, anti-God movement on every government of the world. Even if they have Christian principles of right and wrong built into their founding documents or their law code. Therefore, I can't expect the same things there.

And in my mind, I've got to recognize that's just the way a lot of it is. Do I want it to change? Yes. Do I ignore the bad? No. Well, what do I do? Seven things. Jot down these references real quick. Mark 8:14-15. Luke 22:25-27. In both of these passages, Jesus uses the government as an example of what we should not be. My first responsibility is to point out the wrong of the government to the church so that they don't mirror that. He tells them this. Here's an amazing statement from Christ. He tells his disciples, just to mix another metaphor, watch out for the leaven of Herod. Herod, he was the Roman leader of the government. In Luke 22, he says, you know, amongst the kings of the Gentiles, they love to lord their authority over people and then call themselves benefactors. What hypocrites. It's not supposed to be that way with you, the government.

My first responsibility is to point out the bad of the government and say, don't be like that. Right kids? Don't be like Congressman Wiener. How about that? Does that help? I want to point out that about the. That's responsibility number one. Responsibility number two. As I have opportunity, I want to point out the leaven of the government to the government. I want to point out the evil of the government to the government. Okay, there are plenty of biblical examples of this. How about Luke 3:18-20? John the Baptist exhorted the people and preached the good news. Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by John the Baptist because of his marriage to Herodias, which was his brother's wife. It was an immoral relationship and he was reproved for all the other evil things that Herod had done.

Now, it doesn't end well for John. He gets his head cut off in chapter six of Mark and he gets thrown in prison in this passage. But he definitely has no problem saying, hey, you're sinning. So for those of you that are inclined to write letters, when you see things, just make sure you do it honorably, respectfully. But that's fine. You need to point out the sin of the government to the government. Make it clear that it's wrong. Fine. Paul before the governor of Judea. What was that? Acts 24. He's standing before Felix. Same thing. He preaches on three things. He preaches on righteousness, the standard of righteousness, self-control, which Felix didn't have, just like Herod didn't have it, and marrying all kinds of people he shouldn't. And the coming judgment. Or how about Justin Martyr in the first century? At the end of the first century. I love this letter to the Roman Senate. He says, to the emperor in the Roman Senate, he says, I give you advanced warning. You will certainly not escape the coming judgment of God if you persist in your injustice.

If you want to quote him for your senator or governor or your congressman, fine. You can write that to them. Do it respectfully. It definitely not only in Christian tradition. It is within the pages of the Christian scripture that there's nothing wrong. It is actually appropriate for you to point out the sin of the government to the government. Number three, to serve in the government. As we've already made the point, I don't need to belabor this, but when Christian evangelists hit people that worked for the government, they never gave them a lecture, a call, a command to change their occupation, whether they were soldiers, centurions who trained soldiers, tax collectors for the Roman IRS. Zacchaeus, Levi, Matthew, you know these people, Cornelius, even Paul himself is trying to convert King Agrippa II, trying to turn him into a Christian.

Now, I know he's under arrest and on trial, but he doesn't have a problem sharing the gospel. And I guarantee you, if he becomes a Christian, he's not going to say, you got to quit now. So all I'm saying is some of you are inclined to serve in some level of the government. It can be civil service, it can be governmental service. Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing some of you replace some of the folks on the city council. Wouldn't be a bad thing. I mean, I say that respectfully, but some of you need to sign up for that. I'll vote for you. Do you get what I'm saying here? Nothing wrong with civil servants. Nothing wrong with that. Matter of fact, we got in big time. We got Joseph in Egypt, although that was not his career plan. And Daniel in Babylon and Medo-Persia. That wasn't his career plan either. But they did it. Daniel did it for years, decades, through multiple kings and monarchs and even empires, from Babylon to the Medo-Persian Empire.

So serving in government, great. And some of you are inclined to do that. Have at it. Do it. Stand up for what's right. Be a reasonable, respectable, just servant of the government. Number four, you and I need to set the example for the rest of society. We need to be an example to the government and the rest of society. Titus 3:1-8 would be a good place to start. Even Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, he said about salt and light. I am to be an example to the pagan government and the pagan society. When my kid says, my kid back to the Little League, my kid's coach, let's say none of this is true. Say, hey, kids, you can cuss all you want to do in the dugout. My kids should sit there as a good example and never cuss. See what I'm saying?

And you and I, they can say, you can do this, you can do that, you can do this. If you want, we should say, listen, we're only going to do what the Bible tells us we can and cannot do. So be a good example. That's what Titus 3:1-8 is all about. Number five, you want to see things bettered in our country, you need to evangelize as many people as possible. Because even if you do change laws, right, we're never going to change behavior unless we change hearts. So we've got to share the gospel. You want a passage for that? 2 Corinthians 5:17. If any man is in Christ, what new creation? Old is gone, new has come. You want new things to come in people in our society, you better be sharing the life-changing message of repentance and faith and devotion to Christ. That's what we need to preach. So evangelize as many people as possible.

Number six, you should vote. And every time there's an opportunity to vote, you'd better go in there informed, knowing something about the issues or the people being elected, and vote. Number seven, you need to pray for your kings and for those in authority that what they do would end up allowing us to do what we need to do in this case, to live a dignified life, a quiet life, a godly life. Jeremiah chapter 29. Would you turn to Jeremiah 29:4-7? Here's some instruction to some expatriates who were being taken to Babylon, a pagan government, and they were going to live there for 70 years at least. And here's what God had to say to those: thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Okay? Now you're not here amongst your own people, in your own country. You're now under the government of a pagan, you know, idol-worshiping king. What am I supposed to do? Well, here's what you're supposed to do. Build houses, live in them, plant gardens, eat their produce. Go to Lowe's, go to Home Depot, get your house in order, take wives, rent out the banquet hall, have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. So get out there and be a good Christian who's also a good citizen.

Let's pray. God, these are important issues for us, and I pray they wouldn't just be academic issues of the past and of history, but that we might recognize that no matter what pressure is placed upon us, that we would think biblically, respond biblically to be praying, to be responding, to be serving when we're called upon to do so, to do what we can do in our nation, our government, our state, our county, that we might enhance its welfare. We'd like it to go well for our country, because when it does, it goes well for us. Let us be focused ultimately and with the preponderance of our lives and the majority of our effort on things that will last a hundred, a thousand and beyond.

Speaker 3

Ten thousand years from now.

Speaker 4

So get us busy about the work of the kingdom while we're faithful and conscientious about being good citizens of our country. I ask that for us that we might grow in Christ in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray. Amen.

Speaker 1

Amen. Obedience to our government, unless it calls for disobedience to Christ. A timely message from Pastor Mike Fabarez. And you're listening to Focal Point, featuring our weekly segment of Ask Pastor Mike. The message you heard is titled "Elections, Activism and Disobedience," and you can hear a complete uncut version when you go to focalpointradio.org.

Well, Christians today are bombarded by political issues which were never meant to be at odds with the truth expounded by Jesus. And though we're sometimes called to take a stand on moral issues, it's never at the expense of being an ambassador of the one we serve. A.W. Tozer had a thought about this, and it's found in the book "Gems from Tozer." He writes about the early church living under Roman rule. One distinguishing mark of those first Christians was a supernatural radiance that shined out from within them. The sun had come up in their hearts, and its warmth and light made unnecessary any secondary sources of assurance.

It is obvious that the average evangelical Christian today is without this radiance. Instead, we now substitute logical conclusions drawn from secular texts, a pointed but thought-provoking example of the gems of insight found in the book "Gems from Tozer." Request your copy when you send a generous gift to Focal Point today by calling 888-320-5885 or by going online to focalpointradio.org. You can also write to Focal Point. Our address is Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, CA 92654.

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I'm Dave Droue wishing you a wonderfully restful weekend ahead. Pastor Mike Fabarez returns after the weekend with his message dealing with mean and demanding people Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 4

Sam.