Highlight: Christians & Self Defense

Apologia Studios

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So what the comments? Oh, well, there was someone that's been pretty consistently

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Saying that there is no accommodation for violence for violence and that Christ rebuked that and then he was saying that well, he was speaking from a personal experience saying that he rebuked some

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Intruders and they left Yeah good for you So very proud of you so but let me just let's be let's be real here and not let's not be buffoons

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Okay, you live in a fallen world. There are evil people in this world who have evil intentions Okay, and so God's law not our emotions have to be the standard right now, sir

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I would say it sounds like off -the -cuff you're being ruled by your emotions and not scripture because if you set up a standard that says

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That we're not allowed to do violence to another human being under any circumstance then what you're doing is you're making

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God look like a sinner because if your standard of piety is don't do violence ever to Any other human being then you make

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God look like a sinner So again, if I adopt your emotionally laden position that is not based on scripture and I say, okay great

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I'll adopt that to perpetrate violence upon other human beings is actually wrong Always then what

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I would say is again now we go to the Bible and we see What kind of a fallacious suggestion that is because now it looks like God's a sinner because he's telling people in his law that if somebody breaks into your house and You killed them and the process of them coming in to possibly present a mortal threat to you

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You are in fact not guilty That is a just and righteous thing to do or for example when we read the

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Psalms and it says Psalm 144 one blessed be the Lord my rock who trains my hands for war my fingers for battle

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Not the same Standard that you are holding to that's an emotionally laden position that ends up hurting our neighbors

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If you love your neighbor You will perpetrate violence to the point of mortal blows to a person that is seeking to harm other human beings

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So for example, if I had a man come into my house and threatened to rape and murder my family

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It would be a moral indictment upon me if I did nothing to stop him

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So I would say that you sir are following a position that call it emotional

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Don't call it biblical because again if we adopt that pietistic standard that you've created the

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Bible ends up looking like the heroes of the Old Testament and even the new are all

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Sinners and especially God when he's commanding people to actually perpetrate violence upon evil people that God himself is in sin

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So what I would say is number one read your Bible number two stop living based upon your emotions this kind of thinking is

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Destructive to the Christian faith and I will say also if you want to see

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The perpetration of violence upon an image -bearer of God as a just act in the

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New Testament I can give you examples But how about this one in Acts 25 the Apostle Paul is on trial and he actually says this is after the resurrection of Jesus After the ascension of Jesus he says on a train a trial.

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He says if I've done anything worthy of death I don't object to dying. That's the inspired

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Apostle after the resurrection of Jesus Christ New Covenant is fully in force Saying in a trial that if you need to perpetrate violence upon me as a human being to the point of death because I deserve it then

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I don't object to dying so that's the Apostle Paul a fairly reliable witness on that point and Somebody did say in the comments there a moment ago.

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They said what about when Jesus says Those who live by the sword die by the sword. I fairly recently did a whole sermon on this

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I think it's somewhere in our thing here. I'd encourage you to look at it It's Jesus weapons in war and I would really challenge you if you are a

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Christian pacifist or you have those tendencies To go and listen to that message to listen to it with open mind listen to it with an open

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Bible But it's really important that you actually read Jesus in context there and we don't just go quote mining through scripture for pacifist verses

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Because that verse actually comes on the heels of Jesus actually telling the disciples to go buy a sword

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He tells him to go buy a sword and Because he's gonna send them on a mission and they're gonna need a sword now

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I just want to say in those days swords weren't used for cutting butter or for doing laundry the swords were used to Kill people and so Jesus tells his disciples go get a sword and then they find one and go we found one

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He says that's enough now oddly shortly after that Peter then goes to lop somebody's ear off And strike a man who did not present a mortal threat to him also

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Jesus told him this is what I've come to do So when Jesus tells him if you live by the sword, you're gonna die by the sword because that's the punishment of murder

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Capital punishment and so in context Jesus is not saying Christians no longer use swords to defend yourself

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He literally just told them to buy a weapon to defend themselves and they found it and he said it's enough

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That's the one and so by the way Why did Jesus have the sword on him when Malchus comes and gets his ear cut off there in the right after the garden?

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Why did Peter have the sword because Jesus told him to get one? So he has the sword because Jesus told him to get a sword and the sword was used for self -defense for killing

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That's what the sword was used for again. It's not for butter. So Yeah, I just say a couple things when one this person that we're talking about said what about thou shalt not murder

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Yeah, that's what it says it doesn't say thou shalt not kill murder but this This they said

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Christians shouldn't be soldiers unless they are soldiers of God and our sword is the word Makes you want to slam through the

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Person we've been talking I mean, I think this is still a good conversation. Very good. Yeah, that's why we're having it

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But just so you know, the person who is we're speaking to is not listening at all

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And that's right, so well for the other other people for the other listeners who are concerns

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This just goes to show an inability to think in categories It is a major failure of Christians in the 21st century

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West the ability to think in categories You've got a category over here of just war

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Something that is just something that is righteous you get a category over here of just self -defense and then you've got a category over here of the spiritual realm where God uses those categories of actual just warfare and righteousness and soldiers and fighting and all that stuff and he takes those things and he applies them over here to The spiritual realm of being a soldier for Christ and using the

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Word of God because those are two categories Those are two places that you work in but don't forget you don't live just in a spiritual world

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You live in a physical world and you live in a fallen world where there are evil doers who seek to take the lives of others

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You know when you when you think let's say for example You're walking down a dark street and bad area downtown

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One night and you pass by an alleyway dark alleyway trash everywhere and you look down the alleyway and you see a man

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Actually on top of a woman and he's raping her in the alley are you gonna walk up to him and and and say sir,

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I'm a soldier of God and Sir let me give you the Word of God regarding rape.

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What are you gonna do? What's the what's your first responsibility in that moment when you catch a man raping a woman?

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What's your first responsibility? Not to simply say do no violence What what does every man know he has to do you have to do everything you can to protect that woman?

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Who's now being a victim? This guy is a perpetrator of evil and sin and a crime you have to stop him

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Physically now I'm all for preaching the gospel to the guy Once you get him into the into the into the cell preach the gospel to the guy give him the

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Word of God let him Come to Christ, but in that moment your responsibility is to preserve human life And it's her life that counts the most in that moment because he's the evil one

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He's the criminal and so ever tell us to rescue those being led to the slaughter This is just an inability to think in categories and Christians.