1 Chronicles 19, beginning in verse 1, the Bible reads,
Now it came to pass after this, that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon died, and his son reigned in his stead.
And David said, I will show kindness unto Hanan the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me.
And David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father.
So the servants of David came into the land of the children of Ammon to Hanan to comfort him.
Now this is David reaching out and being kind unto his neighboring nation.
He's sending ambassadors of peace. He just wants to comfort him concerning the death of his father.
He's basically reaching out to him and saying, look, your father and I were allies.
We got along together. We had peace with one another. Let's keep that going.
But of course, as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
And the king of Ammon ends up treating them very ill.
Now who are the Ammonites?
Well, if you remember, God had told the children of Israel when they came into the promised land,
that they were not to inherit the land of the children of Moab, or the land of the children of Ammon,
or the land of the children of Edom, because God had areas that were sort of designated for those people.
Because those are the sons of Lot, Moab and Ammon.
And of course, Edom is Esau, or Israel's brother.
So because they were loosely family, God said, these people have their portion.
We're not going to wipe them out. I'm going to have you come in and inherit the land of Canaan.
But these other nations are going to continue to be there.
So that's one of the reasons probably why David wants to, if possible, just get along with the Ammonites.
They don't necessarily have to be his mortal enemy here.
Now modern day, we've probably heard of the capital city of the nation of Jordan.
What's the capital of Jordan? Ammon, Jordan, right?
Well, Ammon, Jordan, that's Ammon, basically, Ammon.
So, you know, they will say, hey, we are the children of the Ammonites, or this is the traditional area of the Ammonites.
In fact, the modern day nation of Jordan, which is on the east side of the Jordan River,
is basically the land of the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites, is all encompassed in that country of Jordan.
And then if you remember also, there were a couple of tribes of Israel that did inherit some land on the east side of the Jordan River,
right next to where the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites are.
And that was the tribe of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh.
So they were able to stay on that east side of the Jordan River, whereas the majority of the tribes crossed Jordan and inherited west of the Jordan River.
So modern day, west of the Jordan River is Israel and Palestine, and east of the Jordan River is Jordan, the nation of Jordan, which is the land of Moab, Ammon, and the Edomites.
And it's interesting how their capital is still called Ammon, which is named after Ammon.
So that gives you a little bit of an idea of the geography here.
Nahash is also the name of the guy who had harassed the children of Israel back in the days of King Saul,
but this is much earlier, where he wanted them all to have their right eye poked out, if you remember that story.
That was also Nahash, king of the Ammonites.
And the word Nahash, this doesn't necessarily mean anything, but the name Nahash means serpent or snake.
So, for what it's worth.
So David wants to show kindness unto the son of Nahash, king of the Ammonites.
But it says in verse 3,
But the princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanan, Thinkest thou that David doth honor thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee?
Are not his servants come unto thee for to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?
Wherefore Hanan took David's servants and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst, hard by their buttocks, and sent them away.
So, here's David sending ambassadors of peace, but this king just jumps to the wrong conclusion,
because he listens to these advisors that are giving him bad advice, and telling him,
Oh, you know, this is just a trick.
Even though they're pretending to be nice, they really are spies.
You know, they've come to spy out the land.
And we need to make sure that we give people the benefit of the doubt.
We shouldn't be like the Ammonites, where we just jump to a conclusion of just suspecting people of ill intent when there's no evidence.
There are people like this who suspect everyone all the time, and they just constantly think that everyone's out to get them.
It's being called paranoia.
And often it's a dishonest person who suspects everyone else of being dishonest.
I remember when I was a kid, a saying that my parents and other people would constantly say was,
Well, you're judging them by your own heart.
You know, when you would assume everybody has a really ill motive for seemingly benign actions,
people would say sometimes, Well, are you judging them by your heart?
Is that why you would do that?
Is that what you would send people to honor the father and mother?
Basically, he's just in the integrity of his heart trying to honor his father and, you know, he's sending representatives to the funeral, as it were.
And he wants to keep peace going.
And this reminds me of the psalm where David said, I'm for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
So we should strive to get along with the people around us.
We should strive to, if at all be possible, live in peace with all men, the Bible says.
So we shouldn't try to pick fights with our neighbors.
We should try everything in our power to get along with the people in our neighborhood and not to just make enemies at work and just pick fights with people for no reason.
Now, obviously, there are some things where we have to take a stand and battles that we need to fight, but we should try to get along whenever we can.
If there's a way to get along, if we can live in peace, that's what we should try to do.
And this is just completely out of nowhere mistreating these ambassadors.
Now, the next thing we can learn from this is that when you humiliate people, you know, you're going to create anger and possibly a fight with those people when you humiliate people.
And because these ambassadors get humiliated, then basically there's going to be some retaliation.
And it starts a war. Thousands of people are going to die.
And so it's a tragedy that such a kind gesture was turned into something bad.
And we need to always beware of the idea of a preemptive strike, okay, where we basically feel like we have to go attack these people because they're a threat unto us when they haven't attacked us or anything.
You know, the preemptive strike, the so-called Bush doctrine is what some people have called this.
Because throughout history, there's been, you know, the Monroe doctrine.
And then we got into the Bush doctrine, which is they've got weapons of mass destruction over there, and we got to go take them out because they're a threat.
And of course, the weapons of mass destruction were not even found.
But we went in and did our preemptive strike.
Well, the love of money is the root of all evil.
And if you want to know why there are wars and fightings among us, they come from the lust of man that wars in the body of man that causes him to desire things that don't belong to him.
And behind all warfare is greed, covetousness, the love of money, trying to take something that doesn't belong to you.
That's where warfare comes from in this world.
And we as Christians should be for peace.
And it's sad today how many Christians, they get their marching orders, not from the word of God, but from Fox News.
And so if Fox News tells them, hey, we need to go bomb the fire out of these people and kill them all and let God sort them out,
if that's what Fox News tells them, that's what they're going to believe, whether that's what the Bible teaches or not.
And we as Christians should not get involved in strife not belonging to us.
And things that are going on on the other side of the world, in the Middle East, we should just be staying out of that and minding our own business, especially as God's people.
But even just as Americans, we should just be neutral and staying out of these conflicts that don't pertain to us.
But especially as Christians and God's people.
You know, our warfare is a spiritual battle.
It's not a physical battle.
It's not a physical fight.
And we shouldn't let the media get us all riled up to go fight in this country and go fight in that country.
But like I said, there are just a lot of Fox News Baptists out there instead of Bible Baptists, instead of King James Bible Baptists.
You know, it was funny, this whole Nike thing.
I don't know if I fully understand the whole controversy about this thing.
But I guess it was that an NFL player didn't want to stand for the national anthem and he got on his knee.
Somebody stop me if I'm getting it wrong, okay?
He won't kneel down.
Or no, no, no. Sorry.
He won't stand for the national anthem.
He took a knee instead.
He kneeled instead as some kind of a protest.
And because he did that, Nike ended up using him as a poster child of stand up for what you believe in, even if it costs you everything.
So did this guy lose anything for doing that?
Did it cost him anything?
I'm just asking.
Did he?
Did he get fired or anything?
So he got fired.
So he doesn't play football anymore.
So that was the cost, you know.
So he gave up his career of running around in pants that are too tight for him and playing a children's game.
And, you know, making millions of dollars to run around and play.
And he's lifted up as this hero.
So then now everybody's saying, we need to boycott Nike.
You know, because this guy isn't standing for America.
And you know what's funny is to watch these independent fundamental Baptists who won't ever take a stand on anything that are just so watered down and just let anything go.
But then it's like, oh, well, we're going to get rid of all our Nike gear or whatever.
That's like their big stand.
Why?
Because that's what Fox News told them to do.
We got to boycott Nike or whatever.
You know, I don't get I think the whole thing's stupid.
And you know what?
I'm not going to pledge allegiance to the American flag either.
So I don't know whatever.
I don't have any athletic sponsors, but if I do, I guess people are going to want to boycott them.
Now, I'm sure that my reasons for not wanting to pledge the American flag are probably pretty different than that football player's reason, because I think he had some poor me.
Oh, it's I'm so poor because I'm black and I can't get ahead even though I make millions of dollars and I'm like practically white.
I'm so light skinned.
Wasn't that?
Isn't that what his issue was like?
Oh, racism or whatever.
Isn't that what it was?
What?
Oh, police violence.
Well, amen.
There are too many black people getting shot by the police.
There's too many white people getting shot by the police, too.
Amen.
Well, if he's protesting police violence, I don't blame him.
Oh, whoops.
Is that not what I'm supposed to do?
Let me go check with Fox News to figure out what I believe.
Let me go check with Rush Limbaugh and all the conservative talk shows to tell me what I believe.
You know what? It's stupid because the conservative talk radio is pro-war, okay?
And it's this patriotism that is actually statism, okay, which is not a libertarian, freedom-loving type of patriotism that we should have.
And I don't want to go off on that too much tonight.
But the point being that we should strive to be at peace and we should be anti-war unless we're defending ourselves.
I do believe in self-defense, but, you know, when was the last time that happened, okay?
You know, you look at World War I, it's us getting involved in someone else's fight.
World War II, we're getting in someone else's fight.
Vietnam, it's always us getting in someone else's fight.
And I believe that we should strive for peace and stay out of it.
And you say, oh, well, we got attacked.
You know, the Louisitania or Pearl Harbor or 9-11, it's always as a result of us already being involved.
World War I, we were already involved for years.
We've teamed up with the allies, funding them, you know, training them, sending them supplies.
Same thing in World War II.
I mean, from the day that World War II broke out, we're already funding the allies, we're already teamed up with them.
And it's like, oh, wow, years later they finally attacked us after we've been helping their enemy for years.
You know, we need to just stay out of it.
And whatever you believe about 9-11, okay, which I don't believe the official story on 9-11 at all,
but even if you believe the official story, you know, guess what, the curse causeless shall not come.
And so we need to be peaceful, mind our own business, stay out of this stuff,
and not just let the Republicans or Fox News or talk radio get us all fired up about whatever war they're trying to push on us at this time.
So we should be like David where we strive for peace.
Now what did he do to humiliate these ambassadors that came?
In verse 4 it says,
Wherefore, Hanan took David's servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the midst, hard by their buttocks, and sent them away.
So this is a very strange thing that he decided to do to humiliate them.
But what he did was he took their clothing and he cut off half of it, like down the middle, not halfway this way, but halfway this way.
So he basically cut off half their clothes and then he shaved half their hair off, half their beard off, and you know, who knows what else,
and basically sends them away that way, just making fun of them, making sport of them, making them look like an idiot.
That's kind of a weird thing to do, isn't it?
So he sends them away, and when David hears about this, he gives them advice because they were greatly ashamed.
They're embarrassed, right?
I mean, these are high ranking officials and they get there and they're expected to be treated with dignity,
and instead they get made fun of, their clothes are destroyed, their heads are shaved, and their beards are shaved, but only half.
So what is David's advice?
He says in verse 5, halfway through, and the king said,
Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown and then return.
And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David,
Hanen and the children of Ammon set a thousand talents of silver to hire them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia and out of Syria, Mayica, and out of Zobah.
So David tells them, stay in Jericho until your beards be grown.
Now, let me just stop and park it on this point for a moment, is that the men in the Bible had beards, okay?
Throughout the Old Testament, we see men having beards, Moses, Aaron.
You know, whenever it mentions people that are in the children of Israel, they often have a beard.
There's one mention of shaving, and that's where Joseph shaves his face before he goes before Pharaoh, but that's in Egypt, of course.
And then when we get into the New Testament, we see more beards.
Now, go through to Isaiah, chapter 50, verse 6.
One time somebody challenged me on the fact that Jesus had a beard, because I said, well, of course Jesus had a beard.
And they said, well, you know, prove that for the Bible.
And I said, well, you know, didn't they pluck off his beard from his face?
And somebody challenged me and said, show me that in the Bible.
And I was looking in Matthew, I couldn't find it, I looked in Mark, I couldn't find it, I looked in Luke and John, and I'm like, I know it's in there, but I just couldn't find it.
Well, it turns out it's in a prophetic passage from Isaiah.
It's predicting that this is going to happen to Jesus.
It says in verse 6 of Isaiah 50, I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.
I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
So this is talking about how Jesus Christ willingly endured all of the humiliation leading up to the cross, the beating, the spitting, the whipping on his back, and the hair being plucked from the cheeks of his face.
So this is where we get the biblical idea of Christ's beard being plucked from his face.
So obviously, in order for the beard to be plucked from his face, he had a beard.
Now here's why I want to make an issue of this, is because there are independent Baptists out there who have this weird idea that we shouldn't have beards as men.
And in fact, I went to a Bible college, Hiles Anderson College, you weren't allowed to have a beard there.
None of the staff was allowed to have a beard. None of the students were allowed to have a beard.
You had to be clean shaven every single day.
And this is just crazy in light of the fact that Jesus and all the prophets and all the apostles had beards.
How can you be against beards when Christ had a beard?
So Jesus Christ wouldn't be allowed to preach in your pulpit.
Moses and Aaron and any of the apostles wouldn't be allowed to preach in your pulpit because you have some weird 1950s view of hairstyle and facial hair.
And it doesn't make any sense.
Now there's another extreme out there that says you have to have a beard.
You know, so there are the people out there who say, no beard.
And look, I've gone to other independent Baptist churches where they said you can't preach behind the pulpit unless you're clean shaven.
That was pretty common back in the 80s and 90s. You had to be totally clean shaven.
Who's seen that or heard of that in a church where you had to be clean shaven?
I mean, it's madness. It's nonsense.
Okay, but then there's another extreme out there that says, hey, if you don't have a beard, then you're not right with God.
Who's heard of that one before?
You know, and they try to say that you have to have a beard.
Now I think both of these are wrong.
There's no commandment in the Bible telling you that you have to have a beard.
There's certainly no commandment telling you not to have a beard.
That would be ridiculous since pretty much everybody in the Bible that's a man had a beard and you only see somebody shaving in Egypt.
But the reason why I think it's silly to say that men have to have a beard is that, number one, you're adding to the Bible because there's no commandment like that.
But then, number two, the other reason is that there are a lot of nationalities where they can't even grow a beard.
You know, it's easy for us to say they can grow a beard.
Yeah, you gotta have a beard.
But there are a lot of nationalities, people especially in Asia or Native Americans, where they can't even grow a beard.
One time I saw this guy in Arizona.
He was from one of the Indian tribes, and I don't remember which one.
But I was out soul-winning one time, and I kid you not, this guy had like 11 hairs coming out of his face.
And each one of them was like six inches long.
I've never seen anything like it in my life.
Now that guy needs to shave.
Alright, because he literally, he just had like a hair, and then like a hair, and a hair.
He literally had like, you could count them, probably on two hands, you could count the hairs on this guy's face.
And he was just letting them grow.
It was like a cat whisker, but it wasn't even symmetrical.
It was just kind of one here, one here, one here.
They were just kind of random, and they were literally like at least six inches long.
So that guy is real bold with his trendsetting facial hair.
But a lot of guys, when they grow to grow a full beard, they'll just have something sparse,
maybe just a little goatee comes in, maybe just a little mustache, or something that's so spotty
that it just makes more sense to just shave it off and not have it.
So I'm not one of these that says, hey, you need to have a beard.
I don't think it matters.
You know, you could be clean-shaven, you could have a beard.
It's not an issue.
It's nothing that the Bible cares about as far as right and wrong morality.
So if at your job you're supposed to be clean-shaven or whatever, then you just shave it.
I mean, I shaved when I went to Hyles Anderson.
I shaved for years.
I had a beard when I first got married, but then I shaved for a long time.
And then I've had a beard now for the last eight years.
And I'm never going to go back to being clean-shaven, but to each his own.
It doesn't really matter.
It's not a big deal.
But it's super weird when people say that you shouldn't have a beard,
and they have that rule in Baptist church.
I mean, it's bizarre.
It's beyond strange.
And these Bible colleges, you know, they'd be smart to bring in beards,
because they got all these bunch of just sisified skinny jeans guys coming out of Bible college.
They're so watered down, maybe a beard might help a little bit, you know,
at least distinguish between the men and the women in these Bible colleges.
So, you know, somebody needs to take a look at that rule book and revise that thing.
Now, at this time, in this country, though, apparently not having a beard looked strange,
because of the fact that he says, hey, don't come back until your beard's grown.
Because he didn't want them to be embarrassed showing up clean-shaven,
and then they'd probably have to, or maybe it's just because then they'd have to tell the story of what happened.
But either way, they stayed and let their beards grow in Jericho and then returned.
Now, where's Jericho?
Well, if you remember, when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River on dry ground,
remember how God parted the waters of the Jordan River?
When they crossed over, what was the first battle that they fought?
Jericho was the first battle.
So Jericho is right near the border of where the children of Ammon are and where the Israelites are.
So basically, they would cross the Jordan River into friendly territory, into the land of Israel,
and then just wait there at the edge in Jericho before coming home to Jerusalem and let their beards grow back.
Look at verse 6.
And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David,
Hanan and the children of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver to hire them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia
and out of Syria, Mayakah, and out of Zobah.
Now, we talked earlier about unnecessary wars, right, and just preemptive wars, preemptive strikes,
getting involved in wars that we don't need to be involved in.
And what do we see here when the Ammonites get involved in this war for no reason is that it costs a lot of money.
The first thing we see is, oh, they got to send a thousand talents of silver to their allies.
Well, guess what? When we get involved in wars, that costs us a lot of money, too.
And that's one of the reasons why our country is trillions and trillions of dollars in debt
because the warfare spending, and they like to call it defense spending,
but they're using the word defense very loosely.
It's warfare spending, and it's through the roof.
And so that's where a lot of our tax dollars go.
It's just toward all these wars all over the world that we're involved in.
And so it costs a lot of money to hire out the Syrians.
Now, the Syrians are a much more powerful nation than the Ammonites.
So they're bringing in some heavy artillery by bringing in the Syrians to fight against Israel.
So the Bible says in verse 7, they hired thirty in two thousand chariots,
and the king of Medica and his people, who came and pitched before Medabah,
and the children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities and came to battle.
And when David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the hosts of the mighty men,
and the children of Ammon came out and put the battle in array before the gate of the city,
and the kings that were come were by themselves in the field.
Now, when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind,
he chose out of all the choice of Israel and put them in array against the Syrians.
And the rest of the people he delivered under the hand of Abishai, his brother,
and they set themselves in array against the children of Ammon.
So the Syrians are coming at him, the Ammonites are coming at him,
and so they're between two fires.
They've got the battle before and behind, and this is the worst position to be in as an army.
You know, you want to just be fighting on one front, but they've got this two-front war that they have to do.
So they end up dividing the troops, and they put all the best troops with Joab against the Syrians.
Why? Because the Syrians are the ones with the thirty-two thousand chariots.
They're the stronger military power.
And then just everybody else, all the B-grade soldiers,
they get to go with Abishai against the Ammonites, which is a weaker enemy.
So they divide up, and in verse 12 he said,
If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me.
But if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will help thee.
I always think of this when we go soul-winning in apartment complexes,
like, hey, if we finish our building first, you know, we'll come help you, or vice versa.
Because we don't fight in these type of physical battles,
but we're fighting a spiritual battle, not to destroy men's lives, but to save men's lives.
So it says in verse 13,
Be of good cheer, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people and for the cities of our God,
and let the Lord do that which is good in His sight.
And that's just a great way to live your life right there.
You know, you behave yourself valiantly, you do what's right, you serve God, you obey Him,
you stand up for what's right, and then, you know what, let the Lord do as seemeth Him good.
You know, this is sort of like where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they stood up to Nebuchadnezzar,
and they said, our God will deliver us from the fiery furnace, but if He doesn't, we're still not going to bow down.
You know, we're going to do what's right, and we're going to let the chips fall where they may.
We're going to do what's right, and let the Lord do as seemeth good in His sight.
Let Him do what's good in His sight.
That's how we live our lives.
We can't worry too much about the outcome.
Well, if I do this, then this is going to happen.
All we need to decide is, what does God want me to do?
What's the right thing to do?
What is the obedient thing to do in regard to God's commandments?
And we do it, and you know what, at that point, whatever happens, happens.
At that point, we're in God's hands.
Once we've done everything we could, once we've had courage, and behaved ourselves valiantly,
and done what's right, and stood up for the things of God,
all we can do is just let God deal with the outcome.
So then it says in verse 14,
So Joab and the people that were with him drew nigh before the Syrians under the battle, and they fled before him.
So again, Joab and Abishai, they put their faith in the Lord.
God's on their side.
They were in the right here.
The enemy had picked a fight with them for no reason.
It's a totally defensive war, and so God blesses them, and they win the battle.
And the enemy flees before them.
This great military power, the Syrians, flee before them.
Obviously, that's God blessing them.
Verse 15,
And when the children of Ammon saw that the Syrians were fled, they likewise fled before Abishai his brother, and entered into the city.
Then Joab came to Jerusalem.
So basically, the Ammonites are a much weaker force.
So when they see the Syrians running away, they're thinking to themselves,
They're thinking to themselves,
Well, look, if the Syrians are running away, we don't stand a chance.
We're out of here.
So then they end up fleeing and running away.
Verse 16,
And when the Syrians saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they sent messengers and drew forth the Syrians that were beyond the river.
And Shofak, the captain of the host of Hadarizah, went before them.
And it was told David, and he gathered all Israel and passed over Jordan and came upon them and set the battle in array against them.
So basically, the Syrians, they don't want to just roll over and die.
I mean, they're a military power, and they think they can still win.
So even though they fled before Joab, they end up getting more allies and rallying more troops from other regions to try to make another stand, to try to strike back against Israel.
So David sees them doing this, and he says,
Alright, I'm taking the battle to them.
You know, they want round two? Let's go.
So then he crosses the Jordan River into their turf, and the Bible says that he set the battle in array against them halfway through verse 17.
So when David had put the battle in array against the Syrians, they fought with him, but the Syrians fled before Israel.
So he defeats them again.
And David slew of the Syrians 7,000 men which fought in chariots and 40,000 footmen and killed Shofak, the captain of the host.
So I mean, the Syrians just get wiped out bad.
They have just tens of thousands of casualties, and even their top general, the captain of their host, Shofak, he ends up getting killed.
So it's just a completely humiliating, demoralizing defeat for the Syrians.
Verse 19.
And when the servants of Hadarizah saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they made peace with David and became his servants.
Neither would the Syrians help the children of Ammon anymore.
So Hadarizah, the king of Zobah, is not as powerful as the Syrians.
So when the Syrians lose the battle, they basically retreat to their homeland, and then they just make a truce with David to where there's just going to be peace.
Like, we're in Syria, you're in Israel, war's over, you win, we're at peace with you.
Whereas Hadarizah, the king of Zobah, that's another smaller nation similar to the nation of Ammon.
So basically, not only do they get defeated and sent back home, but also they end up having to pay tribute or taxes to David.
They end up becoming David's servants and having to pay tribute unto him and give gifts unto David because they lost the battle.
So it says when the servants of Hadarizah saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they made peace with David and became his servants.
Meaning they're going to pay tribute or pay taxes to the Israelites.
And then it says, neither would the Syrians help the children of Ammon anymore because they've repeatedly helped the children of Ammon and they keep getting defeated.
They keep losing.
So they finally learned their lesson, don't get involved.
Don't get involved in this fight.
You're going to lose.
Just let the children of Ammon fight their own battles.
And so that's what we see in this chapter.
So the bottom line in a nutshell with this chapter is that we should be for peace as David was.
And try to get along with people, be nice to people, the best of our ability, that are our natural allies, that there's no reason to get in a fight with our neighbors, co-workers, people at church.
Try to live at peace with all men if at all possible.
Sometimes it's not possible.
But when it is possible.
And then if you do end up getting in a fight because someone just picks a fight with you for no reason, you know what, God can protect you from that.
And all throughout the Bible we see when the children of Israel do right in the sight of the Lord and when they're serving God and keeping his commandments, God gives them peace.
He causes the enemies around them to fear them.
And when they do have to go to battle against the enemies, he causes them to win.
And it's when they turn to Baal and Asheroth and false gods that the enemies end up coming in and wiping them out and punishing them.
So if we want to be safe in America, if we want to have a strong national defense, you know, the strongest thing we could do is to honor the Lord and be a righteous nation because then we have God protecting us.
And look, I'm all for having a military and having a defense and having the weapons and the soldiers.
You know, the Bible says the horse is prepared against the day of battle but safety is of the Lord.
So at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how strong our military is, if we are unrighteous in the sight of God, if God looks down at us and sees that we're unholy or ungodly or worshiping other gods, then we're not going to be safe.
Whereas, no matter how powerful the enemy is, if God's on our side, if Christ is for us, who can be against us?
So what we ought to strive for more than anything else is God being pleased with us.
We want to be in His good graces.
We want Him to look at us as righteous so that He will protect us because that's more powerful than any alarm system in your house or any watchdog or any CCTV system or any military.
Or you say, oh, I've got all these guns and I've got menacing signs on my yard.
Look, I'm for it, but at the end of the day, God's going to be the one who has to protect you at the end of the day.
I'd rather be completely unarmed and know God's protecting me than to be armed and to think God's displeased with me, God's angry with me, God's not on my side.
But, of course, the Bible teaches it's best to do both.
You take precautions, you take normal steps to protect yourself, but then after that you just say, you know what, let the Lord do as seemeth Him good.
At the end of the day, God is our protector.
So our nation today, I don't believe is in God's good graces, and so our nation can't rely on God to protect it.
That's why they have to spend so many hundreds of billions of dollars and have military bases in 150 countries and everything like that.
Because we're scared today. Why? Because we know God's angry.
And eventually God's going to cloud up and rain on us.
And so because deep down, we know that's true, we have to be just super paranoid and preemptively strike.
That's the shift from the Monroe Doctrine to the Bush Doctrine.
It is a shift in our nation's morality down the toilet, where now, you know, yeah, I guess we better watch out for ourselves because God's not going to do it.
But I still believe that God can protect us personally, those of us that have our trust in the Lord.
But as a nation, it's not looking good.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word.
And thank you for these Old Testament stories that illustrate so many important truths about nations, about our lives personally, about what it means to get along with people or to put our faith and trust in you, your protection.
Lord, just please help us to first and foremost walk with you, study your word, keep your commandments, love you with our heart, mind and soul so that we can be safe and protected, Lord.
And help us to try to get along with people when we can.
In Jesus' name we pray.