This sermon by Elam Peachy addresses the complex relationship between Christianity and war, emphasizing a return to the teachings of Jesus regarding peace and non-resistance. Elam shares personal experiences and historical references to highlight how certain interpretations of Christianity have diverged from Christ’s original messages, particularly concerning violence and conflict. He advocates for a Christ-centered understanding of faith that prioritizes love, peace, and obedience to Jesus’ teachings over worldly ideologies.
Key Points: – Elam emphasizes the need to explore the teachings of Jesus on war and peace. – The discussion includes modern examples of Christians compromising Jesus’ teachings regarding violence. – He highlights historical events where Christians have misused their faith to justify warfare. – Elam urges the church to learn from history and embrace a consistent commitment to Christ’s teachings. – The importance of peaceful living and active involvement in good works, even amidst conflict, is reinforced.
Scripture References: – Matthew 28:18-20 – Matthew 5:9, 43-48 – John 18:36 – Matthew 26:52-53 – John 16:2 – Jude 1:3 – 2 Thessalonians 2:15 – 2 Corinthians 10:3 – Hebrews 12:14 – James 3:17-18 – Romans 12:17-21
Welcome, glad to have you here. This morning we have Elam Peachy. He is one of the admins for Hope for Wandering Amish, and he will be sharing on war, Christianity, and how that all has played out over time and how it should be affecting us or how we should be involved or not involved in it. I’m not sure exactly what all there’s going to be, but I’m looking forward to hearing the message, Elam. Let’s have a short prayer, and then the time will be yours, Elam.
Heavenly Father, we pause before you this morning. We thank you for your Son, Jesus. We thank you for this opportunity to discuss things about you, what your will is for us as your followers, especially how it relates to fighting and war. We just pray that you would help us as we continue navigating through the many questions. We pray that you would bless Elam, that he could share in a way that we could understand and that it would be a blessing to your kingdom, to your honor and glory. Pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Yeah, well, good morning, everyone. Yeah, I’m happy to have the opportunity to share this topic here this morning. I would say it’s been coming and in the making for many years, the topic that I’ll be sharing here this morning. Years ago, I used to be involved with going to college campuses, witnessing and doing stuff like that. And over and over, I would encounter college students that would ask me the question or bring up the subject of war, be like, how are you any different than the Muslims? You know, the Muslims, you had all blow up buildings, or the radical Muslims anyway. And, yeah, Christians have committed these terrible crimes over the years, slaughtering hundreds and thousands of people. How are you any different than these people? Or, yeah, anyway, I had a hard time knowing how to answer the questions. Obviously, I would be like, um, I don’t think my Anabaptists did that, but obviously if you go far enough back in your genealogy, I think most of us go back to the Catholics. So I think it’s a subject that we can’t just turn a blind eye to. I think in a way we have to accept that this is part of, if you want to call it, Christian history.
So the title that I gave for this morning is Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus on the subject of War. So here’s a little overview of what I’ll plan on sharing. A few examples of our modern Christianity. I’ll look at the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. How did the early Christians respond to the teachings of Jesus? I’ll look at the time when the teachings of Jesus were explained away. The Reformation and Anabaptists. The American Christian empire.
Here we have Sam and the worldly Christian. Sam is an Old Order Amish friend of mine. And Keith is the worldly Christian. Keith is part of a small house church that was planted in the middle of an Amish community with the purpose of evangelizing the Amish. So what Keith and his church people would do, they would do business with the Amish. The hopes were, doing business with the Amish, they would be able to create friendships with the Amish. Through those friendships, they were hoping they could evangelize the Amish. Through evangelizing the Amish, their hopes would be to make converts to their house church that they had, or still have in the middle of the Amish community.
So one day Keith ended up at Sam’s place of work and did business with Sam. And then he started evangelizing Sam. And Sam told Keith, he said, I could never be part of your church. And Keith’s question was, why not Sam? And Sam explained to him that he’s involved in politics. He supports going to war and that directly defies the teachings of Jesus. Therefore, he could never be part of his church. Well, I feel like Keith said to Sam, well, would you come to my house? I’ll invite some of my church people over, and we’ll have a discussion on this. Then Sam said, Is it all right if I invite some of my friends too? And Keith gave him permission. So Sam called me, asking me if I would come. And I agreed to it.
So several weeks later, I ended up at Keith’s house. Sam had brought a few other older Amish along and brought an elderly man with him from a Brethren church. And then Keith had a number of his house church people there. Now we ended up in Keith’s living room, and the elderly Brethren man, he was a fairly old man actually, had an old Bible. As he opened his Bible, it was full of notes and a worn Bible. You could tell he was using this Bible for many years. And he had a fairly loud voice. I think he was kind of hard of hearing. And he started preaching to Keith and his church people, explaining the teachings of Jesus to him. And anytime he would ask them questions, they would turn to Romans chapter 13 and tell the elderly Brethren man that we need to submit to our governing authorities. If there’s a draft to go to war, we need to obey and we need to go to war. And they kept bringing up the question, I mean, you have all this religious freedom. It wasn’t free; somebody paid for it. And then the elderly Brethren man would turn back to the teachings of Jesus. We can’t compromise on the teachings of Christ. And they would go back to Romans 13, we need to commit to the governing, submit to the governing authorities.
Anyway, so eventually I heard one of the men say to one of the other ones, Hey, we have enough guns around here and we could create our own army. And they kind of chuckled about it. And I was thinking, okay, I have a question for them. So I asked them the question, if there was a law passed in Pennsylvania that you couldn’t own guns anymore, and if they would come for your guns, would you submit and turn over your guns? They would be like, Yeah, they can have our guns, but they would have to take the bullets first. And then they laughed again, which I didn’t think that was very funny, thinking, okay, we’re Christian people. How does that blend with the teachings of Jesus? Or how does that blend with the teachings of Christ?
Anyway, I said then one of the other men, I guess he saw that I didn’t think it was very funny. And he said, Well, here’s the thing. We have a lot of guns, like we have our registered guns, and then we have other guns that aren’t registered. So, yeah, they don’t know about the other ones. So we just give them the guns that are registered. And that would be it. That gave me a lot to think about later on. The next couple of weeks, I was thinking about this. I could hardly get over, you know, totally neglecting the teachings of Jesus in such an open way. And, yeah, it’s like, wow, this is so far removed from the teachings of Christ.
So my question this morning is, what would Sam gain by accepting Keith’s message? So here we have churches with flags in them. So thousands of Christians in the United States are used to going to church on Sunday morning and seeing flags in the church sanctuary. They may never wonder why flags in the church. Normally, there will be a Christian flag on the right and an American flag on the left. So no doubt Keith and his buddies grew up in a church something like this, where you go to church and you see the flags and all the patriotic things. So there’s a whole worldview. There’s a whole Christian or a blend. It’s not a Christian worldview, but it’s a secular worldview that a lot of Christians in our Western culture have adapted to.
Then here’s another thing that maybe Keith and his buddies grew up seeing at church. A ceremony on Veterans Day in the church where you would have a soldier maybe getting up, having a message, and then you’d have patriotic music playing and soldiers marching through the church sanctuary and doing their thing. So that’s all part of our Western church culture.
What is your response to all this? Response to all this. Is this what Jesus intended for normal church life? 4 billion followers. Christians make up the majority of the population in 157 countries and territories. Hitler’s army was made up of more than 90% professing Christians. The U.S. army during World War II considered themselves Christians. What would our world history look like if the church as a whole would teach and obey the gospel of the kingdom?
So… Now we get to the teachings of Jesus. Why don’t we see what Jesus taught? So in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of age. Amen.
So we have Jesus giving the Great Commission to his disciples, telling them to go to the older world, you know, making these disciples and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. So what are those things that Jesus taught on the subject of war? So in Matthew 5, 9, we have blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
In Matthew 5, 43, 48, you have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet your brother only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your father in heaven is perfect.
Then John 18, 36, Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.
Matthew 26, 52 through 53, But Jesus said to him, Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide me with more than 12 legions of angels?
John 16, 2, Then they will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. And here’s the thing, if you think about Hitler’s army, somehow, those 90%, more than 90% professing Christians that were part of Hitler’s army, somehow were able to justify fighting in Hitler’s army and thinking they’re somehow doing God a service. And I’m sure in the United States Army, there’s 90 some percent of Christians in the United States Army also somehow were able to justify, like, hey, we’re doing God a service here. We’re stopping these communists.
So my encouragement for all of us here this morning and those who listen to this recording is to read the entire Bible with a Christocentric perspective, having Christ in the center of Bible reading from cover to cover. Well, there’s the Old Testament prophesying of the coming of the Messiah clear into Revelation, having that Christ-centered Bible reading.
And yeah. So now we go to the teachings of the apostles. So we looked at the teachings of Jesus. Now we’ll go to the teachings of the apostles.
So in Jude 1, 3, Beloved, while I was diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to all the saints.
So Jesus is the author of the faith that we’re talking about. 15, Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to traditions which you were taught, whether by a word or by an epistle. So what we’re talking about is a faith that was delivered to us, a faith tradition that’s been passed down. That was Jesus is the author of it. And he told his disciples to make disciples and teach them to observe all things as I’ve commanded you.
So we’re looking at a faith that’s being propelled forward from generation to generation. And so the apostles, they taught the same thing Jesus taught. They were passing this faith on. So Jesus faithfully passed it on to his 12 disciples. And they were commissioned to take it on to the next generation and so on and so forth.
3, again, talking about war here, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, spiritual warfare, not physical warfare.
Hebrews 12:14, pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
James 3:17-18, but the wisdom that is from above, it’s first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Romans 12:17-18, return no one evil for evil. Live peaceably with all men.
Romans 12:21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Yeah, and if any of us want to know how to overcome evil, it’s not with guns. It’s not by force. It’s not by coercion. The way to overcome evil is with good. Good is way more powerful than evil.
2 Corinthians 10:3, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.
Then 2 Timothy 2:1-2, you therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
So again, we have this faith that Timothy is encouraged to be strong in this faith in Christ Jesus and to commit this faith to other faithful men to pass it on to others.
So we looked at what Jesus taught about the subject of war, and we see that the teachings of Jesus were faithfully passed on to the apostles.
What happened after the apostles passed off the scene? So yeah, so have you ever wondered what happened after the apostles passed off the scene? And this is really intriguing to me to see that the faith was passed on faithfully through the New Testament. And so church history is something that is intriguing to me.
So why church history? So we can read in Deuteronomy 6:20-22, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded to you? Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household.
Then in Psalms 78:4, we will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done.
Then in Isaiah 46:9, remember the former things of old, for I am God. There is none else. I am God, and there’s none like me.
So we’re commanded to share with our sons, our sons and daughters of the things of the Lord, the things of the past, share the good things that have happened.
I like the definition of what history is. It’s old news is the definition I’ve heard given. So there’s a lot of people that are ready, there’s a lot of people that when, you know, you hear people say, Have you heard the latest news? They’re like, What? You know, like, there’s people that actually get addicted to news as far as what’s happening in our society and different things constantly chasing for that news. Then, of course, that can, even in more like church communities, that can become a gossip thing also, like, hey, the latest news, you know.
But history is old news. And as we study history, we can see the great things that the Lord has done down through the church ages. Then we can also see the horrible, like as we look at the horrible things that have happened, we’re like, well, how did these horrible things happen? What, you know, we can study that and we can see how ideas have consequences. Like, people get certain ideas in their heads, you know, they want to control a situation where that can turn to violence.
But then we can also see the beauty that can come out of obeying Jesus, obeying his teachings, holding on to that faith that was delivered to us.
Here’s a quick quote from Winston Churchill.
Those that fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. Of course, that has sort of comes maybe from sort of a negative connotation here. We don’t want to repeat those bad things of history, but we want to repeat the good things. And it goes back to following Christ. All right, so my testimony with church history. Studying church history brought a stabilizing effect in my life. Years ago, I was part of a house church, and it was mostly made up of, especially in the earlier years, mostly made up of people from sort of Anabaptist background. But over time, a number of those people would question, you know, things, compromise on subjects that were Bible principles, but they would label them as, you know, Amish or Mennonite, you know, traditions and cast them off. And, you know, when you’re going to church with people like that, it has a way of wearing on you. And then later on in our church, house church journey, it seemed like there was a handful of more Calvinist kind of people that were hanging out with us, some, and kind of pushing their Calvinist teachings. And there was especially this one individual, he was from a different state. He would, he loved to come and spend a weekend with us. And he would be like, oh, this is heaven on earth. And he loved it. But then he would worry about us trying to earn our own salvation because we didn’t believe in Calvinism. He believed in predestination. God just, you know, ordained some people to go to heaven and others to go to hell. You can’t change it. So it’s not works that save us. It’s God who does the, yeah, decides that. Anyway, and he was really into Reformed theology. And he was very hyper. He could quote the Bible faster and better than any of us.
Anyway, so the day came when I got myself the book, The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down by David Bercot. And I’m not a bookworm person, but when I started reading that book, it’s like every page, stuff was just jumping out at me and questions I had, I was getting answers for. And I was up till like 2 o’clock in the morning. I just couldn’t lay that book down. I was so encouraged, you know. And of course, the kingdom that turned the world upside down, it’s another real church history. And I was, you know, finding that the teachings of Jesus are meant for today. And I was finding where people, you know, disregarded them and all that. So I was under the impression that everybody should be reading that book. And then the other one, other thing I got a hold of was Anabaptist History teaching series by Dean Taylor. It was on CD. And I listened to those CDs probably five times. Anyway, I was, I bought more copies of the book and bought more CDs. And I was passing them out to people. I thought, oh, these ex-Amish, if they would only study this church history, you know, that would maybe save them from going worldly. So that’s a little bit of my testimony on church history.
So we go to a little graph here. This can be helpful. So you have Jesus. We looked at his teachings, what he taught. He appointed his disciples and passed the faith to them and commanded the disciples to pass the faith on to other faithful men. And they did that. So on the left there, you have Paul. Looks like he possibly discipled Clement of Rome and also Peter. Some of these things could maybe be debatable, but in Philippians 4:3, we read, And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. And a lot of people think that this Clement that Paul was writing about was Clement of Rome. So Clement of Rome, I have the Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs that you can get it from Scroll Publishing. David Bercot is the editor of it. But in the first couple pages, right inside the cover, he has all these different early church leaders and the time they lived and where they lived. So Clement of Rome, that’s where I got what I’m reading here. So Clement was a bishop at Rome. He died in 99 AD. Then below Peter there in the graph, you have Ignatius of Antioch. He lived from 35 to 107 AD. He was a bishop of the Church of Antioch and a personal disciple of one or more of the apostles. And he was executed in Rome. So he was possibly a disciple of both Peter and John. Then across the screen towards your right, you have Polycarp from 69 to 156 AD, a faithful bishop of the church at Smyrna, a disciple of Apostle John. Apostle John appointed Polycarp over the church at Smyrna. And we can read about that in Revelation 2:8-11. He was arrested and burned at an old age. And then you have Irenaeus from 130 to 200 AD, a bishop at the church at Lyons in modern-day France.
So anyway, that can be interesting. You can find these graphs online. There’s more of them. So, the early church, Christians until about 325 AD across the known world in different cultures and languages, upheld the teachings of Jesus on the subject of war. When explaining to others about Christianity, they would always use Jesus’ teachings. So, what I’m saying here is that the early church had a Christocentric view of their Christian life. It was centered around Christ. If Christ taught it, it was meant to be obeyed. And you can see that when explaining to other people, like, hey, what’s a Christian? Well, they would use the teachings of Jesus.
So, I have some quotes here from the early church. So, the first one I have here is, We who formerly murdered one another now refrain from making war even upon our own enemies. That’s Justin Martyr from 100 to 165 AD. One from Irenaeus here, The new covenant that brings back peace and the law that gives life have gone forth over the earth. As the prophet said, for out of Zion will go forth the law and a word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will rebuke many people. They will break down their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks, and they will no longer learn to fight. These people, in other words, Christians, formed their swords and war lances into plowshares, that is, into instruments used for peaceful purposes. So now, they were unaccustomed to fighting. When they are struck, they also offer the other cheek. Then Cyprian, Christians do not attack their assailant in return, for it is unlawful for the innocent to kill even the guilty. And I have one from Origen here, Our prayers defeat all demons who stir up war. Those demons also lead people to violate their oaths and to disturb the peace. Accordingly, in this way, we are much more helpful to the king than those who go into the field to fight for them. And we do take our part in public affairs when we join self-denying exercises to our meditations, which teach us to despise pleasures and not to be led away by them. So none fight better for the king than we do. Indeed, we do not fight under him even if he demands it. Yet we fight on his behalf, forming a special army, an army of godliness, by offering our prayers to God.
So obviously, you can see that Irenaeus, he died in 255 AD. You can see that people obviously in the early church upheld what Jesus taught about war. Our religion commands us to love even our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, Tertullian. We who formerly murdered one another now refrain from making war even upon our own enemies, Justin Martyr. An enemy must be aided so that he may not continue as an enemy, for by help good feeling is compacted and an enemy dissolved, Clement of Alexandria.
So we went over some of those early church writings and now we head on into 325 AD, which I think all people that studied church history understand that there was a change that took place in a major way called the Council of Nicaea, the birth of the Constantine hybrid. So Constantine was the ruler. He was the Roman emperor, probably no doubt the most powerful man on the face of the earth. He started grooming the church leaders, which brought a huge paradigm shift. And then the Council of Nicaea was a meeting of the Roman emperor with the church leaders. So what you have happening now, and I’m going to say the church is weak, like at this point. If you study church history, you know, you can see where mostly, it was mostly made up of poor people and stuff. Then by the time you start coming out in the 300s, you have more wealthy people that are becoming part of the church, even possibly people that are in government, maybe government positions and stuff. So there’s definitely compromises taking place.
And you have the blending of the two kingdoms. You have Christ’s teachings being compromised. You have morals and lifestyle of Old Testament being revived, like using examples of times of war in the Old Testament and using that to justify using force and coercion on people in the New Testament in our Christian life now. So this is definitely a sad time. Constantine came to the Council of Nicaea to help resolve church squabbles and issues that they were having over doctrine. So Constantine’s purpose was to help, excuse me, to help them work through those struggles. And, you know, what does a worldly man, what’s his answer? His answer is force, right? So he started helping the church. He started using force on people that didn’t agree with the councils and stuff. So it’s a really, really sad time in the church. I think it’s probably the biggest loss and maybe the biggest paradigm shift in the entire church history.
All right, so my next slide here is Satan tempting Jesus.
So in Matthew 4:8-9, Again, the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Then he said to him, "All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me."
Does that sound like Constantine grooming the church, tempting the church? I think there’s a huge comparison here, a lot of things we could run parallels together. So Satan is telling, showing Jesus the glory, the wealth of the kingdoms of this world and telling Jesus, "If you only fall down and worship me, you can have all this. You don’t need to be suffering anymore, Jesus. You’re out here fasting and they’re going to crucify you, but I can protect you from all the suffering that you’re facing." And I like to picture Jesus just looks the other way. And same with Constantine. The church had 300 years of being persecuted and tortured. And then all of a sudden you have the most powerful man on earth kind of grooming those bishops and becoming their buddies. And so what happened then is the persecuted became the persecutors. And aren’t you very, very thankful Jesus didn’t fall for this temptation? I am so very thankful. And how many times did Jesus tempt, or how many times are we tempted by Satan with wealth and power and things of this world? So we need to stay on guard, brothers.
So you have Augustine here. He was born after the Constantine hybrid, Constantine’s shift. He was born 354 to 430 AD. And a lot of theologians look at Constantine as the greatest saint or one of the greatest saints ever. And I don’t know, I think all of us would disagree with that if we know anything about Constantine or Augustine. Augustine created a powerful theological system of lasting influence. He helped to lay the foundation for most of the medieval and modern Christian thought as we know it today.
So I have a quote here from Augustine. Augustine said that the teachings of Jesus were no different from those of the Old Testament.
"What is evil about war? Is it the death of some who will soon die anyway, that others may live in peaceable subjection? This is a mere cowardice, cowardly dislike, not any religious feeling. The real evils of war are love for violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, the lust of power and the like. It may be supposed that God could not authorize warfare because in latter times it was said by the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘I say unto you, resist not evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’"
Howard’s answer is that what is required here is not an outwardly, it’s not a bodily action, but an inward disposition. So there we have Augustine totally explaining away Jesus’ teachings and saying Jesus actually didn’t mean what he said, you know, so it’s just turning. Yeah, and obviously, there are still a lot of Christians. I’m sure of it. There’s still lots and lots of Christians in the time of Augustine that believed in obeying the teachings of Jesus. When I read church history, I can just imagine there’s probably a lot of poor people that are just surviving.
Feeding our families that don’t have time to write and that are, I’m sure, lots and lots of them that are living for Jesus, even though the main church is becoming powerful and rich and doing a lot of writings and those writings got preserved. But yeah, it’s just exciting to think of how many Christians down through the ages faithfully followed Jesus.
So other kingdom Christians. So these are just some names that it would be interesting to study more. So we have John Chrysostom, 345–407 AD. He died in exile. He didn’t agree with the Constantinian hybrid and he got persecuted. Patrick of Ireland, 402–491 AD. David Bressot wrote a beautiful book called *Let Me Die in Ireland*, the story of Patrick. Very, very inspiring. I highly recommend it. And Peter Waldo, 1140–1217. He was a wealthy man that left his wealth to follow Jesus. A lot of people, of course, Waldensians are named after him. Then Francis of Assisi, again, a wealthy young man that left all his wealth to follow Jesus. So there’s a lot of faithful followers of Christ down through history. Thankfully, we know about some of them, but others we don’t.
So meet the reformers. And I want to say up front that I’m not sharing this to be controversial in any way. The reason I’m sharing this is because I have a burden for the church and I don’t want the church or Christians or people that call themselves Christians to keep repeating the same dumb mistakes down through the ages, down through the years. So as long as we keep believing what Augustine wrote, as long as we keep believing what these reformers wrote and they become our role models of life, we’ll continue those crazy mistakes and keep repeating bad history. We don’t want to keep repeating that bad history, do we? I look forward to hearing what you have to say here at the end of my talk here in our Q&A.
So let’s have a quote here from Martin Luther.
Here then, there is no time for sleeping and he’s a man of war. So Martin Luther is not a man of peace. He’s a man of war. So he’s writing about war here. Here then, there is no time for sleeping, no place for mercy. It is a time of the sword, not the day of grace. Any peasant who is killed is lost in body and soul and is eternally to devils. But the rulers have a good conscience and a just cause. They can therefore say to God with all assurance of heart, Behold, my God, you have appointed me a prince of war. Of this I have no doubt. You have committed to me the sword over the evil doers. Therefore, I will punish and smite as long as my heart beats. You will judge and make things right. Thus, it may be that one who killed while fighting on the ruler’s side may be a true martyr in the eyes of God. Strange times these, when a prince can win heaven with bloodshed better than other men with prayer. Stab, smite, slay whatever you can. If you die in doing it, well done. A more blessed death can never be yours than Martin Luther.
So then that’s on the left of the screen is Martin Luther’s and on the right is John Calvin. And again, not a man of peace and a man of war. Michael Servetus. I got to get his name right. Michael Servetus was a scientist in Spain. He was very famous in his day for a lot of new developments and stuff. There’s a lot of information available on Michael Servetus. But John Calvin and he started writing these letters back and forth. And because John Calvin was famous, Michael Servetus was famous. And so Michael Servetus traveled through Geneva and then wanted to go to John Calvin’s church. So one Sunday morning, he went to John Calvin’s church to hear John Calvin preach. Well, guess what? They recognized him or John Calvin. I think it was John Calvin who recognized him and had him arrested.
And so I’ll read about his trial here. At his trial, Michael Servetus was denied the right to have an attorney. The authorities charged him with 40 articles of heresy. Most of these articles concerned the Trinity, but others concerned the fact that he denied infant baptism and taught little children are sinless until they come of age. The criminal indictment also charged Servetus with making insulting remarks about Calvin’s theology. The judge would not allow Servetus to explain or defend any of these things he had written. And what did they do with Michael Servetus? They took him out in the town square and they burned him with green wood, a slow and agonizing death.
So there’s a lot more that could be said about reformers. I’m really, I’ve got to keep going here. So Zwingli, and there’s a picture of the statue of Zwingli there in the center with a Bible and a sword. How does that blend with the teachings of Jesus? And from what I read, that same sword that they have on his statue is the same sword that he was killed with. He was out fighting the Catholics. And then all three of these men killed Anabaptists too. Zwingli was so frightened by the power of the movement, the Anabaptist movement, that he complained that the struggle with the Catholic party was child’s play compared to the conflict with the Anabaptists. So a lot more could be said there.
Then the Reformation, okay, what did the Reformation accomplish is my question here. You know, what did it gain? The reformers like the Catholics put very little emphasis on righteous living. The reformers did nothing to further the kingdom teaching of Jesus. The reformers, like the Catholics, embraced the Constantine hybrid, blending of the church and state. For both Catholics and reformers, the state did their dirty work, protecting them, protecting what they thought was the true faith, demanding obedience with force, using sword and fire. And I think this would have been a horrible time to live during this time. It was the Catholics fighting the reformers and the Catholics fighting back and forth. At times, the reformers would take a city from the Catholics, and then everybody would have to convert to reformers. And the Catholics would fight back again and take the city back, and everybody had to… So it’s like, wherever you lived, whoever was in power, that’s where you had to go to church at. And it’s very far from anything Christ taught. It didn’t resemble anything what Jesus taught.
So we have the radical reformation, the Anabaptists. This is a very bright part of church history. So the Anabaptists believe in adult baptism, separation of church and state, the necessity of holy living, taking Jesus’ teaching seriously, passionate missionaries. I mean, of course, the reformers and Catholics were all too busy fighting and killing each other than doing any kind of mission work, and everybody had to be forced to be part of their church if they ruled a certain city in a certain area.
Then restoring the historic church, that’s Anabaptists, and a simple, obedient faith. Very beautiful. I have a couple of quotes from the early Anabaptists here. Felix Manz, here’s a quote. God wills that we keep his commandments and ceremonies as he commanded us to. Then a quote from Conrad Grebel. For the doctrine and precepts of the Lord are given in order to be fulfilled and put into practice. Another quote from Conrad Grebel. True Christians use neither a worldly sword nor engage in war. Since among them, taking human life has ceased entirely, we are no longer under the old covenant. The gospel and those who accept it are not to be protected with the sword. Neither should they thus protect themselves. Conrad Grebel and Peter Riedemann, he was actually an early Hutterite from 1545. I’m assuming that’s when he was born. Yeah, I would say so. Christ, the Prince of Peace, has established his kingdom, that is, the church, and has purchased it by his blood. In his kingdom, all worldly warfare has ended. Therefore, a Christian has no part in war, nor does he wield the sword to execute vengeance.
So we have Mennonites, I’ll quickly read this quote here. They are children of peace who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and know of no war. They render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and under God the things that are God’s. Their sword is the spirit which they wield with a good conscience through the Holy Ghost. Our weapons are not weapons with which cities and countries are desolated, walls and gates broken down, and human bloodshed and torrents like water, but they are weapons with which the spiritual kingdom of the devil is destroyed. Amen. That’s our marching orders, brothers and sisters.
Now we jump to the United States Christian Empire, back to our getting closer to home here now. So I got to kind of keep going here. Time’s actually getting away from me, but you can see some of the points here that can be for future study here. You have the pilgrims, they migrated to Massachusetts and Plymouth, Massachusetts. And if you…
Google, or you can find it in books and stuff too. Actually, can you turn, now let me think, the book David Rousseau wrote, In God We Don’t Trust, it has a lot of these stories in it, actually. So, yeah, you had the pilgrims that landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and you had the Indians who were very kind to them, nurtured them, helped them. But as they expanded and multiplied and built new villages, there’s some horrible things the pilgrims, crimes, I mean, they would consider war crimes of today, things the pilgrims, crimes that pilgrims committed against the Indians. Then also you have the Puritans, I guess there were more, I think they were more in the Connecticut area. A lot of people view them, or just Christians around them view them as great role models to follow. They committed horrible, horrible war crimes against the Indians. That’s stuff you can find. Also, it’s a lot of information available.
And then you have a beautiful spot in history of migration, if you want, if you will. The righteous testament in William Penn, establishing Pennsylvania. There’s a lot of, a lot of beautiful things you can say about that. And then you have the massacre, horrible thing here, massacre of Moravian Christian Indians. That was committed, the crime was committed on March 8th of 1782. Very, very sad. These, I mean, during all the bloodshed and stuff that was happening in the settlement of the colonies here in America, you had people like John Wesley, Charles Wesley. You had Moravians, of course, you had Mennonites, you had Amish, you had people that were people of peace that were, I don’t know, the Amish and Mennonites were necessarily making converts, but you had John Wesley, a horseback rider, preaching the gospel. You had Moravians making converts. And they would convert Indians. And then you had this horrible massacre of Moravian Christian Indians in 1782.
And then you have the very unchristian bomb that blew up Nagasaki, Japan. That was in World War II. Nagasaki, it’s a whole history of the Christians there in Nagasaki, or in the Japanese Christians period. There’s a whole history to them. So Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan. And then people argued the United States was the most Christian nation, and you had the most Christian nation dropping a huge atomic bomb on the most Christian city and just totally blowing it to smithereens. And then you have Billy Graham, and he was definitely not a kingdom Christian. That’s the thing. And we’ll continue these terrible things if we don’t understand and obey the teachings of Christ. You had Billy Graham that was a personal friend to President Nixon. And during the Vietnam War, Vietnam War, yeah, the Vietnam War, I guess it was, where Billy Graham, you can find this stuff available. You can Google it. You know, when Billy Graham urged Nixon to kill one million people, it was, I guess, to my understanding, it was classified information, but it came out to the public where people can read the conversation, or advice Billy Graham gave to President Nixon how to end the Vietnam War. Terrible, terrible stuff.
And again, if we don’t become Christians that embrace the teachings of Jesus, I mean, that’s truly who Christians are. They follow Christ. They obey his teachings. It’s all good, my next slide here. Okay, so here is some sayings of Jesus.
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Matthew 7:24-25 Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded upon a rock.
Matthew 16:24-27 Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to their works.
Now here’s a quote from Leonard Ravenhill. Jesus is either absolute or obsolete. And I’m going to say the way a lot of Christians live in our Western culture, they’re telling us that Jesus is obsolete. But until we embrace that Jesus is absolute, we will continue the same mistakes. Will you commit to the gospel of Jesus? Could we commit together to Christ and his kingdom, embracing a vision of living out our faith in obedience to his teachings and example? A commitment to Christ and his teachings will help bring heaven to earth and will be a light and a testimony to the nations. So I think I’m gonna stop there. I pray that this talk could be a help and yeah, that it could leave some kind of impact and I look forward to what some of you may have to say here this morning. I stand for any corrections, if you want to correct me on anything. I stand for correction. So yeah, God bless and thanks for joining.
Yeah, Elam. That was very inspiring to me. I enjoy history and fully agree with you that if we don’t study history, we don’t know where we came from and then we don’t know where we’re going. I think that has been one of the major downfalls in Christianity. Obviously, a lot of Christians go back to Augustine and his teachings, but they don’t link it all the way back to Jesus because Jesus and Augustine were not, they were almost diametrically opposite, which is kind of, it’s strange when you think about that. So yeah, that was very interesting. God bless you for sharing.
I was reading a book and I was just going to share this. I’m not finished with the book yet. I’m still in the middle of it. It’s a fairly long read, but it’s called Christianity, War, and America’s Salvation Story. And it kind of captures the idea or tries to capture the idea of how America is the world’s salvation, if you will. America is out there to save all of the nations from evil. But then it brings out the atrocities that America has been involved in. I’ll just show it to you. I’m not sure if you can see that very clearly, but that’s the book. It’s written by a Michael E. Lewis. I think he would have been a secular Christian and he’s telling secular Christians to revisit Christ’s teachings on non-resistance, on fighting, on turning the other cheek, I guess. So that’s a very interesting read. But yeah, we’ll open it up here. You can unmute yourself now.
And if someone has questions, comments, inspirations, yeah, feel free to speak in.
Yeah, good morning. Brother Elam, thank you so much for your very inspiring talk here this morning. I’m sure there’s a lot of time and discipline that went into preparation. I want to bless you for it. One of the things you brought out a little bit, and I’ve been thinking about here lately, the temptation and reality of how we can principle away obedience. And it’s a deception. But I think it can happen very easily.
So Augustine said, after talking about, you know, things Jesus taught about peace and all that, then he says, it’s not talking about bodily action, but inward disposition. Wow, that might sound, you know, it might sound good, might sound intriguing, but I’m very sure that when Jesus taught us the words of life, he didn’t just talk about inward disposition. What did he say in the end of the Sermon on the Mount? Those that hear and do are building their life on a rock. The other quote that you said, I don’t know if I ever heard it, but I really was intrigued by it. Jesus is either absolute or obsolete. That’s so true. And if he’s Lord, if he’s Lord at all, we know that he’s absolute. But yet how many, how many just look at him as obsolete and maybe don’t even really know it, but they have been fed a system of beliefs and thoughts that actually make him obsolete and just put him out there somewhere where we don’t have to obey him. This whole subject of non-resistance, not going to war, enemy love, it’s close to my heart and it’s very important that we develop good, sound conviction in time of peace, that when war comes, that we’re in the right place, that we’re not gonna be swept into it. Time of war is a time of… There’s so much lies and confusion, and the way it usually works out is your own side is painted as all good and all right, and the other side is all evil. And then the pull to get involved in the war is tremendous, so we really need good, solid conviction.
And if we don’t live like Jesus is king in time of peace, don’t think that you can all of a sudden be a kingdom Christian in time of war. I have a friend that originally was from Ukraine, and a year or two ago, he was over in Ukraine, out pretty close to the front line, rescuing people, taking food to those that were destitute, hiding out and everything. And they were very close to the battlefront. In fact, sometimes, at least a time or two, there was a bomb set their way, meant to take them out, and God just intervened that they survived. But he said the pull to get involved in war, you know, drop his convictions and get involved, he said it was really, really strong. But praise the Lord, he didn’t give in to it. But we need to realize that the pull is there and it’s strong, and we need to be solid in conviction and not just sit back. You know, some of the bad things that happened in our recent past, in time of war, those that got conscientious objector status, you know, didn’t go to war, and they were around home and just living life up and ripping around the neighborhood. And here the neighbor’s sons were off to war. That left a really, really bad testimony. So let’s be real and let’s not stop at not resisting evil, excuse me, but turning around and doing good and be involved, be very active that way.
Again, thank you very much, Brother Elam. Appreciate it a lot. I hope this talk goes out and a lot of people listen to it. It’s very worthwhile. Yeah. Thanks for that, Brother Ephraim. Yeah, we cannot compromise on the teachings of Christ. Here’s a little quote. Does it take physical force to protect my kingdom? Is my kingdom capable of being destroyed by physical force? Is my kingdom earthly? Is it earthly possessions? And usually when it comes to, you know, getting involved in a fight and stuff, it’s about, well, we don’t, you know, you’re gonna let your freedoms be taken away and all that. We cannot compromise on the teachings of Jesus. We can, let’s compromise on our properties, on our freedoms, if you will call it a compromise, but not on the teachings of Christ. And that quote from Leonard Ravenhill, everybody wants to absolutely be saved by Jesus, but somehow his teachings are obsolete. How can you divorce Jesus from his teachings, is my question.
Yeah, well, good morning, everybody. This topic is very close to my heart. You know, when we, if we strike back somebody, that comes very close to heart. And I think it’s a heart issue when somebody lets himself think that, you know, we can go to war. So I think it’s important that a relationship with Christ is established in our hearts so that we can have and obey the teachings of Christ. So I appreciate the message, Ephraim, very much. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Chris. Yeah, I was just thinking about Elam’s comment, and then yours, yeah, Elam and Ephraim, I guess. I’m thinking about Dean Taylor. I think he’s the one that kind of coined that phrase, how can you follow Jesus without following him? Or how can you, basically, I guess, that’s the way he said it. But yeah, Jesus’ teachings are meant to establish how we should be living. It’s not just a theoretical, hypothetical, internal. So, yeah. Very good. I think we’ll wrap this up. Ephraim, would you mind closing us with a word of prayer? You’re muted. All right, sure, let’s pray.
Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this subject that you have taught us very clearly on. And thank you for all the faithful followers of Jesus that have gone before us and walked the way of peace and lived and preached the gospel of peace. And now here we are. In our day and the need for genuine followers of Jesus to shine the light and be the salt in our generation, the need is so great. Help us to be faithful and true to make Jesus absolute, our King, our Lord, and follow Him day after day. I pray for all those that listen to this this morning and will as time goes on, that you would bless the message and minister to our hearts and make us fruitful to your honor and glory. Bless Brother Elam for sharing this this morning, and we commit all of this to you in the precious and worthy name of Jesus. Amen.
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