But you fail to see that God approved war and slaughter of civilians.
Since God is the only one with authority over life and death, he did not approve of the death of anyone, let alone those who were non-combatants.
Read Ezekiel 18 and especially the last verse….
32 “‘I do not take any pleasure in the death of anyone,’ declares the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. ‘So turn back and live.’”
As one who sees ‘the end from the beginning’, he knows better than anyone what a person will become in the environment in which they were raised. The flood of Noah’s day….Sodom and Gomorrah….God took the lives of women and children who were in an incorrigibly wicked environment with no prospect of repentance….doesn’t Abraham’s conversation with God demonstrate this? He promised Abraham that if there were even 10 righteous people in those cities, he would spare them.
The other thing we cannot deny is the fact that God alone has the power and authority to take life….but he also has the power to restore it….As he will in the resurrection to come. (John 5:28-29)
And you fail to accept that god uses human governments to punish other governments who would do harm.
God allows human rulership for the sake of his own people. If there was no order at all, his own would suffer more than they already do living in a world alienated from its Creator. Our commission to preach was to be carried out under all conditions, but where possible God would allow it to go ahead in certain nations.
People in general seem to forget that Christians are found in all nations and that governmental regimes do not always treat God’s servant with respect because they will not take up arms for their government and kill the enemies of their nation…..
Christians have no “nationality” because they have their citizenship in God’s Kingdom, and therefore they have no political enemies…we are to love (agape) our enemies by not hating them or ‘returning evil for evil‘ to them. Like the first Christians we do not resist or retaliate when mistreated for being servants of our Master, Jesus Christ. No government has anything to fear from a genuine Christian. We will not be armed, nor will we offer physical resistance.
Israel certainly did have a military. Jesus was arrested by the temple guards which were Jewish military.
The military they has was toothless….temple guards? Seriously? They had very little power under Roman rule. Why did they have to press Pilate into sentencing an innocent man to death, when he found no grounds under Roman law to execute him? If the Jews had not threatened Pilate’s political career, he would not have given the order to have him crucified.
It was the Romans who put Jesus to death, and it was the Romans whom Jesus asked his Father to forgive because they genuinely “did not know what they were doing”. The soldiers who drove the nails through his flesh were simply following orders. The Religious Leader however, knew exactly what they were doing and remained unforgiven as Jesus has already sentenced these wicked men to “Gehenna”. (Matt 23:33)
Yes and that will happen when Jesus physically returns to establish His kingdom on earth for 1000 years.
He will not need a single human to carry out his executions….his angelic forces will be with him….and they have already demonstrated their power. In one night, a single angel wiped out 185,000 Assyrian soldiers leaving their prideful king to awaken in the morning to witness the carnage he intended to inflict on God’s people.
Faith allows us to leave things in God’s capable hands….he does not need us to fight for him.
In ancient Israel, the nations fought in the name of their gods….Jehovah used his people to show those nations the power of
their God. But once his Christ had fulfilled his role as Messiah, there was no longer a need to demonstrate by physical means, the power of God in war…..the Christians used God’s power to heal and to save. There was no more physical warfare…now it was all spiritual as the apostles demonstrated.
Show me one verse that condemns a Christian from joining the armed forces of any nation.
I have already provided the scriptures that show us that we are not to take up carnal weapons or to return evil for evil…..if you cannot discern the import of those scriptures then what is left to say? You are conveniently ignoring them in order to justify your support for the world that God is going to destroy….out of a misguided sense of loyalty.
Secular sources provide clear evidence that a Christian’s life was incompatible with military service…
The early Christians refused to serve in the Roman army, in both the legions and auxilia, considering such service as wholly incompatible with the teachings of Christianity.
Justin Martyr, of the second century C.E., in his “Dialogue With Trypho, a Jew” admitted: “We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons,—our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage.” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 254)
In his treatise “The Chaplet, or De Corona” , when discussing “whether warfare is proper at all for Christians,” Tertullian (c. 200 C.E.) argued from Scripture the unlawfulness even of a military life itself, concluding, “I banish from us the military life.”—The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1957, Vol. III, pp. 99, 100.
“A careful review of all the information available goes to show that, until the time of Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.], no Christian became a soldier; and no soldier, after becoming a Christian, remained in military service.” (The Rise of Christianity, by E. W. Barnes, 1947, p. 333)
As if the scriptures themselves were not clear…..these early sources confirm that no genuine Christian could violate his conscience in this. When the foretold apostasy set in however, that all changed and the justified bloodshed began in that apostate church system, and has never ceased.
John teh Baptist and Jesus both had perfect opportunities to sapout your watchtower doctrine and they did not.
Please show us where they condoned military serve or being ”friends with the world” (James 4:4)
My “Watchtower doctrine” is Bible doctrine…where does yours come from? And will your justified disobedience to the commands of the Christ be excused? You can only hope so in view of what you have been shown from the Scriptures. Once ignorance is dispelled, there can be no excuses accepted.
But your words inferred differently, which is why I picked you up on it.
Yes that is our primary calling.
1 To glorify God
2. to spread teh true gospel.
But we do that as mechanics. postal workers and yes as soldiers.
No, sorry….we can work at secular occupations, but we cannot carry weapons designed to kill our fellow humans. We can indeed be postal workers and mechanics and chefs and tradesmen etc,…but we cannot participate in bloodshed.… it in any occupation that requires us to carry a weapon.
Our work and our weapons are spiritual not carnal…..preaching requires us to put on our spiritual “armor” and to use only “the sword of the spirit”……God’s word...in defense, not offense.
Justification only works on flawed human mentality….satan counts on that…..it doesn’t work on God or his appointed judge however…nor will it work on those who are trained by Christ Jesus to be “no part of the world”. What part of “NO PART” do you all fail to understand?
We will all answer to him…..there will be no excuses accepted. (Matt 7:21-23)
