A Tribute to Veterans

Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.

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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

Today is November 12th, 2020.

If you're following along in our daily Bible reading today, you're going to be reading from John chapter 18.

If you would like to get a copy of our daily Bible reading list, you can go to our website at sgfcjacks.org, that's Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville.

And you can go to the posts section and you can see our daily Bible reading list for 2020.

Now we are almost done with 2020 and we'll be having a new list up for 2021.

So keep an eye out for that if you're interested in continuing to read along with us daily.

Yesterday was Veterans Day and because I was focused on another subject yesterday, I did not get to do a special Veterans Day podcast.

And so I have decided that I want to do that today, even though it is a day late.

And I want to do it in honor of my father, who is a veteran of the Air Force.

He was in Vietnam.

And of course, I want to do it in honor of my son, who is currently serving in the Air Force.

He is a crew chief on F-16.

He works now at an Air Force base out west, and I'm really proud of him and the work that he is doing.

And so I thought it might be a good opportunity to simply say, I am grateful for the men and women who serve in our armed forces.

I am very grateful, especially for those people who are members of Sovereign Grace Family Church who have served.

Many names and faces come to mind.

And as I think about those men and women who have served, I just want to again say how grateful I am for the work that you have done and the service that you have provided.

I will say this, as a father of an airman, I certainly miss my son and I look forward to all the times that I get to see him, which now are not very frequent.

And I pray for the day that he is closer to me, because right now he's a long way away.

And so my heart goes out to families who have their children or their loved ones, husbands, wives in the military, and they're all around the world and they're unable to see them and talk to them.

And so this is a first experience for us.

We have five children.

Cody is the first one to leave the home.

He's the first one to be out on his own and doing his own thing in his own life.

And as a mother and father, we're very proud of what he's doing.

But again, there is a sacrifice.

He was homeschooled.

He was here with us every day of his life for so many years.

And now not having him around every day is really sad.

We miss our son.

But at the same time, we are very proud of him and proud of the work that he is doing.

Well, I thought on the program today, it might be a good opportunity since we are going to be talking about Veterans Day and we're honoring the veterans.

I thought it might be an opportunity to talk about a subject that often comes up when discussing the subject of the military and particularly Christians serving in the military.

And that is the question of the demand that some make that Christians not be able to serve in the military because of the belief that all Christians must be pacifists.

And there are people who believe that because a person is a follower of Jesus Christ, that he is not able in any way to serve in the armed forces.

And one of the responses that I often give to that is to take people to Luke chapter three.

So if you have your Bible and you would like to turn with me today, go with me to Luke chapter three.

And what we're going to see there is we're going to see John the Baptist speaking to people who came to him when he was baptizing in the River Jordan.

Now if we begin up at the top of chapter three, it says in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iteria, and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of the Lord came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

So this is the ministry of John the Baptist and it says, and he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and then it goes on to quote a passage from Isaiah.

Then in verse seven it says, he said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you God is able to, from these stones to raise up children for Abraham, even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees, every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

And the crowds asked him, what then shall we do? And he answered them, whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.

Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher what shall we do? Okay, so very quickly, these tax collectors are coming to be baptized, which would indicate that they are repentant.

And his answer to them is interesting, it says in verse 13, and he said to them, collect no more money than you are authorized to do.

So he didn't tell the tax collectors that they had to stop being tax collectors, he just said that you need to be an honest tax collector.

Now I'm sure that this would have been to the consternation of people who were listening to him, because a lot of people saw someone as a tax collector as a turncoat, because they were working for Rome, and so especially among the Jewish people, for a person to be a tax collector, it would almost seem like for them to have any real right standing, that they would have to give up being a tax collector.

But John doesn't tell them they have to give up being a tax collector, he simply tells them to be an honest one, collect no more than you are authorized to do.

And in verse 14, we come to the focus of today, and that is when he says, when it says soldiers also asked him, and we can assume this is referring to Roman soldiers, so soldiers also asked him, and we, what shall we do? And he said to them, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.

Alright, here's why I wanted to read this passage.

Some people believe that if you are in the military, that you are violating your fidelity to God, that you're violating your fidelity to Jesus, because to be in the military requires that you exercise force in certain situations.

It's the same as a person who maybe would be a police officer.

Police officers cannot be universal pacifists, because if they're universal pacifists, they won't be able to exercise restraint on a criminal who might be trying to harm another person or harm an officer.

And so a person cannot be a universal pacifist and be a police officer, neither can a person be a universal pacifist and be a soldier.

So people who would say that you have to be a universal pacifist if you're going to be a Christian, well this issue would seem to be at odds with them when we go to verse 14, and when the soldier said, what shall we do? John does not tell them to stop being soldiers.

He doesn't tell them to give up their soldiering.

Instead, he says, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, which is very similar to what he said to the tax collectors when he told them to collect no more money than they were authorized to do.

Basically, don't cheat anyone, don't mistreat anyone, don't falsely accuse anyone.

But then he goes on to say, and be content with your wages.

Now what are the wages? The wages are what they were paid as soldiers.

And so ultimately, John is telling them, continue to be a soldier, but be a soldier who does your soldiering honorably, and be content with what you were paid for the job that you were doing.

And so some people would say, well if you're going to be a Christian, you cannot be a soldier.

I think this passage would argue against that.

I think this passage would say that no, a person can be a righteous soldier so long as they are living out their oath as a soldier in a way that honors God.

And they are living out their commands and doing what they are supposed to do in a way that honors God.

I have met many people, many fine police officers, many fine military men and women who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and who serve in the jobs that they serve in, in a way that is meant to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, even though those people might at times have to use force in the execution of their duties.

So I have spent a lot of time thinking about this over the years, in fact at some point I am probably going to write a book on this subject, because ultimately I do believe in something called benevolent violence.

I believe that violence can have a benevolent use, meaning that it can have a loving purpose if it is used to protect someone.

And so I do believe that God calls men to be warriors, and He calls men to be, as I said, soldiers and police officers, for the purpose of protecting those who cannot necessarily protect themselves, and to bear justice on evildoers.

And that, in a sense, is what the purpose of the military and the purpose of police are for.

They are to exercise the sword, which the Bible says the government bears the sword, and it does not bear the sword for nothing.

So the government exercises that authority through the soldiers, through the police.

And so, again, I think that it is proper to say that a Christian can serve in either one of those roles.

And so, because that is true, I can say on Veterans Day, which was yesterday, I can say I am thankful for those who have put on the uniform, who have stood for the sake of my freedoms and for the freedoms of my fellow countrymen and women, and I can say thank you to those who have served.

And you have not violated the call of God, but many of you are answering the call of God when you go out and serve in these various roles.

So again I say, happy Veterans Day.

And Cody, if you're listening to this episode, Daddy is very proud of you, and I love you son very much.

Thank you again for listening to today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I have been your Calvinist.

May God bless you.

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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior.

He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

May God be with you.