TULIP GEMS

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT AND WAR (Part 1)

 

 

“Thou shalt not kill.” (Exodus 20:13)

 

“The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.” (Exodus 15:3-4)

 

There is warfare between God and Satan. Satan has enlisted fallen angels and fallen men in his war against God. God is love and is a God of shalom (peace).

 

But, as Ecclesiastes 3:8 tells us, there is “a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” One of the titles of God is the LORD of hosts (armies) according to 1 Samuel 17:45.

 

In my last article (Sixth Commandment and Capital Punishment) we saw that God Himself instituted the death penalty. What does this have to do with WAR?

 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND WAR

 

The death penalty is a just punishment for whatever number of criminals are involved in a serious crime. If five men commit murder, all five men deserve to die. When an invading army rapes, robs, destroys property and murders people -- the entire invading army deserves to die.

 

When a whole city or nation is wicked and at war with God, the whole city or nation deserves to die. This is why God destroyed entire cities such as Sodom and Gomorrah. This is why God ordered Israel to apply the death penalty on a national level to ALL the Canaanites.

 

This is why God destroyed the entire world of Noah's day with a Great (worldwide) Flood. This is why the world today can look forward to worldwide destruction by fire. Christ is RIGHT to destroy the wicked at Armageddon (Revelation 19). There is such a thing as a “just war.”

 

JUST WARS

 

Abraham used his trained servants to rescue his nephew Lot (Genesis 14). This rescue by FORCE OF ARMS was not in self-defense. The kings Abraham attacked were not attacking him. And yet God sent Melchizedek TO BLESS Abraham for what he had done IN WAR.

 

“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.” (Genesis 14:18-20)

 

Abraham's use of force to deliver his brother (nephew) from tyranny and enslavement justifies all other wars fought for the same reason. America is failing to be a Good Samaritan to our neighbors who are attacked by (and crushed under) Communist and Islamic tyranny. Vietcong terrorists systematically tried village leaders for “crimes against the people.” What was their crime?

 

They owned private property. The VC then publicly beheaded and/or disemboweled these “guilty capitalists.” Our war in Vietnam was for a just cause. Our ground forces did not lose it. American ground forces were withdrawn from South Vietnam several years before Saigon fell.

 

But the liberal news media and much of the American public took the official Communist stand -- it was wrong for capitalist America to be in Vietnam. And so aid was cut to our ally. Nine years after I fought in Vietnam, I declared myself a “conscientious objector”.

 

The war was over then and I had some self-doubt. But I do not doubt anymore. The more I study the Bible, the more I see that not ALL killing is wrong. Murder is wrong. And murderers must be stopped.

 

 

 

 The Sixth Commandment and War (Part 2)