GOD AND WAR
By
D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The situation in Europe and the
world to-day makes us sorely need divine light on war; and the first thing we observe
is a sword in the hand of every nation, God-given. "The powers that be" - that is, all the
Governments of the world - "are ordained of God;
for there is no power but of God": and "the ruler beareth not the sword in vain; for he is a minister
of God" (
WAR
Now
one, inevitable factor in the life of every nation is, sooner or later, war;
and in the case of Judah's King, Asa, we get a
studied and wonderful summary of the bearing of God on war: for Asa’s history reveals the drastic distinction between war
with God invoked and war with God ignored; and Asa’s
own character - "the heart of Asa
was perfect all his days" (2 Chron. 15: 17) - makes the point extraordinarily
clear. His life was full of purging: he
purged the land of idols; he purged the
PEACE
The
opening fact is extremely significant.
The background of a decade of perfect peace reveals that peace is a gift
of God. "The
land was quiet, and he had no war in those years; because the Lord had given
him rest" (2 Chron.
14: 6). The moral purging of the
nation was reinforced, on the political side, by its consolidation in strength
and power, in a way that Jehovah approved: "Asa did that which was
good and right in the sight of the Lord his God" (ver. 2). And Asa fully realizes whence came these ten
years of peace. "We have sought the Lord our God, and he hath
given us rest on every side" (ver. 7). In wars between nations, and much more in
peace, the nation that lays all its
weight on God is almost certainly not the wicked one; for it would know with Whom it is dealing, and both conscience and self-interest
would prompt to right conduct.
VICTORY
Now
the crisis arises. Ethiopia sweeps down
on Judah with the largest army - except one - ever recorded in ancient history;
one million men, with three hundred chariots - or, in modern warfare, tanks. Now we learn on a gigantic scale that prayer
is the most potent of all war weapons, and Asa’s
immediate cry to God is the model State prayer in war. "Lord, there is
none beside thee to help, between the mighty and him that hath no strength"
- none other that can equalize the forces; none other that controls victory
whether for the big battalions or the small: "help
us, O Lord our God, for we rely on thee, and in thy name" -
trusting to Thy help - "are we come against this
multitude". Complete rout of
the all-but-mightiest army of ancient history * instantly follows. "They were
destroyed before the Lord,
and before his host". As
lately as in the Great War at least one Field Marshal acknowledged the
truth. Marshal Foch
said during the war:- "I
know something about preparation for war, and formation and concentration, and
I can follow up an advantage; but victory does not depend on me." Then, drawing from his tunic a little
crucifix hanging from a twist of twine, the Marshal continued: - "There nailed to the cross, is the Giver of victory. Triumph must come if we trust in Him."
[* The largest army
recorded in ancient history was that of Xerxes, numbering nearly two and a half
millions.]
WARNING
The
moments of supreme victory can be among the most dangerous moments in life: so
the Spirit of God, falling on Azariah the prophet,
warns Asa. The
warning is this:- "The
Lord is with you, while ye be with him
… but if ye forsake him, he will forsake
you." Asa responded admirably, and a vast covenant with Jehovah
was made by all
DISASTER
A
most extraordinary prophecy was wrapt up in Azariah’s
warning, exactly forecasting the modern situation of apostate
[*
It seems obvious that this is a prophetic past. "The
Septuagint and Vulgate, Luther, and most moderns refer these words to the
future: it is the whole future of the people of God, of which the prophet
asserts the law - ‘If ye turn away from God, he will turn away from you’
" (Lange).]
GOD ABANDONED
Some
twenty to thirty years now elapse, and again - as the peril which Azariah foresaw is now at the doors - God sends a warning
prophet. Baasha,
king of Israel, threatens Judah; and Asa, without a
word to God, forms an alliance with Syria, and actually bribes the Syrian King
with the treasures with which he himself had enriched the Temple (15: 18). Asa never even names God. Perhaps the gravest fact at this moment
is that God is now never named officially, or in international documents, by
any of the Great Powers of Europe. Ever
since the Disarmament Conference, the greatest effort yet made for peace, when,
for the first time, even King George V omitted the word ‘God’ from his opening address - presumably because
Soviet Russia had just joined - no official document of any of the Great Powers
of Europe contains the name of God, much less is any great European appeal made
officially and directly to God.* And Asa’s
plundering of the Temple is repeated.
Sacrifices hitherto devoted to God - honour, the sanctity of the pledged
word and the signed pact, defence of the weak and helpless, liberty of
conscience, the worship of God and His Christ - the Temple is robbed, of the
civilized nations’ former gifts to God in order to preserve a Godless peace at
all costs. So the prophet, Hanani, drives home Jehovah’s final remonstrance. "Thou hast
relied on the King of Syria, and hast not relied on the Lord thy God: herein
hast thou done foolishly." So at last, when men are saying, "Peace"
- by godless appeasement - "and safety"
- collective security by godless alliance - "then
sudden destruction cometh" (1 Thess. 5: 3).
[* A deeply happy apparent exception lies in British Royalty, but
the bankrupting fact is that Royalty neither creates nor controls the policy of
the nation. Such were King George’s
words in
DIVINE AID
The
reproof contains as lovely a revelation as can be imagined, and is an utterance
exceedingly important, for it lifts the whole revelation out of the
WARS
So
now the judgment falls. "From henceforth THOU SHALT HAVE WARS." So exactly our Lord foretold:- "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom" (Luke 21: 10). In the words of Dr. F. W. Norwood:- "What are you going to do
eventually with a world which knows that what is morally right is seldom
politically advisable?"
Recent words of Bishop Watkin Williams (Times,
May 4, 1939) bring home the judgment:- "War is the severest, sorest judgment with which God
manifests His wrath on rebellious nations, worse than famine, worse than
pestilence, and no other way is shown by which we may avert it than penitence
and amendment of life." And
what happened then, happens now - persecution. The Prophet, and all
who sympathized with him in the nation - protesting (exactly like ourselves)
against the godlessness of the nation’s policy, though with no political or
military opposition - suffer: "for Asa was in a rage, and oppressed" - crushed -
"some of the people". Asa imprisons the
Prophet because he cannot imprison the truth: "he put him in the house of stocks" - the stock
being an instrument of torture, by which the body was forced into an unnatural,
twisted position, and the hands and feet fastened together (Keil). So the doom of God falls. "All the
kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth, shall drink: and
if they refuse to drink" - by every pact of godless peace - "thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Ye shall surely drink: because of the sword which I will
send among you" (Jer. 25: 26, 27).
UNIVERSAL WAR
Each
of the five Great Powers now handles an army larger than any nation ever
mustered before, to which the hordes of Xerxes were but a reconnaissance. When the Russo-Japanese War broke out, the
Tsar, who had inaugurated the first Peace Conference, burst into tears. It is said that the Kaiser, when signing the
declaration of war on
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