{"id":145,"date":"2018-11-06T16:43:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T00:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/migrate.bettersermons.org\/?p=145"},"modified":"2020-06-01T11:40:53","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T18:40:53","slug":"should-a-christian-ever-go-to-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/should-a-christian-ever-go-to-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Should a Christian Ever Go to War?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Should a Christian Ever Go to War?<\/span><\/div>\n

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Key Text:<\/b>\u00a0But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33).<\/i>Key Thought:<\/b>\u00a0As Christians, we have to prayerfully grapple with competing claims for our allegiance. While serving God first, we still must weigh difficult choices and seek to be obedient to heaven\u2019s will for our lives.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Opening Story:<\/b>\u00a0It was the ultimate juxtaposing of moral values. Young James Oliver was hunkered down in a rice paddy in Vietnam, bullets whizzing by, mortars exploding, dead bodies everywhere. He was a Specialist Five\u2014a medic, and a conscientious objector in the Adventist faith. He had embraced the noncombatant position common in our church. He loved America; he wanted to serve; he was willing to defend U.S. values. But with the carnage and agony that comes with every war, he believed it was preferable to carry bandages instead of a gun, to restore life instead of taking it.<\/p>\n

He was pinned down by VC fire. Rescue choppers were slow in coming. Up in a tree, in plain sight, was a young Vietcong sniper\u2014easily picking off American soldiers. One bleeding soldier waiting to be airlifted out was a sitting duck. Oliver watched in horror as the sniper took aim and finished him off.<\/p>\n

The dilemma:<\/b>\u00a0because of conflicting levels of loyalty\u2014God, country, church, friendship, self-survival\u2014human lives were weighed in the balance. Oliver didn\u2019t have a gun; all he had was bandages and vials of morphine. But there in the oozing-red mud outside the village of Kontum were the plentiful weapons of the dead. A fully loaded M16 was literally at his feet. He could either pick it up . . . or watch as several of his comrades perished needlessly. Was this a time to \u201cturn the other cheek\u201d?<\/p>\n

This young Seventh-day Adventist picked up the gun, took aim the best he could, and knocked the sniper out of the tree with one shot. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t anything else I could do,\u201d he later told an Army reporter. \u201cI hope I don\u2019t have to do it again, but if I must, I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can the person of God simultaneously survive in these \u201ctwo worlds\u201d? How can we obey the Bible and still defend our nation, if need be?<\/p>\n

Adventist Review\u00a0<\/i>report: In 2002, editor Bill Knott wrote an article entitled \u201cAll the Names Written There.\u201d It dealt with the difficult issue of young Adventists going to war. At least 148 Adventists gave their lives during the Vietnam conflict. Seventeen of them had earned Bronze Stars. A quarter of them were new bridegrooms, barely married. One 33-year-old sergeant was killed the very first day he arrived in Vietnam. Fifty-two were medics who did not carry weapons. One who was decorated after the war said with a smile, \u201cOne thing I\u2019ve found is you never have to worry about Jesus \u2018jamming\u2019 on you like an M16.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fact:<\/b>\u00a0Other Adventists, after prayer and reflection and seeking God\u2019s guidance, did choose to use weapons to defend America. At least 43 Adventists in the infantry and 17 Marines all died in battle after concluding that to carry and use the provided weapons was right for them.<\/p>\n

Non-Negotiable:\u00a0<\/b>From the Sermon on the Mount, every soldier reads this:\u00a0\u00a0Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. Bless those who curse you; do good to those who hate you. (<\/i>Matthew 5:44)<\/p>\n

Even the hardened soldier in combat\u2014if he or she is a Christian\u2014is under heavenly orders to love the enemy. It\u2019s a terrible dilemma: your friend\u2014whom you love\u2014is bleeding in the killing field, and your enemy\u2014whom you also love (agape)\u2014is a sniper in a tree. In this sad, wretched world of warfare and fallen values, you may actually have to get that enemy you love in your sights and shoot him dead . . . for the greater good. It falls to the Christian soldier to pray and then make a decision. It falls to the rest of us to stand back and respect and support him.<\/p>\n

Romans 12:17:<\/b>\u00a0Do not repay anyone evil for good. This is the \u201cBill of Rights\u201d for all Christians. No taking revenge. No delighting in the fall of even your enemy. No rejoicing in the misfortunes of others, even when they deserve it. Citizens of America can do that; citizens of heaven cannot.<\/p>\n

Can a war be \u201cjust\u201d?\u00a0<\/b>Dr. Richard Land, president of his Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote to President Bush in 2003 to support the Iraq war. \u201cWe believe that your stated policies concerning Saddam Hussein are prudent and fall well within the time-honored criteria of just war theory.\u201d But at least 60 other spiritual believers wrote to America\u2019s Commander in Chief, asking him not to invade Hussein\u2019s kingdom, despotic as it surely was, fearing that the cost to Iraq in innocent life and sorrow was simply too great.<\/p>\n

Counterpoint:\u00a0<\/b>Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi writes via the Internet:\u00a0\u201cThe fact is that all wars are intrinsically evil, because they stem from selfishness and pride. They reflect our fallen, rebellious human nature, which affects international as well as interpersonal relationships.\u201d\u00a0Where do these wars and battles within yourselves first start? Isn\u2019t it precisely in the desires fighting within yourselves? You want something and you haven\u2019t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition you can\u2019t satisfy, so you fight to get your way by force.\u00a0<\/i>James 4:1, 2.<\/p>\n

However, Bacchiocchi then takes readers through an extended tour of Bible verses which do lend support to the idea that citizens of heaven could conceivably be a Christian and a warrior at the same time. That there are times when God calls on nations to restrain evil by using force. We allow our policemen to carry guns for a good reasons; sometimes the same principle applies to needing to use a few MK-84 Bunker Buster bombs and the 101st Airborne Division.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/b>\u00a0for most of us, the tug of dual citizenship is less dramatic. But in our own lives, friendships and human desires may pull us in a different direction from our own Bibles. A 1040 tax form may feel like an unnecessary burden when we\u2019ve already \u201cpaid tax\u201d in church the previous Sabbath. We live, as Chuck Colson puts it, in \u201ckingdoms in conflict.\u201d It is an ongoing struggle to seek God\u2019s divine will and guidance as we serve Him as well as our earthly obligations as citizens of heaven.
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Submitted by David B. Smith. Better Sermons \u00a9 2005-2008. Click here for\u00a0<\/span>usage guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should a Christian Ever Go to War? Key Text:\u00a0But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33).Key Thought:\u00a0As …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}