HomeARC ML 2242
GOD IS NOT A PACIFIST! DO 2242 1986
1. THE MOSAIC LAW SAID, "AN EYE FOR AN EYE & A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH," retribution & revenge, & allowed it; whereas Jesus' Law of Love said to love your enemies & forgive them, etc.--That is, of course, providing they are sorry. It doesn't require you to forgive people who are not sorry & don't apologise!
2. (MARIA: BUT WHAT ABOUT TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK?) Well, you only have two. (Maria: Is that really the interpretation of that verse?) Why not? I mean, after two slaps or two blows, by that time you know the guy really means it & he's your enemy & he's not sorry! You have no more cheeks to turn, so you can start defending yourself!
3. DON'T TELL ME THE LORD DOESN'T BELIEVE IN VIOLENCE! He perpetrates violence of tremendous proportion to slaughter the wicked! (Maria: What about forgiving your enemies seventy times seven?) (Mat.18:22) See, people get those things so out of context! It says, "If your brother comes to you & says he's sorry, how many times should you forgive him?" (Maria: So that's your brother, not your enemy.) Yes, your brother, a brother Christian, in other words. (Maria: And in that case it shouldn't be something so bad...)--Like torturing you or killing you or stealing your wife or whatever! It would be some minor thing actually, because certainly Christians should not do any major harm to each other. The disciples asked, "If my brother comes to me & says he's sorry, how many times should I forgive him?" And the Lord as good as said it's almost unlimited!
4. THIS BUSINESS OF LOVING GOD & LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOUR DOES NOT PRECLUDE SELF-DEFENCE & EVEN ATTACKS ON YOUR ENEMIES! When Jesus was sending out the disciples, He even admonished them to carry swords, & He said, "A strong man armed keepeth his goods in peace." (Luk.11:21)
5. (MARIA: SO HOW DO YOU LOVE YOUR ENEMIES & DO GOOD TO THEM THAT HATE YOU? I mean how would we love our bitter enemies who hate us & want to wipe us out? What does that verse mean in relationship to them?) The same as the Lord does His enemies, He gives them time to repent. He shows them Love, He tells them the Truth, He shows them the right way & gives them time to change & to repent. But after a certain time limit He says, "My Spirit will not always strive with man" (Gen.6:3), & eventually He Himself has been known to slaughter His enemies if they keep on being rebellious & causing trouble. I mean, there're oodles of examples all the way through the Bible!
6. GOD IS NO PACIFIST! He believes in war against the wicked & He believes in the slaughter of His enemies if they continue to do evil & fail to repent after being shown mercy, patience & love. But with those who reject mercy & His patience & His love, then God gets very angry & usually clobbers them, slaughters them, annihilates them, wipes them out & He has been known to do it by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, & come Armageddon He is going to do it by the millions!--And come the Battle of Gog & Magog He is going to do it by the billions! So God is no pacifist! He had His people & His armies slaughter their enemies throughout the Old Testament!
7. THE LAWS OF MOSES ARE NO LONGER IN EFFECT! This was one of Paul's biggest arguments, that the converted Jewish Christians were no longer under the Mosaic Law, & he goes on in Epistle after Epistle trying to prove this, that this is a new Era of Love, which is a law in itself. God's only Law is Love now! The Mosaic Law was to teach the people what Love is & the difference between right & wrong, what's right & what's wrong. When Jesus came along, He literally did away with the Law. He said He fulfilled the Law, & the Scriptures say He was the end of the Law. When He died on the cross He said, "It's finished!"--Both His job & the old Mosaic Law were finished. So you don't even need the Laws of Moses. The New Testament Era is supposed to demonstrate God's Love & His patience even more. You're supposed to demonstrate your love for God & your neighbour even more.
8. SO NOW ALL WE NEED TO DO IS LOVE THE LORD & LOVE ONE ANOTHER! We're to have patience with our enemies, mercy with our enemies, we're to love our enemies & try to win them over, "do good to those who hate us & love those who despitefully use us & persecute us, & pray for them," etc. (Mat.5:44-45) But there comes a time when it's enough! Enough is enough!
9. EVEN THE LORD HIMSELF GETS FED UP WITH PEOPLE IN THE LONG RUN & WIPES OUT WHOLE CITIES & NATIONS! He once wiped out the whole World with a Water Flood, the next time He's going to wipe out all the anti-Christ people with a war, Armageddon, & the last time He's going to wipe out the entire World with a Fire Flood! Now, if you don't call that violent, I don't know what is! If you don't call that slaughter, I don't know what is. If they continue encroaching on your liberty & freedom & continue to persecute you & don't show any sign of repentance & change, God expects you to protect your family, your wives and your children!--And if necessary, if all else fails, with violence!
10. IF WE'RE NEVER TO USE VIOLENCE WE'RE NEVER TO RESIST THE ENEMY, but the Lord teaches the opposite all the way through the New Testament. He tells us it's a fight, a "good fight" & a whole war against evil, & we're supposed to fight evil however we have to, after we've given them a chance to repent & forsake their evil ways, which the Lord does too. We're to give them time, be patient, show them love & forgiveness, that we're ready to forgive them if they will repent. But God Himself doesn't forgive people who don't repent. It's a ridiculous doctrine that we're to love & forgive enemies who do not repent & insist on continuing to do evil & harm to us & our loved ones!
11. GOD EXPECTS YOU TO FIGHT!--TO DEFEND THE RIGHT & THE RIGHTEOUS, & IF NECESSARY, [EDITED: "STOP"] THE WICKED BEFORE THEY [EDITED: "STOP"] YOU! God is no pacifist! He's pulled off some of the biggest slaughters the World has ever known, & the first time in the Water Flood it says He was sorry He ever made Man because Man became so wicked that only one man & his family were worth saving! (Gen.6:6) He wiped out all the rest of them--men, women & children--because He knew the children would be just as wicked as the parents!
12. (MARIA: THE SAME WITH SODOM, RIGHT? HE WIPED ALL OF THEM OUT!) There are so many incidents where God wiped out whole cities, whole nations & whole peoples!--Not always quite as dramatically as He did Sodom & Gomorrah, two whole cities. He wiped them out in a flood of fire, apparently a flood of fire & salt, because the whole region is almost entirely solid salt now! I guess He rained the fire first to wipe them out, & then He rained the salt to make sure that no other civilisation ever grew up there, because the land there is all salt & salty & nothing grows. Mount Sodom is nearly a mile high, six miles long & three miles wide where Sodom & Gomorrah used to be, & it's almost solid salt! In fact, they mine it for table salt!
13. SO CHRISTIANS TODAY ARE NOT TO GO TO THE RIDICULOUS EXTREME OF SUFFERING ANYTHING & TAKING ANYTHING & NOT RESISTING & NOT PROTECTING THEMSELVES & not defending themselves and not defending their loved ones. This is a lie of the Devil! This is ridiculous! God expects them to love their enemies up to a point, at least to give them a time to repent and a time to change and a time to be sorry, a time to feel the Love of God in them. But if they don't respond and they don't receive it, God has no obligation and neither does a Christian have any obligation to take it any longer, even to the point of [EDITED: "using force"] to prevent them from doing any more evil!
14. MY LORD, IF YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE THAT STUPID DOCTRINE OF TOTAL PACIFISM TO ITS EXTREME, then all the soldiers & all the police would have to throw away all of their weapons & let the wicked & the evil & the criminals completely take over & run everything, run the World!--Which is what they're about to do, because the Christians have become so chicken, so lily-livered & so lacking in any kind of gumption or fight or sense of right or wrong or righteousness that they're no longer willing to fight for the Lord or His children or His Word or what's right! They don't even know what's right or wrong any more, because they don't know the Word!
15. WHY DON'T YOU HAVE YOUR RESEARCH MEN GO THROUGH THE BIBLE & FIND ALL THE SCRIPTURES ABOUT RIGHTEOUS WARS AGAINST THE WICKED & how God wars against the wicked, how He wipes out whole populations of wicked when they fail to repent! He gives them time, He gives them love, He shows them patience & gives them warning & the Truth & even lets the sunshine of the Truth fall on both the evil as well as the good. (Mat.5:45) But when the time comes & they still don't repent, then God doesn't hesitate to wipe'm out! He has to wipe'm out! He wouldn't be a righteous God if He didn't wipe them out & clear the Earth of their evil & their evil deeds against the righteous!
16. THAT KIND OF EXTREME PACIFISM WHERE YOU DON'T USE ANY VIOLENCE, YOU DON'T DEFEND YOURSELF OR YOUR FAMILY, THAT DOCTRINE IS OF THE DEVIL! That's exactly what the Devil wants Christians to do, just back down, back off & let him have it--their family, their home, their country, the World! He wants them to give up without a fight, & it is not Scriptural! God is no pacifist!
17. GOD IS A MAN OF WAR! GOD'S WORD SAYS SO! (Exo.15:3) God is a Man of War! And when He finally gives the wicked plenty of time to repent & shows them love & forgiveness & gives them a chance to quit their evil, & they refuse, He says finally that their cup of iniquity is full, He's fed up with them, He's sick & tired of their evil & He is not going to tolerate it any more & He wipes them out in the utmost brutal & violent slaughter you can possibly imagine!
18. IN FACT, ACCORDING TO HIS WORD, THERE IS NO VIOLENCE THAT'S TOO GREAT FOR THE UNREPENTANT WICKED & God wipes them out sometimes by the score, dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions, & He has done it time & time again!--Whole peoples, whole cities, whole nations, the entire World! He wiped out everybody on Earth once already, except for Noah & his family. Next time He's going to wipe out all the anti-Christ people & only spare the righteous or those He wants to give a chance to be saved. And the last time He is going to wipe out everybody except the Saved, & send them all to Hell! That doesn't sound very pacifistic to me!
19. THE RELIGION OF PACIFISM IS NOT GOD'S RELIGION! God is a Man of War! He is at constant war with the Devil & his demons & all the evil forces that are in operation in the World, & He is merely giving Man an opportunity to make a choice whether he wants to do good & love God & follow His Word, or do evil continually. And by the time God has given wicked & evil men plenty of time to repent, He is more than justified in slaughtering the wicked who continue to do evil against the righteous! God is no pacifist!
20. THIS THING ABOUT TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK, loving your enemy & all that, is a temporary thing, & if your enemy doesn't respond to it, as I say, you've only got two cheeks! And by that time, it's time to sock him back to keep him from doing any more evil! The Lord only requires you to turn the other cheek, not any more!
21. SO ALL THAT TO SAY THIS: THE MOSAIC LAW IS NOW OUT & WE'RE NO LONGER BOUND BY ALL OF ITS RELIGIOUS RULES & FORMS & CEREMONIES! God's only Law is Love today, & this means loving our neighbours & our family enough to protect them from evil & from the wicked! No sane man in his right mind is going to stand by & let the wicked invade his home & slaughter his wife & children & family without a fight! The Lord Himself said, "A strong man armed keepeth his goods in peace." (Luk.11:21)
22. AND HE SAYS, "IF THE GOODMAN OF THE HOUSE HAD KNOWN WHAT TIME THE THIEF WAS COMING, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN PREPARED FOR HIM"--& HE WASN'T PREPARING DINNER! (Mt.24:43) (Maria: Yes, or to sit down & have a nice little chat!) He wasn't preparing for negotiations with the thief! "Now let's talk it over whether you should rob me or not! Now, let's have peace about this. Let's negotiate this robbery." (Maria: "Let's make a compromise, I'll let you take so much if you save me so much!") "I'll let you take one of my wives & some of my children & half my goods if you depart in peace, dearly beloved brother." If he did that in the case of every robber & thief & criminal that threatened his property, his family, his wife & children, it wouldn't make peace, it wouldn't even leave any pieces!
23. THAT KIND OF A DOCTRINE IS RIDICULOUS, PACIFISM TO THE UTMOST, TO NEVER RESIST, never take up arms & never do violence to protect yourself or your wife, family, children or property. That idea of total pacifism, total non-resistance is absolutely of the Devil! It's exactly what the Devil & his fiendish forces of the evil wicked want us to do. They want the righteous to surrender, that's what they want! That's what the Enemy wants, for the good & the righteous & the right to surrender!
24. THE LORD HIMSELF APPROVES OF ARMED FORCES IN THE 13th CHAPTER OF ROMANS! It says we are to "obey the power," which is the government, because He calls the officers of the law "ministers of God" three times, & that they "bear not the sword in vain." Therefore they're supposed to use it if people refuse to do right & refuse to live in peace & refuse to obey! The officer of the law is supposed to use his weapon! (Maria: And that's what the Bible considers the government, the force that has the arms to keep things under control.) The power, which is the government, they are supposed to keep the peace, & that's what the Lord's Word says they're supposed to do. They're here for our protection, for our good, & we're supposed to obey them so that we can have peace. (Maria: That's their part of the contract, to keep the peace.)--Yes.
25. THEREFORE, ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T LIVE PEACEABLY & OBEDIENTLY & ANYBODY WHO CAUSES TROUBLE, THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO USE THEIR WEAPONS ON THEM, USE THEIR POWER! That's what they're given their power for by God, to use their power to protect the righteous & the good & the right! And how are they going to "use" that power unless they use it? What good is the weapon if they don't shoot it or the sword if they don't wield it?
26. THAT SICKENING, DEMONIC DOCTRINE OF THE DEVIL OF EXTREME PACIFISM JUST ABSOLUTELY INFURIATES ME! It is so anti-God, anti-Christ & anti-Bible that it's sickening! But that's the attitude of a lot of Christians today, that they're just supposed to give the territory to the Devil, give up to the Devil, let the Devil take over! Let me tell you, they're not even supposed to negotiate with the Devil! You can't do business with the Devil! All you're supposed to do is resist the Enemy & make him flee from you! "Give no place to the Devil!" (Jam.4:7; Eph.4:27) Don't go around looking for places to meet with the Devil & have peace talks! Give no place to the Devil! You're not to give him any quarter, any room, no place, no peace talks, no covenant made with him, none!
27. HOW CAN YOU MAKE A LEAGUE WITH THE DEVIL & HIS FORCES THAT ARE TOTALLY ANTI-GOD, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-Christian, anti-righteousness, the very forces of evil, the Devil himself! How can you sit down & talk peace with the Devil & his servants, his wicked, evil, vile, vicious servants who, as Jesus said, "are of their father the Devil!" (Jn.8:44) God is not the Father of all Mankind! Jesus Himself said to His enemies, "Ye are of your father the Devil," who, He said "is a liar & the father of it & a liar from the beginning!" Therefore his children are not your brothers!
28. ANOTHER SCRIPTURE THEY LOVE TO USE IS WHEN JESUS SAID TO PETER, "PETER, PUT UP THY SWORD. THEY THAT LIVE BY THE SWORD SHALL DIE BY THE SWORD." (Mat.26:52) He was talking literally about the wicked who earn their living by the sword, robbing people, killing people & making war on the righteous. He was talking about them. (Maria: Then why did He say it to Peter in that context?) Because that particular moment was not the time to use violence. Jesus said, "This is the way it's going to be. I'm going to allow this to happen. My time has come to give My life for sinners." Therefore, Peter was merely interfering with the course of history & the Will of God in that case of cutting off the high priest's servant's ear! And let me tell you, Peter wasn't just aiming at his ear, he planned to cut off his head, but he apparently wasn't a very good shot! He was more used to fishing than fighting!
29. BUT JESUS WAS GOING THE SECOND MILE TO TRY TO SHOW PATIENCE & MERCY & GIVE THEM NO CAUSE FOR THE DIRTY DEEDS THEY WERE DOING by resisting this guy who was an officer of the law. He was resisting, in a sense, the power, even though the power & the officer was evil & using it for evil, he was nevertheless an officer of the law at that time, & Peter was supposed to try to keep the peace. Besides, he couldn't possibly have defended Jesus in that case from a whole army they sent out to capture Him, a whole company of soldiers! They weren't even the Roman soldiers, they were just the church's soldiers, the private guard of the High Priest.
30. ANYHOW, JESUS SHOWED HIS EXTREME LOVE & PATIENCE BY PICKING UP THE EAR & STICKING IT BACK ON MALCHUS, THE HIGH PRIEST'S SERVANT. He wasn't simply a servant, he was obviously an officer in charge of this company of soldiers who came out to arrest Jesus. But Jesus Himself had condoned Peter's carrying that sword, & in the final commission He made when He sent them out, He even said, "From now on, take money, take spare shoes, take swords!"--Because He knew they'd have to defend themselves. (Luke 22:36)
31. SO YOU HAVE TO COMPARE SCRIPTURE WITH SCRIPTURE & NOT TAKE SCRIPTURES OUT OF CONTEXT & just use one little phrase or something such as in the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not kill," followed by 26 different laws which told them why they should kill people, the various crimes they should be killed for! So what are you going to do about that? See, people take one little phrase, one little Scripture & they try to make it cover everything. There were 26 capital offenses in the Mosaic Law for which a man could be killed, & it was commanded by the Mosaic Law if he did any one of those 26 things he should be killed, even for just cursing his father & mother! In other words, the son was supposed to be stoned to death for being rebellious!
32. LET ME TELL YOU, THE WORLD WOULD BE A LOT BETTER OFF RIGHT NOW IF ALL THE REBELLIOUS SONS WERE STONED TO DEATH! We'd be rid of a lot of criminals instead of all this mollycoddling of criminals that the modern laws are doing. There was very little crime in the Jewish society because people were scared to death to do any of these things for fear they were going to get stoned to death! This was God's law! Can you think of any more cruel, painful death than to be stoned to death? That was God's idea of the kind of punishment people deserved who broke these laws & committed these serious capital offenses, meaning they could be killed for it. There were 26 such laws in just the following two or three chapters in Exodus which said "Thou shalt kill"! How about that?
33. I SPENT PLENTY OF TIME STUDYING UP ON THAT ONE WHEN I WAS IN THE ARMY, because I was just as worried about killing people as the next guy! So I spent a lot of time reading the Bible because that was the one Scripture that was quoted to me the most. They used to say, "How come? How can we get out there & kill people when the Bible says 'Thou shalt not kill'?" Boy, after I read the Bible enough I had the answers for them! I said, "Yeah? Well, read the next three chapters! There were 26 laws that said 'Thou shalt kill!'"
34. (MARIA: SO ALL THESE PEOPLE THAT WANT TO OBEY THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SO RELIGIOUSLY HAVE TO TAKE IT ALL! They have to take all of the rest of the laws along with them!) That's exactly what Paul said. If you're going to feel bound by any of the old Mosaic Laws, then you are obligated & bound to keep them all, including all the ceremonial laws, all the dietary laws, all the moral codes, observe all the ceremonies, go through all the rigmaroles that the Jews had to go through, everything! You're bound to keep them all! (Gal.5:3)
35. I GOT THAT SAD AWAKENING WHEN ONE OF THOSE SEVENTH-DAY WORSHIPPERS CORNERED ME WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN & said, "Do you believe in keeping the Ten Commandments?" I didn't know any better then & I said, "Yes, of course!" He said, "Then why don't you keep the fourth commandment to remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy?" He said, "How come you have church on Sunday instead of Saturday?" He had me stumped, I didn't know the answer! But I went to work & studied up on it then, & I'll tell you, the next time a Seventh-day Adventist asked me that catch question, "Do you believe in keeping the Ten Commandments?" I said, "No! Absolutely not! Those old Commandments were all done away with by Jesus! I believe in keeping only the Commandments of Jesus Christ, His Law of Love--love God & love your neighbour as yourself! That's it! Period! That's all!"
36. SO WE DON'T HAVE TO KEEP ALL THOSE OLD JEWISH RELIGIOUS LAWS & CEREMONIAL LAWS, NOT EVEN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS! But the point is that if you love the Lord & your neighbour you're going to keep all those commandments which have to do with Love, but not the one that has to do with ceremony & the Sabbath! (Maria: And you're going to interpret & apply them properly, too, with the love & the wisdom the Lord gives you.)--Amen! GBY!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
