“The Power of the Sword”
Romans 13:1-7
1. There’s a massive debate taking place in our
world today; It’s over the War in
2. Nations have lined up on two sides; on one
side are those who support the action
of Coalition forces and on the other side are those who oppose it.
3. We watched the debate play out over a couple
weeks in the United Nations Security Council and in the streets of cities all over the world.
a. protestors against the war
filled the streets in
b. what got far less press was
the large showing of those who held counter-rallies, showing their support, not
so much of war, but of the effort to disarm Saddam Hussein and dislodge him
from power.
4. Once hostilities began this last Wednesday,
protestors in
5. When the news media covers these protests, it
makes it appear as though there’s a large portion of the public which opposes
the war, maybe even the majority.
6. The casual observer might draw the conclusion
that the government and the people are at odds – but this is not the case upon
closer examination.
7. According to polls taken consistently
throughout this crisis, about 70% of the American public supports this action
against Hussein, 20% oppose it, and the other 10% are undecided, feeling they
lack enough information to make a determination, or – just don’t care![1]
8. The question before us this morning is this –
WHY?
a. what’s the basis for support or opposition of the
War?
b. this morning, all of us find
ourselves in one of those three categories: support, opposition, or undecided.
c. as Christians, we need to
make sure that we don’t draw our position from political arguments.
d. as the people of God who are
citizens of the
e. and God’s Word has some clear
guidance as it relates to the just use of force.
1. My aim for today is to lay out a clear
understanding of what the Bible says about the Use of Force and when War is justified.
2. That’s a tall order. Many books have been written on this subject
over the years.
a. seminaries offer courses on
the Doctrine of Just War
b. the great minds of Church
history have all weighed in on this subject: Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas &
Calvin all wrote extensively on it.
3. This subject could easily occupy us for
several weeks.
4. So, this morning we face the challenge of
culling all the salient points into one succinct sermon.
5. We begin with Romans 13 –
1Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 6For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 7Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
1. It’s vital we understand this in it’s historical context.
2. When Paul wrote this, the governing authority
was
a. and even though
b. still Paul recognized the
basic, God-ordained role of civil government and called on Christians to honor
and submit to it.
1Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
3. Paul is saying that civil government is ordained by God.
a. He appoints the office of rulers
over others because there’s a need
for it.
b. that need arises because of
the Fall, because of sin.
c. without an authority
structure, the sinfulness of man, manifested in his selfishness will result in constant conflict.
d. civil government enables
fallen man to live with a measure of peace and order because his sinfulness is
checked by that structure of
authority.
4. While some men, because of their sinfulness,
will rebel against the God-ordained
authority of civil government, Paul says we
are to submit to it!
2Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
5. Paul equates rebellion and a refusal to
submit to the authority of civil rulers as nothing less than opposition to God Himself!
6. He says this precisely because civil rulers,
in their posture toward the people they rule, are representatives of God, of
His authority!
a. oh that those who hold office
would realize this – that one day they will stand before God to give account for how they have
executed their office and used the
authority God gave them!
b. what we as the ruled need to
understand is that our response to
their exercise of authority is really a response to God.
7. Let me use an example:
a. in the home, God has ordained
that a mother and father stand as His
representatives in the lives of their children.
b. a child learns obedience and owes
respect to his/her parents because of the way God has ordered (ordained) that
relationship!
c. now – parents aren’t perfect,
they make mistakes and at times misuse
their authority.
d. that doesn’t change the fact
that the children are to continue in a heart
attitude and posture of subjection to their parents.
e. God will correct the erring
parent; the child’s abiding duty is
reverent submission and respect for mom & dad.
8. That’s what Paul is saying here. It’s the duty of those ruled to be subject to
the God-ordained authority of civil rulers.
9. Next, he lays out the proper scope and focus
of civil rulers; He shows what their God-given authority is for.
3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4For he is God’s minister [servant] to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
10. This confirms what I said earlier – that civil
government is necessary because of
the Fall!
a. God ordains civil government
to endorse and support morality while suppressing evil.
b. the authority, meaning the
right function, of civil rulers is the promotion
of what is good and the restraint of
evil.
c. but authority is empty if it
isn’t backed up with force!
d. and that’s why Paul speaks
here of the sword – the sword is the
power that gives weight and substance to authority.
11. Authority refers to legal right. Force speak of ability to do.
a. authority without force is
empty / force without authority is unlawful.
b. a police officer carries a
badge & a gun
1) the badge represents authority – he/she is a duly authorized agent of the civil
government, charged with the task of restraining evil, exactly as Paul says
here.
2) the gun is power--force and makes the authority of the badge
something tangible and effective.
3) put the gun in a criminal’s hand and you have unauthorized force, you have evil.
4) without the gun, the police office is impotent and their authority
is ineffectual.
12. Paul is clear here; God gives civil government both authority and the power to back it
up.
13. The proper
use of authority and force is the promotion of good and the restraint of
evil.
14. Twice in verses 3 & 4 he refers to civil
rulers and their agents as God’s ministers; servants!
a. we think of ministers as
those in a clerical robes -
b. those who hold office in the
church; pastors & priests
c. or even the members of the
body of Christ as Paul says in Eph. 4
15. Civil rulers and their agents are no less the servants of God precisely because their authority is derived by the God’s appointment!
5Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.
16. Paul says that as God’s people, who are
ultimately submitted to Him, we must recognize & honor the expressions of
His authority.
17. We aren’t to submit to civil government merely out of a desire to avoid
punishment at their hands, but out of respect for God Himself!
18. A general
attitude of submission to civil rulers is an expression of submission to
God Himself.
19. The obverse is also true: A general attitude of
hostility and rebellion toward civil rule is an expression of opposition to
God.
20. Now, someone will immediately raise the
objection; What about those civil rulers, those governments which hate God and
place unrighteous demands on people?
a. a great question! And all I
can do is point to the example our brothers & sisters who have lived under
and endured such times.
b. not long after Paul wrote
this to the Church at
c. they were rounded up and
brought before the crowds for execution in the Coliseum.
d. throughout this campaign, the
Christians were faced with the challenge of renouncing Christ or facing the
lions.
e. they could not obey Caesar, because to do so would have been to disobey
God, whose commands are higher than the commands of man.
f. but here’s what’s crucial to
observe – those early Christian martyrs’ radical submission to God manifested itself in a meek and humble
respect for their executioners.
g. the martyrs weren’t defiant,
hostile, and mean-spirited. They went to
their deaths with a joyous expectation of seeing Christ, knowing that the
testimony of their submission to God found it’s most obvious & brilliant
expression as they walked out to face the wild beasts.
h. history tells us the quiet
humility and dignity with which the martyrs faced death, coupled with the love
and respect they showed their executioners resulted in many of their enemies,
and the very men who were charged with their execution becoming Christians!
i. the blood of the martyrs was
the seed of the church.
6For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 7Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
21. These last verses are crucial because Paul
makes it clear that Christians not only owe a debt of submission and respect for civil rulers, they owe them support!
a. taxes are one of the ways we
honor and affirm the God-ordained role of civil government.
b. our duty is to render what is
due to whom it is due.
c. how they use it, is between them and God and they will have to give
account for it.
1. I want to focus on Paul’s reference to the sword in v. 4.
2. He sees the proper or just use of the
sword as being the restraint and punishment of evil
4For he [the civil ruler or his agent] is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
3. Some people see all use of force as evil but such is not the case.
4. Because we live in a fallen world, with evil
men, force is necessary to restrain
them and when they perpetrate evil,
to punish them.
5. We know God
will spiritually judge individuals
for the evil they do in eternity.
6. What we need to understand is that the Bible
is quite clear He also judges evil in the here & now through human agents.
a. we can think of some stories
in scripture that give proof to this.
b. God judged the wicked
Ammorites through the nation of
c. God judged
d. when the Babylonians grew
wicked, he judged them by the Persians, and on and on it goes.
e. why, there were even moments
when God intervened directly and bypassed
the human agent altogether to show His divine wrath – the Flood & Sodom
& Gomorrah are proverbial as
demonstrations of God’s anger at unchecked sin.
7. The closing of the Red Sea on the armies of
Egypt, the campaigns of the Judges, all these show that God is not adverse to
the use of force when it’s used to a just
end.
8. Standing on the shore of the Red Sea,
watching as the bodies of the Egyptians washed up on the banks, Moses and the
children of Israel sang this song
[Exodus 15:1-3]
1 “I will sing to the Lord, For He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!
2 The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.
3 The Lord is a man of war; The Lord is His name.
9. Even in the Millennium we read that though
the Lord will rule visibly on Earth,
evil will still occasionally manifest
itself, and He will punish it swiftly with a rod of iron!
10. It won’t be until the New Heavens and Earth
when evil is finally and forever banished that the use of force will be
unnecessary.
12. In Luke 3, we read how when the people came out
to be baptized by John the Baptist, some soldiers came out as well.
a. John was telling the people how to get ready for the Messiah Who
would soon come.
b. in v. 14 we read –
14Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, “And what shall we do?” So he said to them, “Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.”
c. note that John didn’t tell
them to quit soldiering!
1) if being a soldier was immoral, then certainly that’s what he would
have told them,
2) just as Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no
more.
3) but John didn’t give them such direction.
4) rather, he told them to fulfill their occupation as soldiers honorably and within the scope of it’s
authority;
5) not misusing the power they possessed to their own selfish ends,
6) but with an eye to a justice that’s aimed at love of their fellow
man.
13. Justice & love are not mutually exclusive.
14. In fact, In Romans 13 Paul links the two when he says that civil rulers are ordained by God to
promote good while restraining evil.
a. justice is not an end in itself; true justice always
looks for the establishing of a state of love.
b. therefore justice doesn’t JUST restrain or punish evil –
it does so BECAUSE it’s
motivated by love for one’s fellow.
c. bare justice, unmodified by love, can be brutal and cruel.
d. justice in the cause and pursuit of love seeks to restrain evil so that
peace and goodness can prevail.
1. Based on what Paul say in Romans 13 and how
we see God using force in the cause of justice in the Scriptures, theologians
have given this list of qualifications for the Just Use of Force – or what is known
as the Doctrine of Just War
2. There are 7 qualifications; A Just War must .
. .
1- Have just cause /
It can only be waged as a last resort.
All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be
justified.
2 - Be declared by a proper authority / Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or
groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society
and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
3 - Possess right intention / It can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered; the only
permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
4 - Have a reasonable chance of success / Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally
justifiable.
5 – Have as its ultimate goal the re-establish peace / The peace established after the war must
be preferable to the peace that would
have prevailed if the war had not
been fought.
6 – Be waged with means
proportional to the end / States are prohibited from using force not
necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered and
re-establishing a preferable peace.
7 - Use weapons and methods
which discriminate between combatants and non-combatants / Civilians are
never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid
killing non-combatants. The deaths of
civilians are justified only if they
are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military-political target.
3. I encourage you to take this list, and use it
as the filter to analyze the War in
4. Some who oppose the use of force do so on the
basis of Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount not to retaliate.
a. he said if someone strikes
you on the cheek, you ought to turn the other also.
b. how do we square that with
what Paul says in Romans 13?
c. Jesus was speaking about personal relationships and the exacting
of personal vengeance –
d. He was not speaking about the
duty of the civil government in protecting its people.
5. But what Jesus said about this bears on the way soldiers carry out their legitimate
function – they need to see themselves and go about their duties as agents of
God; seeking true justice and not merely personal
vendetta.
1. Let me ask you a question this morning: Would
you feel safe if there were no Police
in
a. what I mean is, if nothing changed in terms of world
conditions – nothing at all,
b. just remove all of the police
and law enforcement departments of all the cities and county; would you feel
safe?
2. Why?
Because of the presence of evil!
a. we know if the police were
taken out of the picture, crime would skyrocket
b. even travel on the streets
would quickly turn dangerous as people ignored the traffic laws.
3. Okay – tell me; if a policeman saw a criminal
in the act of committing a crime, what do we expect him to do about it – drive
on, or stop and restrain the crook?
4. One of the big complaints during the LA riots
was that the police retreated and didn’t do their job.
a. businesses and homes burned -
stores lost millions of dollars in goods to looting.
c. evil was unrestrained because
the civil rulers and their agents didn’t do their job.
5. What’s true of police on the local level – now expand to the world stage.
a. the military are our national police,
b. charged with the task of
protecting us from crooks and criminals who happen to be presidents and
premiers -
c. and who use the resources of their nations to do evil.
6. A strong and capable military acts as a restraint to evil.
7. And when the evil attack us, then it’s the
solemn duty of the civil rulers to use the power of the sword to punish that
evil.
1. The question that confronts us as the People
of God who don’t draw our opinions from the arguments that are bandied back and
forth among men and women but from the Counsel of God’s Word, is whether or not
the action in
2. As I said a moment ago, look at the War
through the filter of the 7 qualifications of a Just War to decide that.
3. There are some who will jump to the immediate
conclusion that the action in
4. At first glance, such a position seems to
have merit – but not on closer examination.
5. You see, the action is
6. The War in
1. It’s taken the American people a long time to
wake up to the fact that we’re at war.
2. In fact, judging by the anti-war protests,
there’s a lot of people who still don’t get it.
3. Militant Islam declared jihad, war! on the United States a long time ago.
a. looking back, we realize now
we ought to have seen 9/11 coming.
1) there was the bombing of the Marine barracks in
2) there was the bombing on the US Troops barracks in
3) in 1998 two US embassies in
4) there was the attack on the USS Cole in 2000
5) 8 years BEFORE the 9/11 attacks on the
b. the forces of militant Islam
believe they have a mandate from God to conquer the World and force it’s
conversion to Islam through any and every means possible.
c. they believe that any means are justified by their ends;
including deceit, violence and terror.
d. they divide the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb; The House of Islam and the House of War
e. guess which house the
4. We did not declare war on them – they
declared war on us and we’d better wake up to the fact before it’s too late.
5. There’s abundant evidence Saddam Hussein has
allied himself with militant Islam in its War on the
6. In light of that evidence, the action in
7. Because we live in a fallen world, War is sometimes a necessity and can be used to affect a good and just end.
a. war gave
b. war saved the
c. war kept Hitler from killing
the rest of
d. and perhaps now it will be
necessary to keep mass murder at bay.
1. As Christians, we must be careful that we
don’t get sucked into one side or another of the political debate over War.
2. We mustn’t let party affiliations like Republican or Democrat determine our view.
3. Support of the President ought not be based
on whether we like him or not.
4. Our first calling is as the People of Christ.
a. we serve a King before a president.
b. our citizenship is in Heaven
before any earthly nation.
c. in fact, our allegiance to
God makes us the best possible citizens here on Earth.
5. We do not blindly or chauvinistically support
any man or political agenda.
6. Our cause is Justice bound by a passionate
pursuit of Love.
7. Our task, our duty, as it says in 1 Tim. 2,
is to pray for those in authority, where ever they are.
a. to pray that they would be
faithful to their God-ordained duty to be agents of justice.
b. to pray for peace, and the
most just route to it!
8. No matter how good the World may be doing –
it is ever the role of the Church to stand as a prophetic voice calling the
world to an even greater degree of
righteousness.
9. And that means, within the
Church – we must endeavor to be a place of just love and righteousness.
1. In Hab. 1:15-17,
the prophet tells how once the Babylonians are used by God to judge
2. That arrogance is centered in their superior military might and technology of war.
3. They are likened to fishermen who worship their “net” because it’s caught a lot of fish.
4. The Babylonians “worship” their technology, and so will be judged because they fail to recognize they can only prosper because of God!
5. This message today is not a piece of “Pro-American” propaganda; it’s an attempt at try9ign to look at the current crisis through Biblical principles.
6. Could it be – that
the War in
a. as He looks at the nations, does the arrogance of our nation, manifest in the repeated comments about our military superiority, stink in His nostrils even more than the sins of Saddam’s regime?
b. could we be playing Goliath to his David?
7. We must keep perspective and pray earnestly that our cause is both just and executed with a humility that looks to the Lord!
8. May the words of Proverbs 24:24-25 guides us -
He who says to the wicked, “You are righteous,” Him the people will curse; Nations will abhor him. But those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, And a good blessing will come upon them.
End with having all military, loved ones and close friends stand and pray for them, the President and Congress and specially those military officers directing the battle.