Why? -5

   In Jeremiah 13:22, the prophet declares “If you say in your heart, ‘Why have these things happened to me?...” In this passage, the prophet attempts to address one of the most difficult personal questions of life: Why? In my four previous tidbits I dealt with the question of “Why” on an individual basis.  However, I want to broaden this tidbit to include mankind in general as I look at the ‘Why?’ of war.
   God gives His ‘general’* view of war in James 4:1-2:
1.Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2.You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

James 4:1-2 is a straightforward statement regarding wars between nations! The phrase: “your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” in James 4:1 refers to man’s sin nature. Man’s sin nature is defined as the evil which exists in every human from conception (Ps51:5;Rom5:12).
   For example, David describes the sin nature in Psalms 51:5: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And, Paul also describes it in Romans 7:18-20NAS:
18.For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing…”
19. “…but I practice the very evil that I do not want.”
20. “…but sin which dwells in me.”
So…in general, human wars originate in the sin nature of man!
  However, there is a very important ‘different’ side of war. For example, God describes Himself as a man of war(Gen15:3), which describes the aspect of God’s righteous nature that must respond to man’s sin. In addition, God repeatedly reveals His name as the Lord of Hosts (Ps24:10; Is14:24), which means the ‘God of armies’. Furthermore, in response to their sin, God determined Himself at war with Amalek “from generation to generation”(Ex17:16), which means forever! And finally, the archangel Michael is the angel of war(Jude9; Rev12:7)…all of which means in addition to man’s sin nature, God ‘uses’ war as judgment to bring about His perfect will in the earth to judge man’s sin. In other words, because God is perfect, holy, and righteous, He can ‘use’ evil to bring about good(Gen50:20; Judg14:1-4; Jn11:49-50;Rom8:28).
   On the other hand, and yet another variable is that God deals with Israel just a bit differently from other nations due to His ‘forever calling’ (2Sam7:22-24; Ps106:8,10). For example, God promises to fight for Israel against her enemies, to win their battles(Deut20:4), which God will also do for other nations when their behavior and cause is righteous. However, one difference is that when God judged Israel for sin (for example see the book of Judges; Joshua 7:9-11; Assyria(722BC); and Babylon 586BC) His ‘forever calling’ did not allow Him to completely destroy Israel from the face of the earth, like other nations who sinned against Him; such as Amalek(Ex17:16), and other nations found in Genesis 15:19-21. That is a short overview on how God dealt with war between nations in the Biblical text.
   Although I do not know the reason for all wars, I do believe God has unveiled to me reasons for some wars. In the time and space remaining, I would like to address the reason for a war in America’s past: the War for Independence in 1776, a.k.a. The Revolutionary War.
   In short, God used war to separate Britain from America’s 13 colonies ‘because’ of the calling on America to be a beacon of freedom to the world. From 1776 to this day, the Declaration of Independence serves as one example of God’s call on America to gift and establish freedom—not just in America—but in all nations of the world!! In other words, America’s Declaration of Independence introduced God’s first purpose of government: to secure individual human freedom (rights)---I repeat—not just to America, but to all nations everywhere!!
   However, God’s freedom is not defined as an absolute freedom to choose anything! Why? Remember, man’s sin nature! Founder James Wilson declared, “Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” In addition, Founder Fisher Ames, author of the First Amendment stated: "The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the...ignorant believe to be liberty." In other words, there is no absolute freedom to do anything you want!
    On the contrary, the Founders of this nation defined freedom first as the right to choose the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as its spiritual foundation!!!! Why a freedom to choose God? Because our wise Founders were either Christians or Christianized and fully understood that humans have a sin nature(Rom7:14-21), which means if freedom is without restraint, man’s choices will include the sin nature, i.e.sin--which does not free mankind, but blinds him(Jn1:9;Ps36:9;Lu11:34-36) and enslaves him (John8:34)!! Remember, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”(Pro14:34)
   Furthermore, man’s ‘freedom’ not only requires a choice’ to choose God (Ex20:3; Josh24:15), but to also choose one’s unique calling(2Tim1:9)—which are heads and tails of the same coin. I repeat, God’s freedom, i.e.America’s freedom begins with two choices: 1.To choose God; 2.To choose His unique individual purpose.
   Although there is much evidence for ‘freedom’ as God’s gift to America, allow me 4 examples:
1.The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
   The absolute key to this statement is that the rights of freedom are God-given!! In other words, humans can’t define freedom, nor the rights of freedom—without God!! Why? Because of man’s sin nature!!
    Another example of man’s sin nature is found in Romans 8:3 –“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh(sin nature), God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” Why did God condemn sin in the flesh? Romans 8:7 declares–“Because the carnal mind (the thinking of the sin nature) is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
  Although God gave Adam the freedom to choose from any tree in Eden, He commanded him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—which God sovereignly determined as sin! In other words, freedom to choose sin does not exist!
2.God’s calling upon America for freedom is what inspired Leviticus 25:10 to be impressed on America’s Liberty Bell: “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…”
3.The second President John Adams said, “…it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.”
4.President Abraham Lincoln declared, “The Declaration of Independence gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”
   Notice the word “all” in Lincoln’s statements. Lincoln was speaking ‘prophetically’; expressing the call of God upon America to reveal freedom…to the world!!!!
 
   In conclusion, the War for Independence was not only a war for America to become free from Britain; but that God would use the war to catapult freedom around the world!   
 
*God determines two reasons for war in scripture:
            i.General reason, i.e.the sin nature (Jms4:1,2)
            ii.Specific reason (God’s judgment upon one or both parties
               involved in the war for sin (2Chron12:1-2;1Sam15:1-2)!)
In addition, remember God has two ‘wills’ toward man: 1.Benevolent will(Lu2:14); 2.Judgment will(Eph5:6). Technically, God’s only will is benevolent, however, because He is absolutely just, He must respond to man’s sin, which results in what is called His Judgment will.
 
 
QuoteBit
"Religion and liberty are the meat and drink of the body politic. Withdraw one of them and it dies... without religion we may possibly retain the freedom of savages, but not the freedom of New England... If our religion were gone, our state of society would perish with it and nothing would be left worth defending.”
               -Timothy Dwight, Grandson of Preacher Jonathan Edwards,
                chaplain in the Continental Army