Waging War

While the word war refers primarily to armed conflict between nations or between opposing parties within a nation, it can also be applied to any active contention between living beings. Like it or not, we all have to wage war with others from time to time. This can take on the form of nations declaring war upon each other, or a person physically fighting off an attacker, or persons contending with one another in a court of law or in the court of the church, or two opponents engaging in a verbal debate, or parents having to resist a rebellious teenager. As Christians, it is our duty to avoid conflict as much as possible as the following verse clearly shows.

Romans 12:18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

Dr. Robin Wright once said that we should not go looking for battles. He said that God will bring to us the battles that He wants us to fight. I quite agree with Dr. Wright. Our general disposition should be toward seeking peace rather than conflict. However, as the above verse allows, there are times when it is not possible to live peaceably with other men. At such times, there will be conflict. In the face of this possibility, it pays to know how to wisely wage war.

War is never something any of us should rush into. Consider these two passages given by the wisest man that ever lived with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Proverbs 20:18 Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.

Proverbs 25:8 Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.

If you are considering waging war, it is always wise to seek out good advice before doing so. To hastily jump into a conflict without counsel can leave you defeated in the end. The great military strategist Sun Tzu taught that it takes more than courage to win a war. A reckless general may be courageous, but lacking wisdom, he will be a calamity. Battles are lost for want of counsel.

Proverbs 11:14 Where no counsel is, the people fall.

Now it is always possible that one could be suddenly attacked by a thug, which would require him to quickly resort to self-defense. But by practicing forethought and caution, one can often avoid the places and people where those kinds of attacks are more likely to occur.

Proverbs 22:3 A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.

Seeking counsel is especially important when the desire to wage war is motivated by anger or revenge since passion tends to interfere with good judgment. Observe that one should make war with good advice. Your information will never be any better than your source of information. Talk to people of experience and sober judgment, who have both witnessed battles and fought some themselves. And don’t just talk to the people you expect will agree with you. Get an opposing viewpoint. In fact, you will find it safer to get several viewpoints. “In the multitude of counsellers there is safety” (Proverbs 24:6). Weigh all the information and then decide on a course of action.

Before entering into any conflict, always ask yourself what you intend to accomplish. What is your objective? In a publication entitled War: Moral or Immoral, Colonel R. B. Thieme, Jr. wrote: “No great military organization has ever succeeded without a thorough knowledge of its objective.” Is your objective to rescue a kidnapped family member as when Abraham waged war to rescue his nephew Lot (Genesis 14:12-14)? Or is it getting your fair share of property? Or is it stopping a behaviour that is destroying the company, or the church, or the family? Or is your objective merely to take revenge? If so, you are intruding into God’s domain.

Romans 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Always be sure your objectives do not clash with God’s express will for you life.

Also, before you enter into a conflict, ask yourself if this is really your battle to fight. Sometimes in our zeal to right wrongs, we take on what is properly another person’s battle. I may see wrong in another pastor’s church, but righting that wrong is not my responsibility. God did not commit to me the oversight of every church. Our U.S. military today is stretched too thinly because we have bought into the idea that it is our calling as a nation to right the wrongs of other nations. Solomon said it so well in this proverb:

Proverbs 26:17 He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.

And when you contemplate whether to wage war or not, always count the cost and ask yourself if it is worth that cost. Our Lord taught the wisdom of this principle.

Luke 14:31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

Now there may always be that battle worth fighting whether you win or lose. Many a Christian has lost his job, his friends, his family, and even his life because he stood his ground on principle and would not surrender. Of course, in the larger picture, such loss is only temporary. In the end, the Christian will emerge the victor.

Matthew 16:25 …whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

A Call to Worship

Psalms 103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

This verse raises a favourite topic of mine to consider, the topic of worship. The experience of worship intrigues me. Worship is such an essential part of our Christian profession. It should be the passion of our lives. Nothing is more important. I find myself often frustrated that I do not draw from the worship experience as much as I want. I must constantly battle annoying distractions. This frustration only leaves me yearning to try again. I suspect that we will never fully enter into the experience of worship until we reach glory.

In the above verse the Psalmist is having a dialogue with himself. As human beings our Creator has endowed us with the ability of self-reflection. We can actually reflect on ourselves, consider ourselves, pass judgment upon ourselves, and carry on a dialogue with ourselves. Do you ever chide yourself when you do something wrong? I can really chew out Ben Mott. Or do you ever remind yourself to do something? I write notes to myself so that I can remember. All of this is our ability of self-reflection at work. This verse is an example of this marvellous power of self-reflection. The Psalmist is literally talking to himself. He is telling his soul to bless the holy name of the Lord. The word bless is actually in the imperative mood, which suggests that the Psalmist is commanding himself. He is issuing to himself a call to worship. Have you ever called yourself to worship?

Consider the definition of bless as it is used in this verse.

Bless – To call holy; to extol, praise, or adore (God) as holy, worthy of reverence.

To adore God as holy is to worship Him by definition. Now our Psalmist calls upon his soul to bless the Lord with all that is within him. The commentator G. Campbell Morgan had some very arresting comments to make upon this verse. He wrote:

The one value of these opening words is that they show us that worship is not involuntary, automatic. It calls for the co-ordination of all our powers, if it is to be perfect. This truth should arrest us whenever we enter the place of worship. The sanctuary is not a lounge, a place of relaxation. We should enter it with all the powers of personality arrested, arranged, dedicated.

To which I say, “Amen!” Worship is something we should prepare for. We ought to focus all our powers of desire, feeling, thought, and purpose upon the exercise of worship. Worship is something we should look forward to. We should go to church intending to give the worship of God our best. No doubt we will get more out of church worship, if we put more of ourselves into it!

Think about something you really look forward to doing. Maybe it is taking a vacation. Perhaps it is watching or attending a sporting event. Or maybe it is pursuing a relationship. Consider how much you pour yourself into it. Now compare that with how you approach worship. Do you approach worship with as much of yourself invested in it as in other things. If not, then you need to have a talk with yourself. You need to take charge of yourself and command yourself to bless the Lord with all that is within you. I challenge you to issue to yourself a call to worship the Lord. I can call you to worship. But it will be much more effective if you call yourself to it!

I would appreciate it if you would leave a brief comment letting me know that you are receiving these meditations. Thank you.

Haste, Part 4

We come now to the last meditation in this series on the subject of haste. In these meditations I have repeatedly told you that the resolution to the problem of haste is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is evident from the text that we have been considering.

Isaiah 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

Now the antidote to making haste is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the tried cornerstone. So much of our haste arises from a lack of faith. If you find yourself always rushing about, take time to stop, step aside from the rat race, and ask yourself why you are in such a hurry to do everything. You may respond that it is because you have so much to do and so little time to do it. But have you ever considered if you do indeed have to do all you think you have to do? If you really take time to ponder the path of your feet and consider your ways, you will find that a lot of what you are doing is not necessary. Many things can either be delayed, or delegated, or left undone.

Now look behind all that you are doing and ask yourself why you are doing it. You may find that what is driving you is a need to achieve more and more to feel good about yourself. In this case you are finding your identity in your accomplishments instead of your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. The cure for this is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe what His word tells you about who you are in Him. Find your identity in what Christ declares about you rather than in your achievements. Don’t make the mistake that Israel made.

Romans 10:1 ¶Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

In trying to make themselves righteous, Israel was zealously trying to accomplish what Christ had already accomplished. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Scripture declares that you are already righteous before God by what Christ did for you. Hear it!

Acts 13:39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

If you belong to Christ, you are a child of God and an heir of glory (Romans 8:16-17). Believe that and you will not be so driven to make a name and an identity for yourself.

Or perhaps you are rushing about doing so much because you feel you need to be in control of everyone and everything around you. You only feel secure if you are in control. Or maybe you are insecure about the future and you are rushing madly about trying to make every dollar you can so as to be protected against a possible coming calamity. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is again the cure for this. Trust the fact that all things are put under the feet of Christ, not yours, and that He is Head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:22). He has the kingdom of Satan, this world, its nations and their governments, its financial markets, and everything else under control. He knows what they are doing and what they intend. They can do nothing without His knowledge and permission. If you are part of the church, Christ is governing all things with a view to your benefit. You can confidently let go the reins and commit everything to his control. As for the fears about the future, hear the words of our Saviour.

Matthew 6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

The best you can do is to seek God’s kingdom and righteousness first, to work, to be frugal, to save as best you can, and then do not worry about tomorrow. And whatever you cannot do, you cannot do. The limit of your ability is not the limit of God’s ability! As surely as you haste to get rich quickly, you will err.

Proverbs 28:20 ¶A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

Or perhaps you are rushing about because you are trying to measure up to somebody else. Maybe you are running the children to this event and that event because everybody else is doing it and you think this is necessary to be a good parent. You are measuring yourself by others. The apostle Paul plainly tells that that people who do this are not wise.

2 Corinthians 10:12 ¶For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

Or maybe you are trying to fulfill the demands that others place upon you that the Lord did not put upon you. Our Lord plainly instructed us not to let others impose grievous burdens upon us.

Matthew 23:1 ¶Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,

2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

In contrast our Lord says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). Trust Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life and serve Him rather than men. Take your direction from Him. “He that believeth on him shall not make haste.”

Can you not begin to see that faith in Jesus Christ our Lord is the remedy for the life of haste? Behind so much of our rushing is a lack of faith. May God increase the faith of us all so that we shall not make haste and, therefore, shall not be confounded.

Haste, Part 3

We return today to the subject of haste. Let’s read again the verse we have been considering.

Isaiah 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

Again, the particular kind of haste that this verse addresses is “such quickness of action as excludes due consideration or reflection.” We have already seen that we are commanded in Scripture to ponder the path of our feet and to consider our ways (Proverbs 4:26; Haggai 1:7). When we make haste, we fail to obey this commandment. Instead, we are rushing about so quickly that we are not taking time to consider our ways. In conjunction with this, consider this admonition from the writings of the apostle Paul.

Ephesians 5:15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

To walk circumspectly is to walk in a circumspect manner. Note the definition of the word circumspect.

Circumspect – Showing caution, well-considered, cautious.

If we are walking circumspectly, we are not running headlong into things without giving them due consideration. We are cautious about the path we are taking. In other words, walking circumspectly is the opposite of making haste. In the light of the commandments of Scripture, we can say that to make haste is to sin, which is exactly what the following verse says.

Proverbs 19:2 ¶Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.

Notice also that when we walk circumspectly, we redeem the time. We waste a lot of time when we make haste. We think we are saving time by rushing about. In actuality, we often lose time having to rectify the mistakes we made when we were in a hurry. And if we would just slow down long enough to consider what we are doing, we might find we are doing a lot of things we do not need to do and which are needlessly consuming our time.

Now just who do you think has a vested interest in our making haste and not considering our ways? It is none other than our adversary the devil. And you can see why Satan wants us acting without due consideration because one of the key means whereby we resist Satan is by being vigilant.

1 Peter 5:8 ¶Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Now consider that word vigilant.

Vigilant – Wakeful and watchful; keeping steadily on the alert; attentively or closely observant.

If we are rushing about not giving due consideration to what we are doing, we are not being very watchful or observant. And there is where Satan will get us. If we develop the habit of always making haste, we will rush into situations where Satan can exploit our weakness and we will sin simply because we did not think before we acted or reacted. Has this ever happened to you?

The great Chinese military scholar, Sun Tzu, said that there are two qualities which are dangerous in the character of a general and lead to calamities on the battlefield. These two qualities are being reckless and being quick-tempered. Both of these are examples of haste. A reckless man lacks caution. He does not give due consideration to his actions. And a quick-tempered man will act in the passion of the moment without thinking through his actions. Now tie this back to the need to be vigilant, if we would be successful in our battle with the devil.

God willing, in our next meditation we shall consider how the resolution to the problem of making haste is found in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. For today, just be aware that you sin when you make haste, when you act quickly without reflecting upon what you are doing. And also be aware that Satan will come up with every kind of scheme to keep you dashing madly about. He does not want you to stop and consider your ways. If you do that, you just might become wise to his devices and resist him.

Haste, Part 2

Today I wish to continue pursuing the subject of haste. Recall that verse we considered last week:

Isaiah 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

We saw that the particular kind of haste that this verse addresses is “such quickness of action as excludes due consideration or reflection." It is that rushing about from one thing to another without stopping to consider what we are doing or why we are doing it. We take no time to reflect upon what we are saying or doing to consider if it is necessary or appropriate.

In connection with this thought I would like to quote from an interesting book I am reading entitled The Circle of Simplicity by Cecile Andrews. Now I do not endorse everything in this book. It is peppered with not a little pagan, humanistic philosophy. But there is also some truth in the book worth considering. Remember that Satan is always mixing truth and error. Our job as mature believers is “to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14) and to “abhor that which is evil: cleave to that which is good” (Romans 12:9). Here is the quote taken from page 169 under the section entitled Moving Slowly:

To live mindfully, to appreciate your time, you have to move slowly. There’s nothing more difficult for Americans, and we have gotten worse in the last twenty years. Court reporters find that we talk faster. We walk faster, our movies are faster….
What is this addiction to stimulation? Sometimes I feel addicted to my own adrenaline. If I’m not rushing, feeling pressured, I feel like I’m missing something. Is this the only way we can feel alive now – by rushing? Are we mistaking the rush of caffeine for a feeling of vitality? Does rushing make us feel like we are doing something important, that we are important people? Are we all engaged in such meaningless work that we can only feel important if we feel pressured? Do we have to convince ourselves and others of the importance of our work to justify our existence?
Here is where mindfulness comes in. You must pay attention to your speed and consciously slow down. Maybe make that your mantra – slow down – saying it very slowly.
Rushing as we do means that things are always going wrong. You always drop things and break something and have to clean up, so it takes longer anyway. It’s like speeding and getting stopped by the police: you lose all the time you were trying to gain.
And, of course, in our rushing, we have no time to talk with people, so we get lonelier and lonelier.
In rushing, we have no time for reflection, no time to notice what is going on around us. We can’t reflect on warning signals that come to us – warning signals such as early signs that something is wrong with our health. Signs that you are starting to drive too fast. For instance, whenever I have a near miss in my car, I always say to myself, Ahh, a message from the universe (here is a sample of the paganism, BJM), and I slow down and become more careful in my driving.

There is some food for thought is that quotation, if you will slow down long enough to think about it. We do indeed make more mistakes when we are hasty because we are not taking time to consider what we are doing. And indeed Scripture teaches us as much. Haste resulted in Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, becoming lame.

2 Samuel 4:4 And Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son that was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.

That haste that is quickness of action without due consideration or reflection will certainly result in our saying and doing some foolish things.

Proverbs 14:29 He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

Proverbs 29:20 Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him.

Those things we do in haste will leave us wanting and ashamed. We will not achieve what we meant to achieve if we act in haste.

Proverbs 21:5 The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.

Proverbs 25:8 Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.

How many are in want because of financial decisions made in haste without due consideration? How many times have you been quick to take someone to task over something only to be embarrassed in the end?

It is interesting to compare Isaiah 28:16 with how it is rendered in 1Peter 2:6, where it is quoted. Isaiah says: “he that believeth shall not make haste.” Peter says: “he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.” There is some connection between making haste and being confounded. This becomes apparent as we consider the definition of confounded.

Confounded – Discomfited, abashed, put to shame or mental confusion; confused, disordered, etc.

Examine your own life. Have you not experienced embarrassment, confusion, and disorderliness because you rushed headlong into things without due consideration and reflection? By contrast, those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ shall not make haste and, therefore, shall not be confounded. Our hectic, hurried way of life that excludes time to consider and reflect on our ways reveals a lack of trust in our Lord. We shall have more to saying about this in a coming meditation, God willing. In the meantime, go back and reread that quote I cited above and examine your own life in the light of it. Remember, “he that believeth shall not make haste.” Slow down!