When push comes to shove man falls to violence to establish order. When push came to shove for God, he fell to sacrifice to establish order. He demonstrates sacrifice so that order and peace would be established. We tend to think it is greater violence that solves the problem. Many of us secretly believe this, this is what all our movies and stories teach us, one day there will come a time to bear arms in the name of God. Yet, think about those in history who have instead adopted Jesus’ model of sacrifice. Gandhi, the students in Taiwan, Regan calling for the wall to come down, Dr. Livingston, Martin Luther King. It is these individuals who toppled a system of oppression by ideological difference, not those willing to take up arms.
Yet, we must also realize that certain societies provide for such peaceful nonviolence to exist. It was George Orwell who criticized Gandhi saying that his method only took root because it was hosted and protected by the British Empire. Western Christendom influences had granted a certain failsafe there. Practicing this method in the Soviet Union would land you in the gulag without anyone knowing your name, just as Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean dissenters have found out.
In other words, peaceful resistance only works in a society that values peace.
This was Bonhoeffer’s dilemma with the Nazis. That is not to say there are never times for peaceful resistance, just as there are times for war, as Ecclesiastes readily teaches. War can certainly end a certain kind of suffering, yet a new regime with newly enacted power will eventually fill the void. Unless there is a paradigm shift in thinking, the idea of might makes right will continue to backfill the gaping hole. While there may be times for war, the follower of Christ is called to peace and sacrifice.
The ironic thing about this is that sacrifice is an act of violence. It was in the Old Testament Levitical system and it certainly was for Jesus’ work on the cross. While our sacrifices might end in a form of violence, since the violent take (life) by force, suffering remains a possibility. Yet what we offer to God is our service. We sacrifice the preference for our own ways which involves our wills and thus our temptations. The Word calls this a living sacrifice.
The apostles modeled a life of offering to God, and it did end in violence. It was violence against them. As followers of Christ hold to God’s truth with conviction this will lead to conflict. Truth, plus conviction, equals someone else disagreeing with you. When those dials are turned to eleven we are called to sacrifice in service, not taking up arms in coercion. God has rightly given the sword to the Government so that his children would not go out and conquer in his name.
As we have just remembered the fallen this Memorial Day, we thank God that he allows some to use the sword in defense because sinful men will always try to take it up in attack. But this division of labor means that followers of Christ do not do so in the streets. The reason is we do not win souls to Christ at the edge of a sword, or with the barrel of a gun. That is Islam’s game. The weapons of our warfare are the passages of scripture. We wage warfare with the Word of God and our defenses are our faith, our salvation, our righteousness, our God. Some might wish this were more glamorous or valiant, yet it is the soul that waits on the Lord that renews their strength. But our warfare is still costly.
Peter, Paul, and the apostles found out that proclaiming the Gospel and sacrificing their lives in service means exactly that. It is a sacrifice that speaks volumes. Jesus said there is no greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends. Soldiers display this and the apostles lived this out. Jesus demonstrated this because we must always say no to evil.
The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. (John 7:7)
Those are Jesus’ words not a twisted desire for suffering. As Jesus modeled, someone must take a stand, and for most of us that doesn’t mean a gun in hand. It means saying words that men do not want to hear: There is a time coming when God will judge the world, the living and the dead, by what they did with the works of Jesus. Let us not become violent people, but let us become sacrificing people.
God’s followers are called to speak the truth. It means we refuse to strengthen the hands that do evil as so much of society has done. We speak against abortion, LGBTQ+ parades, injustice, and cruelty. We expose the deeds of darkness, we pull down everything that raises itself up against the living God. Pride kills. 2+2 does not make 5. We speak against open sin because we live in a society, but we do so also because this is our pattern in life. Our own sin also must be spoken against.
By the way, this is what Disney is doing. The reason so many of the things they are producing recently are terrible is because they are sacrificing (audience and money) for their woke convictions. They know how to sacrifice for their convictions. Are we willing to do the same?
Christians have always sacrificed their money for the Kingdom. But we shouldn’t stop there. We sacrifice a good name and the accolades of the deviant communities. We sacrifice a peaceful life where we never raise a fuss. We put aside the easy life so that God’s Gospel can go forth. We speak the call to repent of sin knowing that the world will hate us for it. We speak the truth knowing that the truth will set some free, but also knowing that it angers those prone to violence. Why are riots still occurring without a response while a peaceful grandma is jailed for praying at an abortion clinic? Another way to put it is, why do the wicked prosper?
They only do so because the judgment has not yet fallen.
Violence might be inevitable by the angry mobs but sacrifice is our calling. By the way, Christain Nationalism isn’t about violence, but it is about the kind of sacrifices we are willing to make for the kind of society we are willing to have. I want a society that honors the Lord, not angers Him. That is why we speak. We are willing to make sacrifices so that our children are not groomed and the government’s tyranny is curbed. That requires speaking the truth. We give an answer so that answers are known. That does require a line in the sand. But the line is God’s line. His standard. Take a stand. Speak the Truth. Join the fray. It is the humble who will find the Lord. It is the meek who will inherit the earth.
thanks
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