Violence

Today’s chapter divides into three parts. Since the third part actually ties in quite closely with the next chapter I’ll not include it in today’s sermon. Most of the focus of the sermon will be on the first part. This section pictures Jesus as a warrior. My goal help you see your life from different perspective, a helpful perspective.

Listen as I read from Isaiah 63.

As I read this description to you I can’t help but think that one thing that stood out was the violence. We read about blood and trampling down people, wrath and revenge. And the section closes with this. ‘I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.’ There’s no way around it. This is violent.

There have been different responses to the violence of the Old Testament. Some have simply assumed that it was an unfortunate aspect of ancient life, something we’ve grown out of and replaced with the higher virtues of the New Testament: love and kindness and peace. For these, the element of violence is a primitive relic of the past. There are others who know that thinking of the Old Testament as primitive is wrong. They know that it is also the Word of God. But they are still a little embarrassed by the violence that they see there. So, it’s treated like a poor relative who is tolerated but kept at a distance. Neither of these is right.. There is good reason why the theme of violence is a prominent theme in the Old Testament.

Think about the Bible story books that we’ve read to our children. There’s Noah and the Ark. This is a cute story about some guy and a boat. And the boat is colorfully pictured with animals on the deck and a couple of giraffes with their heads sticking up through the roof. And somewhere in the picture is an old guy with a white beard. What is not pictured are all the bloated corpses floating on the water. What the colorful Bible story books forget is that the point of the flood was the death of all those people. Then there’s David and Goliath. The little boy who beat the big bad guy. He was able to do that because of his faith. But look again. What actually happened? David killed someone. And the Bible story books don’t usually include the fact that the stone didn’t kill Goliath. He was killed when David ran him through with his own sword and then cut off his head. Did you know that David took the head home with him? And I’ve yet to see the Bible story book that tells the story of Jael. She was an Israelite woman who took a hammer and drove a tent peg into the head of the enemy of Israel, killing him. That would make an interesting picture in bright primary colors.

Many evangelicals squirm a bit at these details. But like their more liberal neighbors they take some solace in the thought that the New Testament is different. Is it? Consider. Jesus talks about how someone enters the kingdom. He teaches that it is taken violently. Really? Paul writes, ‘For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh…’ Waging war? Weapons? And then, in the last book of the Bible we read about Jesus and how He comes. ‘From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.’ Like our text in Isaiah, John also describes how Jesus’ garments are spattered with blood. And then we read this. ‘Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.”’ And this just makes sense. It’s what happens after a great battle. Many are killed and lie about on the ground. Vultures have a feast. This is in the Bible.

Are you uncomfortable yet? Anyone embarrassed by all this talk of blood and gore? Should you be?

Time to ask a question. What is all this violence about? Why is it here? Why is it such a prominent theme in the Scriptures. The place to find the answer is at the beginning of the book. God speaks to Satan: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’ Enmity. I looked up some synonyms: hostility, hatred, antagonism. It’s war. This is not some unfortunate failure of diplomacy. God put the enmity there. God caused the hostility. By God’s act there is to be antagonism between Jesus and those with Him on the one side, and Satan and those with him on the other. So, Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, and Jael and her hammer, they are all about this enmity, this war. Though Satan started the war, God insists that it continue.

At this point, you might be thinking something like, ‘War? What war? I don’t see any war.’ Let me quote again from Paul. ‘For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction…’ There is a point to all this Old Testament blood and gore. It’s not just dead history. It is intended to instruct you. The Old Testament battles are pictures. They are pictures of New Testament battles, today’s battles. Those ancient battles were very physical. If you had been there you would have seen the clashing armies, smelled the blood and heard the groans of the wounded. Today’s battles are no less real. There is no blood to smell, but there are armies that clash and the pain is just as real, if not more so. So, the Spirit exhorts us to prepare for battle by putting on the whole armor of God. We read about, ‘The weapons of our warfare…’ And at the end of his life Paul is able to say, ‘I have fought the good fight.’ The theme of war is just as real today as it was back in David’s day.

Now what is all the fighting over? Is it about gaining more territory by invading somewhere? Ultimately, yes. But the more immediate focus of today’s battles is your soul. Satan wages war to conquer you and as many others as he can. He clearly succeeded with Judas, remember? ‘Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve.’

Warfare is the theme of the Bible. It’s all about the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It’s Jesus against Satan. And this defines your life. This explains why Jesus is depicted here as a warrior.

Now, listen to this from the second section of our chapter. ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.’ When Satan attacks the people of God, when he attacks you, Jesus also feels it. ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted…’ Isn’t that why He said, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ Jesus feels it. And He responds to the attacks. In the second section of our text Isaiah alludes to the Exodus. Here, Israel was suffering. And they were suffering for centuries. But at the right time, the time of His choosing, Jesus acts. And did He ever! The plagues devastated Egypt. Verse four explains this. ‘For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come.’ Jesus responded. He acted to take revenge on His and our enemies. He also acted to redeem His people. Jesus is a warrior, and He acts for His people, attacking those who attack us.

And that leads us to verse 5. ‘I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me.’ There was no one to help Him in coming to the aid of His people. So, He acted on His own. He fought alone. And He defeated our enemy, alone. And it isn’t some ancient nation that He has defeated. He defeated Satan, and He did that decisively. And He did that alone. This, of course, is a picture of the Cross. The Cross is the climax of the war. Satan was decisively defeated by Jesus at the Cross.

All of that was to explain the text. Now it’s time to apply it, to see what difference it makes in your lives. First, let me speak more generally. Then, I’ll get more specific.

Here’s my first thought. You are in the midst of a war. Not some ‘sorta/kinda war’. You are in a real war. I have not used the label ‘spiritual warfare’ for a reason. That label is about this skirmish that occurs on the fringes of life, something that we can pretty much ignore. Tt won’t bother us, not really. But that’s not a real war. The Bible is about a real war, a war with blood and guts and bloated corpses. To be sure, in one sense it is unseen. Most people don’t get to see Satan or any of his demons. But though it is unseen, that doesn’t mean that it is unreal. The effects of this war are all too evident. Judas betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide. Stephen is murdered in the streets. The thief on the cross is rescued at the very last minute. Jesus is tortured and crucified. It’s a real war with real consequences.

It’s also a subtle war. Its tactics are not at all obvious. Why did Jesus die? There are lots of ways to answer that. But here’s one prominent reason: jealousy. The Jewish leaders were jealous of Jesus. Even Pilate, the Roman governor, could see that. And those leaders solved their problem by having Jesus killed. None of them talked about Satan or enmity or seed of the serpent or any of that. All that Pilate saw was that they were jealous. But behind it all was Satan in all his cunning. He wanted to crush the Son of God so that he could win this war. The Jewish leaders and their jealousy were simply tools in his hands. So, once again: You live on a battlefield. This war isn’t about bullets and bombs. It’s about people’s personal agendas and sins as Satan’s tools to get you. Everyone is in one army or the other. And everyone will end up either as Jesus, victorious and exalted, or as Satan, defeated and crushed.

Next thought: the key to the war is the Cross. That’s where Jesus defeated your enemy. Let me point out a few things here. First, note how Jesus won. There was no hand-to-hand combat. No sly karate moves. Instead, Jesus allowed Himself to be killed. That makes no sense. Who wins a fight by letting the other guy kill him? But it was God’s wise plan. I won’t develop it now, but here is one thing to consider. The way to your victory on the battlefield will include doing things that make no sense. Everyone will tell you that you are crazy. But there are times when Jesus calls us to follow Him by doing what makes no sense. And as you do that you will win another battle.

Here’s another thought. The Cross speaks to how you are to approach fighting this war. Here are two ways not to approach it. There are those who tell themselves that they need to fight because winning their battles against Satan is all up to them. And God forbid that anyone ease up on this. They might lose the war and be conquered forever! They never say these words out loud, but this is what their feelings tell them. And so they are driven and anxious. But this can’t be right. Jesus has already won the war. Satan is already defeated. His fate has already been sealed. Jesus took care of all of this on the Cross. So, Paul can write that ‘we are more than conquerors (but note what’s next) through Him who loved us.’ So, victory is not up to you. Jesus, alone, has already defeated your enemy.

But then there is the opposite extreme where someone tells himself that there is nothing that he needs to do. Jesus has won. Satan is defeated. There is no need to concern ourselves with him. Time to kick back and relax. But that is so very foolish. And so Peter warns us: ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him…’ The language of ‘devour’ is to remind you that the war is real. The language of ‘resist’ is to remind you that there are things for you to do. We relax later, after Jesus returns.

We are not to be lax. There is much for us to do and many battles for us to fight. But we do not fight in order to win the war. Instead, we fight because the war is already won. And we fight by following Jesus. He leads His army, us, and we fight by following Him.

That was speaking more generally. Now let me get a bit more specific. I want you to think about tomorrow. For some of you it’s back to the job. And what will you find? Some of you will return to jobs that are really hard. In some cases it’s hard because of office politics. In other cases it’s because the demands have been ratcheted up which means that the stress is up. There are some jobs where there is such confusion or unrealistic expectations, and it all lands in your lap. And some jobs just stink. And you do your best, telling yourself something that will get you through the day. Have you considered that your job is part of the battlefield? Have you thought that Satan might be using the pride, greed, and selfishness of your co-workers to attack you? Could it be that Satan wants you to feel drained and stretched and on edge? When you are so focused on the issues of the job, you can’t be focused on things like growing your walk with Jesus, nurturing your family or your own flourishing as a person. Your job is part of the battlefield. Your co-workers may know nothing of Satan, life as battlefield or Jesus. They may not think ill about you; they may not think anything about you. But they still can be weapons that Satan can use for your defeat. The seen is important. But the unseen is more important.

Then there are others of you who will start another week of doing this, that and the other thing. All of these are good things. But there is so much. And you feel it. Too often, dinner is something you quickly throw together. There doesn’t seem to be time just to stop and catch your breath. And lots of teachable moments get run over on the way to the next important place you need to get to. And there is always laundry to do. You feel it. You are on a battlefield. Satan will use whatever is at hand to get you. Filling up your life with lots of good things will work. And what is squeezed out are things like a sense of orderliness to life. Chaos does not lend itself to a spirit of peace and calm. It is amazing how good it is just to sit for a bit with a cup of something just to quietly reflect on a verse you just read. And unhurried prayer is precious. It’s like a conversation with a good friend. But Satan will keep you harried, off balance. It works you know. Sometimes less is more.

And last, there are you kids who have sinners for parents. And you’re thinking that some rule or other is just so stupid. Why do they have to be so mean? Why can’t they just let you enjoy your life? Or something like that. Now, I don’t know if the rule is bad – or if it’s good. But I do know that Satan can use your attitude toward your parents to attack you. If your parents and the difficulty their rules cause become a focus in your life, then enjoying Jesus can’t be. Satan will use anything to get you. Maybe your parents are right or maybe they’re wrong. I don’t know. But you need to be careful. You need to work things out with them. And you need to do this because it’s part of following Jesus. And it’s part of fighting the war.

We are in a very dangerous place and, at the same time, in the safest place possible. We all live on a battlefield. Satan is out to get us. It would be a little easier if it were a war with real bullets and bombs. At least then, we’d know when to duck. But we are also in the safest place possible. There is no safer place than walking with Jesus. My goal is not to make you anxious. But it is to scare you. The war is real. Your only hope is Jesus. Work hard at following Him.