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Quote The point I make is that it is unwise to make new moral laws for ourselves and others.
The idea of refusing to take part in military service is a couple thousand years old. The early Christians refused to engage in warefare. So it is not a “new moral law.”
The Christian idea that refusing military involvement is older than the apostasized so called “Christian” concept of slaughtering someone because they are of another country. “My country is always right,” has always been the standard for war. The Catholic Bishop on this side is with this country. The Catholic Archbishop on the other side is with his country. And God is with neither. His Kingdom is “no part of the world.”Quote We are not lawmakers ….God is the Lawmaker, Then we should look to His words to see whether we should take up the sword, and not rely on worldly popular opinion. Right?
Jehovah God decreed that Israel should make war to rid the Promised Land of the depraved Canaanites. (Leviticus 18:1, 24-28; Deuteronomy 20:16-18) Just as God had punished evildoers by means of a deluge in Noah’s day and fire in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, so he wielded the nation of Israel as his sword of execution.—Genesis 6:12, 17; 19:13, 24, 25.
According to the Bible, Israel fought other battles under God’s direction, usually to repel unprovoked enemy threats. When the nation obeyed Jehovah, the wars it fought ended favorably. (Exodus 34:24; 2 Samuel 5:17-25) But disaster usually resulted when Israel dared to do battle contrary to divine counsel. Consider the case of King Jeroboam. Ignoring a direct prophetic warning, he dispatched his huge army in civil war against Judah. When the mayhem finally ended, 500,000 of Jeroboam’s soldiers were dead. (2 Chronicles 13:12-18) Even faithful King Josiah once picked a battle that was not his. The rash decision cost him his life.—2 Chronicles 35:20-24.
What do these events show? That in ancient Israel, the decision to make war rested with God. (Deuteronomy 32:35, 43) He had his people fight for specific purposes. However, these purposes were long ago accomplished. Furthermore, Jehovah foretold that those who serve him “in the final part of the days” would “beat their swords into plowshares” and not “learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:2-4) Clearly, Biblical wars do not justify modern-day conflicts, none of which are fought under God’s direction or at his command.
Hi david,
This matter is of the world. It is a political decision not to take part in the defence of your country, not a spiritual one.Nick, would you ever kill your spiritual brother? (if the government sends you to war to kill) [1 John 4:20,21]
The World Book Encyclopedia says that 55 million people were killed in World War II. They were killed by people of every major religion, but not by Jehovah's Witnesses.
Someone, annoyed with our refusal to go to war, once stated: 'You Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to fight. What if everyone were like you?'
And then…after a moment, it hit her. What if everyone … didn't go to war?
I realize that as long as this wicked world under Satan's control lasts, men will go to war and kill. But Christians are to be separate and distinct and different from this world. They are to be “peaceable.”
: “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.” (John 13:34, 35)
Quote Hi david,
This matter is of the world. It is a political decision not to take part in the defence of your country, not a spiritual one.Really?
I thought we were to pray to God incessantly, about every aspect of our life. Would not the decision to go to war and take the life of one of God's creatures be something that merits God's thinking on matters?
God's Word contains councel on everything Nick.Hi david,
But not on the matter at hand it seems. You have applied spiritual restrictions to behavior in the world. Are you trying to save the world? Is that our role?Quote Hi david,
But not on the matter at hand it seems. You have applied spiritual restrictions to behavior in the world. Are you trying to save the world? Is that our role?Nick, why do you often accuse me of things that seem to apply to you?
In what way is being neutral and not taking part in wars “trying to save the world?”
Hi david,
If what you do is not based on scriptural teaching, such as your refusal to be involved in any way in the defence of your country, then you do not have the written apprioval of God for that decision. You are on your own and making decisions apart from Jesus. Thus it is of politics, not the Spirit.My kingdom is no part of this world
You are to be no part of this world
Satan is the ruler of this world
Satan is misleading the entire inhabited earth. The whole world is lying in his power.
The Early Christians were no part of the world–didn't get involved in politics, hold office, become soldiers, or vote.
Perhaps they didn't do these things because they looked to God's kingdom and not the kingdom of men, as their hope.
Quote Nick, I know you're not part of a religion that's banned in several countries, and so perhaps are having difficulty with this. But if God says: “Preach the good news,” and the governement says: “You may not preach,” whom would you listen to Nick? Who? Just wondering?
Quote Nick, would you ever kill your spiritual brother? (if the government sends you to war to kill) [1 John 4:20,21] Just wondering?
So Nick, you have it right.
The early Christians had it wrong.
And Jehovah's Witnesses have it wrong.Noting an interesting parallel, lecturer in church history Geoffrey F. Nuttall once commented:
“The early Christian attitude to war was more like that of the people who call themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses than it is comfortable for us to suppose.”Quote Hi david,
If If If. Now is hard enough without all the ifs men imagine.Things change quickly Nick. If you don't know what you'd do now, how do you expect to know then? Perhaps you should figure out what is right and wrong now, so that later, when it does come, you are ready.
Quote And when Daniels friends were to follow the law made and bow down to the image, did they?
Think of Daniel in the lion's pit.
Or when king ahaseurus made the decree that all the Jews were to die, was that God's will Nick?Any comments?
“The earliest Christians did not serve in the armed forces,” states an article in The Christian Century magazine. It explains that until the decade of 170-180 C.E., there is no evidence whatever that Christians served in the army.
The article then adds: “Only gradually did Christians abandon their opposition to military service.”The editor of Holocaust Educational Digest noted: “No Jehovah’s Witness will ever go to war. . . . If everyone in the world in position of power had been of this faith, [World War II] would never have happened.”
Hi david,
Who decides whether God has or has not spoken through the God appointed ruling authorities?No Christian can war against another Christian—it would be like a man fighting himself.
“The children of God and the children of the Devil are evident by this fact: Everyone who does not carry on righteousness does not originate with God, neither does he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should have love for one another; not like Cain, who originated with the wicked one and slaughtered his brother.”—1 John 3:10-12.
So if one Christian (so-called) in one land goes to war with another land and slaughters his fellow Christian, his brother, what does that make him?
Who is he really a child of? What does the scripture say?
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