A Biblical Perspective on War

Selected Scriptures

     We are all very much aware of the fact that our nation is on the proverbial brink of war.  The President has declared war and the media has begun to post the word in bold print.  This is the first war of the twenty-first century.

     It is, however, different than the five wars of the twentieth century: World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, and the Gulf War.  It is different in that it is an unconventional war.  It is what some are calling an asymmetrical war because it is not fought against a nation or a coalition of nations, but it is still a war.  It is a deadly armed sustained conflict with an enemy.  In truth, the war has already begun.  It started when those hijacked jets hit the buildings and killed thousands of people.  Those terrorists acts were essentially a declaration of war.

     At this particular time, our nation is strategizing and arming for an appropriate response.  The goal of that response is aimed at destroying the enemy's ability to harm us or others again.  So the reality of war is swirling around us right here in the first year of the new millennium.   And there are many opinions circulating in the national discourse that range from those people who advocate passivism, that is a non-retaliation, all the way to the other side to aggression, the severest kind of aggression is what some people want.  There are opinions from restraint to all out destruction.  I've heard everything from we shouldn't do anything to we should nuke Mecca.  I have heard suggestions that we need to set about to find the specific perpetrators of these crimes against us and bring only them to justice, which would be something like trying to find the actual pilots that flew the Japanese planes and bombed Pearl Harbor and bringing them singularly to justice.  I have also, as you have, heard people talk about literally annihilating anybody and everybody connected to the people who did this.  And there are all points in between.

     We want to come to that not just by virtue of what rhetoric feels more comfortable.  We don't want to respond to this thing on sheer emotion, but rather because we are Christians and we have the Bible, we want to go to the Bible and get an understanding of war that comes from Scripture.  We have to realize that the military has many believers, some of them from our own church.  They are serving in a wide ranging area of responsibility everywhere from support and supply to special forces.  And how are they as Christians to understand the responsibility they have under the command of those in the military, how does that fit in with the will of God and the teaching of the Bible?

     I'm going to make two big points.  I want to keep it as simple as possible and I'm going to load those two points with a lot of information.

     Point number one, war in itself is not necessarily wrong, immoral or ungodly.  War in itself is not necessarily wrong, immoral or ungodly.  Now I know what the sixth commandment says and so do you, "You shall not murder," Exodus 20 verse 13.  I also know that in Romans 12 verse 19 it says, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord."  We are commanded not to take personal vengeance but to leave vengeance to God and God ordained institutions.  It is also true in Numbers 35:33 the Bible says, "So you shall not pollute the land in which you are for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it except by the blood of him who shed it." 

     So while God says you should not murder and the Bible says you shall not take personal vengeance, it also says that when someone sheds blood that land is polluted until the person who shed that blood sheds his blood.  In Genesis chapter 9 and verse 6 God Himself instituted capital punishment.  He instituted capital punishment for the crime of murder.  Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.  And later on in the Mosaic instruction we find there are at least 30 other immoral acts, crimes, for which God prescribed the death penalty. 

     So God Himself has established that we do not have the right to take a life in a act of murder or in an act of vengeance.  But there is a place for just retribution and there are crimes, including murder, killing at any level, that require retaliation and retribution in the form of death.  It is also true that not only has God established justice on an individual level through human government but He has also established war as a means of judgment on a national level.  In fact, God Himself engages in war for His own purpose.  God uses rulers and nations in His providence to bring death and destruction to people.  And for sure, there are no people on the face of the earth who don't deserve to die because the wages of sin is death, the soul that sinneth it shall die, we all deserve to die.  So when people die it isn't some aberration whether they die in an accident or from a disease or from a criminal act or war.  That is part of sin.  It's the wages, it's the payment.  But there are times when God uses rulers and nations within His providence for His purpose to bring certain death and destruction to people because it's His will to do that.

     I'm not here to tell you everything about God's will.  I don't know that.  I don't know why God does it in some circumstances and doesn't do it in other circumstances.  God doesn't tell us that.  But I trust that God always does what is right.  In Joshua chapter 10 and verse 40 Joshua struck all the land, this is Joshua's conquest of Canaan and the children of Israel going into the land of Canaan which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the land that God wanted to give His people and they needed to go into the land and they needed to go in and make war against the idolatrous people of the land and destroy those people and then take that land which God had given them.  So Joshua did that, struck all the land, the hill country, the Negeb, the desert in the south, the lowland, the slopes, all their kings.  He left no survivor but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded.  Amazing.  And Joshua struck them from Kadesh-Barnea, even as far as Gaza and all the country of Goshen even as far as Gibeon and Joshua captured all these kings and their lands at one time because the Lord the God of Israel fought for Israel.

     Now here is a simple illustration of the fact that God sent Joshua, the commander, and his army, the people of Israel, to go and to make war and utterly destroy all who breathed in the land around Canaan.  In Psalm 18, and it's important that you see these passages so I'm going to take the time to point them out to you, in Psalm 18 verse 30, this is a psalm of David and in verse 30 he says, "As for God, His way is blameless."  Don't ever forget that.  Whatever God does is blameless.  "The Word of the Lord is tried, it's proven.  He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him."  You don't have to worry about what God does if you put your refuge in Him, right?  Because no matter how you die, if your refuge is in Him even in a war you're going to into His glorious presence.  Verse 31, "For who is God but the Lord, and who is a rock except our God, the God who girds me with strength and makes my way blameless.  He sets my feet like hind's feet, mountain goat's feet, He sets me upon my high places."  Then verse 34, "He trains my hands for battle so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze."  David saw himself as a soldier for God that went to battle to kill in fulfillment of divine purpose.

     In the fifth chapter of Jeremiah and verse 14 we read, "Therefore thus says the Lord the God of hosts because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire and this people wood and it will consume you.  Behold--verse 15, and the Lord here is sending a message to Jerusalem--I am bringing a nation against you from afar."  This is Babylon, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians.  "I'm bringing a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel, declares the Lord.  It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation."  And truly Babylon was.  "It is a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say.  Their quiver is like an open grave, all of them are mighty men and they will devour your harvest and your food.  They will devour your sons and your daughters.  They will devour your flocks and your herds.  They will devour your vines and your fig trees.  They will demolish with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.  Yet even in those days, declares the Lord, I will not make you a complete destruction."  Obviously He saved some of them to take them into captivity and then later to bring them back.  "And it shall come about when they say why has the Lord our God done all these things to us, then you shall say to them, As you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours."

     God sent the Babylonian army to come in with a massive slaughter to kill the people of Judah and Jerusalem, take a remnant captive and it was a punishment for their idolatry.  In the fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah this too a very, very helpful passage of Scripture.  Jeremiah chapter 51 verse 1, "Thus says the Lord...Behold I'm going to arouse," and here's an interesting turning of the tables.  "I'm going to arouse against Babylon and against the inhabitants of Leb Kamai the spirit of a destroyer and I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may win over her and may devastate her land for on every side they will be opposed to her in the day of her calamity."

     What's He talking about?  He's talking about the Persians under the leadership of Cyrus who later came to destroy the Babylonian Empire.  God used the Babylonian army to judge Israel.  God used the Medo-Persian army, particularly Cyrus the Persian, to judge Babylon.

     And drop down to verse 11, this continues.  "Sharpen the arrows, He says to the Persians, sharpen the arrows, fill your quiver, the Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it, for it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for His temple."  The Babylonians went in and they conquered the Jews and that was an act of judgment and they desecrated the temple.  And God used them to chasten Israel.  But later on God came right back and punished them for their idolatry and desecration of His temple.

     Down in verse 15, "It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom and by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.  When He utters His voice there's a tumult of waters in the heavens.  He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth.  He makes lightning for the rain.  He brings forth the wind from His storehouse.  All mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge.  Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols for his molten images are deceitful, there is no breath in them.  They are worthless, a work of mockery.  In the time of their punishment they will perish."  Talking about the idols.  "The portion of Jacob is not like these.  Jacob doesn't have a God like these, for the maker of all is He," that is the God of Jacob is the true God, the creator.  "Lord of hosts is His name."

     And then notice verse 20, amazing.  He says, "You are My war club, My battle axe, My weapon of war and with you I shatter nations and with you I destroy kingdoms.  With you I shatter the horse and the rider, the chariot and the rider, man and woman, old man, youth, young man, virgin, the shepherd and his flock, the farmer and his team, governors and prefects."  When God sends a force, a military force in, everybody feels the power and the deadliness of that force...not just the king, not just the military, not just those horse and riders and chariot and riders, those who represent the military but men and women, old and young, virgins and people working the farms, everybody all the way down through.  And God is saying you, Cyrus really, the Persian who led the Medes and the Persians, you are My battle axe.  You are My war club.

     Backing up in the sixteenth chapter of Isaiah to further help you see this, Isaiah 16 verse 6, "We have heard of the pride of Moab and excessive pride even of his arrogance, pride and fury.  His idle boasts are false.  Therefore Moab shall wail, everyone of Moab shall wail.  You shall moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth as those who are utterly stricken."  You're going to long for the things you loved.  And God here is talking about Assyrian armies who are going to come in a conquering fashion.

     The thirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah, I won't read it, verses 26 and 27.  God gives power to the Assyrian king Sennacherib to crush the fortified cities of Judah.

     In Ezekiel 30 verse 22 to 26 God said that Nebuchadnezzar was His war weapon to break the power of Egypt.  So God made war against Israel in the north.  God made war against Judah in the south.  God made war against Babylon.  God made war against Egypt.  The little prophecy of Habakkuk, I think, is very instructive as well.  Habakkuk is toward the end of the Old Testament, chapter 1 verse 5.  This is a judgment against Judah.  God is going to bring the Chaldeans, it's the same prophecy we heard from Jeremiah that Babylonians or the Chaldeans are going to come and destroy Judah and Jerusalem. 

     Verse 5 of Habakkuk 1, "Look among the nations!  Observe!  Be astonished!  Wonder!  Because I'm doing something in your days.  You would not believe if you were told.  Behold I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places that are not theirs.  They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves."  That is they answer to nobody.  "Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening.  Their horsemen come galloping, their horsemen come from afar.  They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.  All of them come for violence.  Their horde of faces moves forward.  They collect captives like sand.  They mock at kings and rulers are a laughing matter to them.  They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on.  But they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their god."

     God will use a worse nation than Judah, Babylon, the Chaldeans, to destroy Judah then hold them accountable for their desecration and later on have the Persians destroy them.  God was involved in war.  And God understands the devastation that war brings.  Look for a moment at Psalm 37.

     This is hard to hear, this little section, but needs to be read because it is the Word of God.  Verse 9 of Psalm 37, "Evil doers will be cut off...evil doers will be cut off."  Sooner or later, sooner or later the wicked will be destroyed.  That's just the way it's going to be.  There's no escape.  And when it happens, the fallout will strike everybody.

     A couple of passages that show this, Isaiah 13:16, this a painful one.  This is a discussion of when God brings the Medes, the Median Empire, the Persians, against Babylon.  It's verse 1 of chapter 13, an oracle concerning Babylon and God is going to bring this army, and He did historically.  But I want you to notice this most compelling part of it.  "Anyone...verse 15...who is found will be thrust through," it's going to be deadly with a sword, "and anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.  Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes.  Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished."  God knows innocent women and children die in a war and still He authorized the war. 

     Turn to Hosea and here you have Hosea talking about the Assyrians attacking the northern kingdom Israel.  In Hosea chapter 13 this is almost a repetition of what I read in the same chapter and verse of Isaiah, 13:16.  Israel is going to be destroyed, it says that in verse 9.  And the agent of destruction in this case was the Assyrian Empire.  Notice verse 16, "Samaria will be held guilty for she has rebelled against her God, they will fall by the sword," Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom Israel, and look at this, "their little ones will be dashed to pieces and their pregnant women will be ripped open."  God understands that what we would call the innocent perish in a war.  The reality, however, is all people deserve to die and will die and some will die in wars which God determines are within His purpose and His will.

     There's a little chapter and verse in Nahum, so easy to overlook, just three chapters long this book.  In Nahum 3:10 it's the same thing.  This is discussing Assyria's attack on Egypt and verse 10 says, "Her small children were dashed to pieces at the head of every street."  Just horrible, unthinkable, but this is the reality of war. 

     By the way, I'm going to say this a couple of times tonight, file it in the front.  God gives no account to us of His actions.  He doesn't need to.  And we can claim no right to call Him to account.  He is the sovereign of the universe.  He is blameless.  He doesn't owe us any explanation.  Calamity, war are within His providential purpose.  Amos the prophet was a sheep breeder from a place called Tekoa.  He received a revelation from God in Amos 3:6, listen to this, you don't have to look it up. Amos 3:6, write it down, "If there is calamity in a city will not the Lord have done it?"  What's he saying?  Is he saying God does evil?  No.  He is saying any calamity anyplace any time, crashing into towers, war fits within the purpose of God.  Everything fits into His purpose, He hates sin, He's absolutely righteous, He is never responsible for any evil.  Yet all that occurs He allows, even war which is within His purpose.  We may not know what that purpose is.  I'm sure it could have been very, very confusing to people living at the time of the Old Testament when just about every nation at one time or another was the battle axe of God against another one.  And as I said, if God chose for all of us to die right now, we'd only get what we deserve.  But He's patient and He's gracious but He sovereignly selects the calamities and the battles that He allows even though they are generated by wicked and evil men, they fit within His purpose.

     So we know then that wars are not necessarily ungodly or immoral or wrong because God Himself engages in them.  In fact, turn to Exodus 15...Exodus 15.  You know, Exodus 15 is called "The Song of Moses."  What do they have to sing about?  Chapter 14, what happened in chapter 14?  God drowned the entire Egyptian army, closed up the sea, drowned them all.  Verse 28 of chapter 14, Pharaoh's entire army had gone into the sea, every one of them.  God drowned them all.  They were all dead on the shore, verse 30 says.  And they sang a song because God had destroyed the entire Egyptian army.  Were they all equally evil?  No, but in God's purpose He deemed that it was time for their punishment.  And it was also time to protect His people.  And so the song of Moses goes like this, "I will sing to the Lord for He is highly exalted.  The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea."  Talking about the Egyptians.  "The Lord is my strength and my song and He has become my salvation.  This is my God and I will praise Him.  My father's God and I will extol Him.  The Lord is a warrior."  Humph...the Lord is a warrior.

     Back in chapter 14 verse 14, Moses told the people, "The Lord will fight for you."  Did you know the Old Testament talks about God's wars?  It does.  Yahweh's battles, Yahweh's wars.  First Samuel 18:17, 1 Samuel 18:17, 1 Samuel 25:28, the wars of God.  God is a warrior.  There are times when God uses war, there are times when God yields a sword. 

     In Exodus 32 the children of Israel worshiped the golden calf.  It was idolatry.  God was angry, verse 25, Moses saw the people were out of control.  They were out of control worshiping the golden calf, having an orgy while he was up in the mountains getting the law of God.  So Moses stood in the gate of the camp and he said, "All right, whoever is for the Lord come to me."  And all the sons of Levi gathered to him.  Nobody else, just the sons of Levi came.  What did he tell them to do?  "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, every man of you put his sword on his thigh, go forth back and forth from gate to gate in the camp everywhere, kill every man, his brother, every man, his friend, every man, his neighbor.  So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed and 3,000 men of the people fell that day."  God said go and kill those idolaters now.  That was a command from God to show the people in a profound way the danger of idolatry.

     And then there's 1 Kings 18:40, Elijah with the prophets of Baal.  And it says he seized them, brought them down to the brook Kishon and slew them there.  Do you know how many there were?  Four hundred and fifty. 

     Now there are times, you see, when God obviously not only instituted capital punishment as we saw in those earlier scriptures, but there are times when God commanded that a group of people be killed, false prophets, idolaters.  There are times when God actually was a warrior, when God was the commander-in-chief in a war and He had nations against nations bringing death and destruction against evil to punish idolatry, punishing it in Egypt, punishing it in Babylon, punishing it in Israel, punishing it in Judah.  So God is a warrior, don't underestimate that.

     Not always does God bring death.  But sometimes He does in this way as a testimony to what we all deserve, right?  But we don't live in a theocracy.  We say we're a nation under God, but that's not true.  You know that.  We're under God in the sense that He is the sovereign over us, we're not under God in the sense that we willingly submit to Him.  But we are not like Israel.  We are not God's people.  We don't have any covenant promise and protection.  But God has assigned to human government the task of protection and punishment. 

     On a personal level government has the right to exercise capital punishment, government has the right to exercise just retribution, government has the responsibility to provide protection.  And so, on a personal level we have the police and we have the courts and we have the jail system.  And all of that is designed so that government can function to protect the good and punish the evil.  Well God also gave that to government not only on the personal level but on the national level.  Government has a responsibility to step in and protect its citizens from an aggressive force, preserve life and peace and justice here and in the world.  While God is the ultimate judge, the final and eternal authority, He has delegated to man a certain sovereignty because the Bible says man is the king of the earth.  And his rulership goes through the agencies that God has instituted.  His rule in the family is clear, the father is the ruler of the families, the head of the family.  His rule in the church is through the pastors and elders who lead the church.  His rule on the social level is through the duly constituted government.

     War then has been divinely delegated to governments who are the God-appointed authority for preservation, punishment and protection.  So when injustice is done against a nation, it is the responsibility of government to protect that nation.  Let me tell abut wars, real simple.  War starts when the peace is interrupted and ends when it is restored.  That's really what a war should be.  It starts when the peace is interrupted and it ends when it is restored.  Stopping Hitler would be the classic example of a just war, wouldn't it?  He was going to commit genocide, obliterate the Jews from the face of the earth.  He was going to literally kill everybody he had to on the face of the earth to achieve his horrendous evil intentions.  America and many other nations rose up in a noble expression of the role of government to punish the evil doer and protect the innocent.  And the war began when Hitler interrupted the peace and it ended when the peace was restored.

     In the Old Testament we have a lot of scriptures that talk about Yahweh's wars...the wars of God.  Numbers 21:14, there we are told, here's a quote, "The book of the wars of the lord...the book of the wars of the Lord."  And that book consisted of victory songs, written to be sung in the celebration of the triumph of the Lord over the idolatrous people of Canaan when they went in and they killed the idolaters as an act of divine judgment.  They had songs to sing.  There is a Psalm...when you think about the Psalms you think about songs and they were songs, it was a hymnbook of Israel.  Psalm 68:21, here's...here's a verse you won't find in hymns, "God will shatter the heads of His enemies."  God told Israel to arm itself and defend itself against attack.  We find that in Ezekiel 17:18 and following.  We find it in Numbers 21:1 to 3.  And God instructed, as I told you, Joshua to take Canaan by military force.  Read Joshua 1, read Joshua particularly Joshua 6.  God instructs him to take that land by military force.  Isaiah 42:13 says, "The Lord will go forth like a warrior.  He will arouse His zeal like a man of war.  He will utter a shout, yes He will raise a war cry, He will prevail against His enemies."  If you've ever seen any old war movies when the armies would face each other in the phalanx and just run at each other...that's the imagery...shouting and screaming and raising a war cry and plunging into battle.  And it says that's what the Lord will do. 

     David's song of praise, he said, "The Lord trains my hands for battle," as I read.  "And he strengthens my arm to bend a bow of bronze."  In Psalm 144:1 David said, "Blessed be the Lord my rock who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle."  Do you remember 1 Samuel 18:7 where when the people were hailing David they said, "Saul has killed his thousands and David has killed his ten thousands?"

     Starting to get the picture?  Deuteronomy chapter 20, we're going pretty good here, this is good.  "When you go out to battle...Deuteronomy 20...against your enemies and you see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, don't be afraid of them for the Lord your God who brought you up from the land of Egypt is with you.  Now it shall come about that when you are approaching the battle, the priests shall come near and speak to the people.  He shall say to them...Hear, O Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies today, do not be fainthearted, do not be afraid or panic or tremble before them."  It's the original pep talk.  Why?  "For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you."  What a great statement.  And the rest of the chapter, by the way, Deuteronomy 20, you can read it on your own, gives the rules for war.  Who should be a soldier and who shouldn't.  How to treat people.  How to treat prisoners.  How to deal with the spoils.  How to treat the trees.

     Well, let me summarize what we've been saying.  Under God's command and God's direction and for His own purposes, to punish sinners, wicked nations, wicked people, God wielded a mighty sword of death.  He wielded it against nations that threatened Israel.  He wielded it against nations that threatened peace, against nations that threatened other nations.  He wielded not only a sword of punishment but a sword of protection.  God wielded His sword against aggressive, evil, destructive enemies who desire to destroy others.  And under God's command and with God's help, battles were fought against sinful nations, against wicked nations, against aggressive nations.  But they were also fought against His own people.  Wars were then a form of divine protection, as well as divine judgment on idolatry, whether it was in a pagan nation or in Israel.  Any national breech of the truth of God constitutes a justification for divine punishment.  Don't you think for a minute that America is guaranteed to win any war.  We're not the people of God.  There's no covenant to preserve us.  Those of us who are Christians obviously will survive everything into the glory of the Kingdom.  I think we'll win this one, I hope we will.  I don't know the purposes of God.  I do know those who threaten us are wicked and evil and godless and idolatrous, but so are we.  I also know this, however, that it's better to be a friend of Israel because whoever blesses Israel shall be blessed, whoever curses Israel shall be cursed, Genesis 12.

     The Jews fought wars all the time. They fought wars in the time that's called the Conquest, when they came in and settled the land.  They destroyed wicked Canaanites, Philistines, Amalekites, Medianites, Ammonites, Arameans(?). During the time of the monarchies, the kings, they fought more wars.  They fought a lot of those wars against the same people they didn't destroy.  If they destroyed them they wouldn't have had to fight wars against them anymore.  And if those people had been destroyed as god told them to destroy them, they wouldn't have had their idolatrous influence all the time.  Then they added they had to fight the Moabites.  And then they had to make war against the powerful forces of the Assyrians who obliterated the northern kingdom, and t