Ask Pastor Mike Live

Speaker 1

You know, sometimes we encounter troubling questions related to living out our faith that are difficult to answer. That's why we're setting aside the next half hour on Focal Point to sit down with Pastor Mike Favares for our weekly edition of Ask.

Pastor Mike, we're glad to have you with us today on Focal Point. I'm Dave Drouy. We will hear Mike Fabarez address a fascinating question from one of our listeners. And of course, if you'd like to pose a question of your own, we invite you to stop by focalpointradio.org and do just that. More details on that later.

Mike Fabarez is the senior pastor at Compass Bible Church in Southern California. We're stepping into the pastor's study right now with the executive director of Focal Point, Jay Worden.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dave. Well, Pastor Mike, this weekend is Memorial Day weekend and we had a question from a listener related to this. Is it okay for Christians to serve in the military and go to war?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Jay.

Speaker 4

Well, without being over simplistic, I mean, it is a great thing to have men and women who are believers in Jesus Christ, followers of Christ who are serving our country in the military. I mean, that is a great thing. We see the commendable nature of standing up for what is right and what is good and even needing to do that on the front lines of warfare. We see that not just in the Old Testament, but even in the New Testament.

And we see that this, unfortunately, is a necessary reality until Christ comes back and then the swords are beat into plowshares and we don't have the implements of war anymore. But for now we live in a dangerous world with a lot of dangerous threats. And when the war is just, we need men and women to bravely serve to defend what is right and what is good. In our case as Americans, certainly to defend the United States of America against threats to our country. So of course there's a place for that.

Romans 13 speaks of that, that the government does not bear the sword for nothing, speaking of course initially of the Roman government, but even today we transfer those principles to any just government and be able to go about defending the country and standing up for what is right. Of course, this doesn't mean that it's a perfect country. Rome was not perfect in the first century, being led by Nero at that point when it was written that we're supposed to respect the nation and its sword.

And certainly America is not perfect either, and yet we are recognizing the rightful place of military might and men and women doing that. No better soldier to be out there than those who understand the righteous decrees of God and are going about God's work of defending what is good and standing up for what is just and defending, in this case, our own country.

Speaker 2

Maybe you could talk a little bit about how God uses war in the Old Testament.

Speaker 4

Well, not entirely different than it's used after the Old Testament in that wars are fought many times to deal with injustice. I think in the Book of Judges, for instance, and that's really a misnomer; that title makes us think of someone in a robe with a gavel in their hand. But these were all military leaders that were sent out to deliver the nation of Israel, in this case in the Book of Judges, from foreign oppressors—people that had come in who did not have the right to rule over God's people. They had subjected them and many times had levied harsh taxes and all kinds of things on them they had no right to do.

God raised up these series of 13 or 14 military leaders to solve the problem. That is what you do see, even after the Old Testament: many wars, though many are unjust. I can understand a student of military history can say not every war has been a just war, but many of them are. They are trying to deal with something that's wrong, correcting what is wrong and standing up for what is right.

When people are unjustly oppressed, sometimes there's no other way out than to engage in some kind of military conflict. And so we see it in the Old Testament, and we certainly see it after the Old Testament.

Speaker 2

Maybe you could talk a little bit about how soldiers are viewed in the New Testament.

Speaker 4

Right? Well, that's a great point, because if you look at John the Baptist, who Jesus said was the greatest preacher, of course, barring only himself, here was this great prophet who, when he was confronted by, if you think of it in our terms, someone who works at the IRS and someone who works as a Marine, he didn't deal with either of their occupations. He just told them in Luke 3:12-14 that they ought to go about their work in a proper and good way. In other words, it wasn't wrong for them to collect taxes, although there were a lot of bad tax collectors in the first century. And it wasn't wrong to be a soldier, in this case a Roman soldier, which was viewed poorly by most Jews.

And yet he didn't say, you know, you want to get right with God, you need to turn in your pink slip and your resignation letter and get out. No, he said, go about it the right way. Don't collect any more taxes than you're authorized to collect. That's what he told the tax collectors. And he said, you soldiers don't extort money by threats or false accusations; you should be content with your wages. All the problems within working as a soldier or a tax collector, in that case, you were to avoid those and live righteously.

So, I mean, what a great opportunity we had to set the record straight if there was some inherent sin in taxes or military work for God to correct that through the best preacher, you know, save Jesus Christ himself. And yet that didn't happen. Not to mention that Jesus deals with centurions, for instance, leaders of these Roman segments. A centurion represents 100 soldiers—a leader of 100 soldiers. He favors them, he grants their requests, he heals their servants. When they speak, the centurions to Jesus about being a man of authority and telling soldiers to do this or that, he doesn't condemn any of that.

Matter of fact, he sees the way that soldiers, in that case, I'm quoting now from Matthew, chapter eight, come to him with that humility, and he commends it. Even when God, in his sovereign orchestration of the expansion of the gospel in the Book of Acts, in Acts, chapter 10, he didn't just pick some random Gentile to send Peter to. He picks an Italian centurion, who's a military man, a career military man, and uses him. His name is Cornelius in Acts, chapter 10, to be the first Italian convert to expand that circle from Jerusalem, Judea. Now we're starting to hit people here with the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and he picks a centurion to do it.

And Peter never confronts his occupation as being inherently wrong or sinful. He just calls him to faith in Jesus Christ. And of course, that has ethical implications, just like it did when John the Baptist referenced the need for soldiers in the first century to live a godly life. But it didn't necessitate that they resign their post as a military person.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike.

In light of remembering those who have died serving our country in the armed forces this coming Memorial Day, I trust this was a helpful discussion.

We're going to complete our time today with a message you gave called "Thinking Biblically About Battles and Bombs."

Speaker 3

God is a God who loves peace, be assured of that. He loves peace not only between individuals, but he certainly is in favor of peace between nations and countries and kingdoms. He'd like to see it happen. As a matter of fact, if you were a good and informed Old Testament Jew, you would look forward to the day when God would establish a lasting peace. And it hasn't changed. It's the hope of the Old Covenant and it's the hope of the New Covenant.

In Isaiah, chapter two, we see the promise of what all of us have been taught if we know anything about the Bible. And that is that one day the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his kingdom, Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. There will be a time when everyone is submitted to and every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is Lord, and everyone will understand that. And there will be peace. Because the great king of Kings, the great son of David, will be seated on a literal throne in a literal capital, in a literal palace, and he will be ruling the nations. That's the vision, that's the picture. It's nothing new. It's not just the New Testament hope. It was the Old Testament hope that one day when God consumes the ages, when the consummation of the ages arrives, God will set up his kingdom, the Messiah will sit enthroned in Jerusalem and there will be peace among nations. No longer any reason to have swords, no standing armies. Here we have peace established and God himself, the God man seated on the throne, reigning and ruling over the nations.

What may surprise you though, and it shouldn't, because we understand this from just learning a little bit about the future, the eschatological calendar of Christians for generations, is that this kind of peace is established on the heels of war, the war of Armageddon. God will utilize war to establish peace. And that's not just the perfect future prophetic plan of God. It is something that has been replicated throughout history from the beginning. Not only is it God's large plan that peace is preceded by a period of war that purges unrighteousness, but it has been the pattern from the very beginning.

Let us consider a few of these examples from Scripture. We don't have the time to turn there, but at least jot down Deuteronomy 12:28-31, which helps to summarize the whole purpose and cause of the conquest of Joshua. Why did God put a sword in his hand and say, "Go in there and kill these people"? What's wrong? Why would God demand that kind of thing? The same thing in the eschatological sense of something that's going to take place, we see happening in a lesser sense in the land of Canaan. There was injustice. There were people that were not obeying any form of ethics or standards that would produce peace and rights of people. The widows were oppressed. The fatherless were ignored. There was such sin and iniquity in Canaan that the Bible says in Deuteronomy 12, they were casting their newborn children into the fire as acts of worship to their idols. And God said, "Enough, enough. We're going to go in and wage war against the inhabitants of Canaan, and you're going to go in there and establish a place where righteousness dwells and where peace is established."

Would it last? No. It never lasts until the Messiah is enthroned. But it was a temporary solution to some really gross and extreme wickedness in the land. God utilizes war to restrain evil, to establish justice, and to set up a period of peace. The cycle continues over and over, and that's how warfare works, at least from a biblical perspective. Be assured that God loves peace. But also note in your understanding of war how God utilized it through scripture and how he will utilize it again in the coming of the future kingdom.

Now, you may say, "Well, that's fantastic, as long as God is behind the podium and has got the microphone in his mouth, right? I mean, okay, I'll settle for the Messiah as long as it's Jesus calling for war. Or maybe, okay, fine, an angel, but someone, not just the warts and wrinkles variety of political human leaders." That doesn't seem to make sense. I have a little problem following a human leader, a sinful leader, into war. It doesn't seem to make sense. And yet we need to understand from a biblical perspective the whole role of government.

So let's do this, write this down, and let's try and get an overview of the whole role in scripture of human government. We want to see it distinguished, for instance, from the church. The church is not the government. It's a different entity and it has different responsibilities and it's sanctioned with different powers. And then, of course, in scripture, if we look at scripture, we see that the individual is also addressed.

Now, just that distinction right there is the key to understanding a lot of things that the people on CNN and Fox News just don't understand. Before you start listening to people quoting biblical passages as it relates to the commentary about war or warfare or bombs or battles, we need to understand. Now, wait a minute. Who are we talking about? If we're looking at a passage of scripture that is talking to government, that's one thing. If we're looking at a passage of scripture that's talking about the church, that's another thing. If we're looking at passages of scripture that talk about the individuals, that's a whole other thing. So we need to make those distinctions.

Let's first of all understand, as it relates to evil and our role, how it relates to the individual. Turn with me, if you would, to Romans, chapter 12. Take a look at this text with me. That's very clear about the responsibility we have. We'll start at the bottom here. The responsibility of individuals. Look at verse 17. We're talking to people, people here that are to follow God's precepts and directives. Here's a directive. Verse 17. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil." Sound familiar? Oh, I've heard that. Turn the other cheek, Jesus. Jesus said, "Love your enemies, pray for those that persecute you." Oh, we just had a series. First Corinthians 6. Yeah. Guy wants to sue you. Whatever. Better be wrong than to fight. Don't worry about trying to avoid it. Bigger picture. Yeah, great. Don't repay evil for evil. As a matter of fact, be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Be a peacemaker.

Verse 19. "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For as it's written, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord." On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, then what? Offer him a taco, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a Pepsi. Give him something to drink. In so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Whatever that means. Old ancient promise. Get the tape. We've talked about it before. Verse 21. The bottom line is this, though. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

See, individual. Here's the directive. Refrain from evil. That's the directive. Someone comes and does something to you that is evil, don't respond in kind. You come over, steal my car stereo. I am not to go to your house and throw rocks through the window. See? Don't do it individually. As a Christian, do your best to refrain from evil. Pray for those who persecute you. Overcome the evil with good. Do things that are good. See, that's the deal. No revenge, no vengeance involved. No retribution, no retaliation. It's not yours to inflict justice. You just keep doing good. Refrain from evil.

Okay, how about the church? Keep your finger in this passage, please, and turn with me to Second Corinthians, chapter 10. Two Corinthians, chapter 10. Let's talk about the church. What is the church's role? Is that the church's role? We just simply just say, "Hey, we're just going to refrain from evil"? No, we've got a greater responsibility in this. And I picked this passage and again, there's about 3,000 in each category that we could look at to kind of paint this picture. I've tried to utilize some representative text, and here's one that kind of ties it all together as it relates to our subject warfare.

Look at verse three. He's talking about the Church. Now, this is no longer you and each person and anyone. We're talking about we. He says verse three. "For though we, we as Christians, the church, we live in the world, we the church, we don't wage war as the world does." Okay, we have a whole different perspective here, a whole different way to do it. Verse 4. "The weapons we fight with, that the church fights with are not the weapons of the world." See, we don't take swords and daggers and guns and take them out backside of the church. And this guy's not very righteous. Great, you shoot him. No, I'm going to knife him. Okay, great. No, we don't. That's not how it works in the Church.

On the contrary, the weapons we have, oh, they're not that. They're less powerful than swords and daggers. No, matter of fact, they're divinely powerful for the demolishing of strongholds. They're very powerful. Matter of fact, they transform lives. They change hearts. Well, what are we talking about? What's the realm we're dealing with? Verse 5. "We demolish arguments. We demolish things like pretensions that set themselves up against the knowledge." That's information, the knowledge of God, an ideology, a false theology, a false philosophy, if it raises itself up against the truth. See, the defenders of the truth are to go and to make an argument, to make a presentation, to make a defense. We are to, with truth, do something that will demolish strongholds.

We are, as a church, to restrain evil, restrain it with the truth. See, the gospel transforms lives. The preaching of the truth in society becomes salt and light as people go out and represent the truth and understand the truth. See, individuals, we refrain from evil. The church, we are in war. And war against what? War against ideologies, wars against theologies, wars against philosophies that we say, "No, we got to set that straight." And so we fight. Oh, not like the world, not like the government, not like the people with those weapons. We have a different agenda.

Okay, you got your finger in Romans 12. Turn back to Romans 12. Now, what then is the role of government as it relates to evil? Now, remember the context. We just read Romans 12, did we not? And what did it say? Say? Refrain from evil. Someone does wrong to you. Hey, don't repay them with wrong. You just be good to them. See? Great. Terrific. What's the government's role? Is it any different? Romans 13, verse 1. The directive for individuals is to submit himself, it says, or herself to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except that which is from God or that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted. And those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Oh, yeah, I know it's God's to repay. This will be some future eschatological judgment, right? No, keep reading. Verse 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 great. Do what is right and he'll commend you for." Verse 4. "He is a servant of God." It says to do you good, but if you do wrong. Hey, be afraid, for he does not. Underline this. "Bear the sword for nothing." Underline this phrase. "He is God's servant. To do what? An agent of wrath. To do what? To bring punishment on the wrongdoer."

Now, wait a minute. You just told me not to repay evil for evil. Do you see how this helps to clarify? Oh, you're absolutely right. We don't repay evil for evil as individuals. But God has set up the church to fight evil, to restrain evil with the truth. And he set up the government to do what? To avenge evil with the sword. Look at the verbs. They change. I refrain from evil. As a personal Christian, I try to. As a church, I try to restrain evil with the truth. And then you know what? I understand that the government has a role in this, and I submit to them. They don't bear the sword for nothing. They're a servant of God, an agent of God's wrath. To do what? To punish the wrongdoer. Their job is to avenge evil. To avenge evil with the sword. Individuals refrain from it. Church restrain it. Human government avenge it. That's how it works.

Now, I think this is very important and perhaps will also help to clarify the whole debate and discussion. We need to be careful, too, as individuals and as the church, not to despise the role of the government. Now, what we've just learned is it has on its hip a sword. And that sword has been given to it so that it can avenge wrong. In our day, the guy with the gun or the groups with tanks and bombs and missiles, well, let's not despise it. Here's a few reasons, few sub points.

Number one, we need to not despise it because God doesn't despise it. Let's think of it this way, logically. God set it up. This was his idea. It was his plan to set up Romans with big muscles and breastplates and helmets, with swords on their hip that were used not to have Johnny pull his pants down so that he can paddle his fanny. They were used to cut off hands and arms and feet and head. That's what swords were for, see? To avenge wrong, to instill fear in wrongdoers and to hopefully somehow establish justice in society. That's government's role. So what do I do? I say, "Hey, I'm not going to despise it."

Now note this about the Old Testament. Here's the key. Ready? No charge. Ready? Here comes. The Old Testament is written to, for and about a nation, a government. What is the government supposed to do? Avenge evil. See? So there should be a lot of instruction in that Old Testament for not only national policy of warfare, things like in scripture. Here's what you do to make a treaty of peace. Here's what you do when you wage war, here's what you don't do in war. And then you should also hear a lot of civil instructions for justice, instructions for judges, instructions for people who make laws you would see things about. If they do this, then do this. And this is a just penalty for that. So you're going to find in the Old Testament a lot more of that. Why? Because God has changed? No, because the Old Testament was written to, for and about a government, a nation.

See? Then what happens? New Testament, it's not written to a nation, not written to a government. It's written to individuals who make up the church. Individuals that make up the church aren't called to avenge evil. No. What are we called to do? Refrain from evil and restrain it with the truth. Government has its role avenging wrong. Church has its role restraining evil. We have individuals. All of you, please refrain from evil. We have God giving those instructions out. But remember this. God set it up. The whole Old Testament is God's laying out of a plan for government, for justice domestically, for justice internationally. And it's all there. Old Testament, a lot of instructions for warfare. New Testament, not a lot of instructions about more instructions about knowledge and truth and more instruction about refraining from evil.

Well, that makes sense. Not because God has changed, but because in Scripture the audience has changed. Very important distinction, though. War is not good, though war is painful, though nobody likes it. And we long for the coming of Christ's kingdom when all of our weapons can be laid aside. For now, Christians will always be faced with having to either support wars or not support wars that we think and are convinced have some positive effect at restraining evil, promoting justice and avenging wrong. Because we understand the role of government in this world.

Let's pray. God help us. We don't like it. We certainly long for the coming day when Christ reigns and we can take all of our weapons of war and all of our standing armies and just totally dismiss them. But right now we don't live in that age. Right now we live in an age where government still has a role to play. They're to instill fear and wrongdoers. They're to have a sword for a reason. And occasionally that sword is pulled from the scabbard and it is used in warfare. God, if it's a just cause, may Christians not be ashamed or embarrassed to stand behind those who say we are going to restrain evil, promote justice, and hopefully ensue and ensure as best we can as temporal fallen people, some kind of period of peace.

So God, I pray that you'd give us courage, fortitude, clarity of thinking as we go through these issues in our own mind and through Scripture. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Speaker 1

A Biblical look at War and Christians in the military. Today's message was part of our regular Ask Pastor Mike program, and you're listening to Focal Point now.

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Well, next time you're online, be sure to drop by and friend us on Facebook. That's where we post all of the latest updates and resources from Focal Point. I'm Dave Drury. Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and be sure to save a half hour on Monday to hear Mike Fabarez deliver more teaching from the Book of Romans right here on Focal Point.

Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Sam.