We're going to be looking today at an arrangement of chapters 27 through 29 that symbolically shows a trajectory in history that I think is important to understand. But I'm gonna read first of all the military part and then I'll let you be seated. 1 Chronicles 27. And the children of Israel, according to their number, the heads of the fathers' houses, the captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers served the king in every matter of the military divisions. These divisions came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, each division having 24,000. Over the first division for the first month was Jashobim, the son of Zabdiel, and in his division were 24,000. He was of the children of Perez and the chief of all the captains of the army for the first month. Over the division of the second month was Dadai and Ahoyt, and of his division, Mikloth also was the leader. In his division were 24,000. The third captain of the army for the third month was Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, who was chief, and his division were 24,000. This was the Benaiah, who was mighty among the 30 and was over the 30, and his division was Amizabad, his son. The fourth captain for the fourth month was Asahel, the brother of Joab, and Zebediah, his son, after him, and his division were 24,000. The fifth captain for the fifth month was Shamhuth the Israelite, in his division were 24,000. The sixth captain for the sixth month was Ira the son of Ikesh the Techoite, in his division were 24,000. The seventh captain for the seventh month was Heles, the Pelonite of the children of Ephraim, and his division were 24,000. The eighth captain for the eighth month was Sibachai, the Hushethite of the Zarhites, and his division were 24,000. The ninth captain for the ninth month was Abiezar, the Anathothite of the Benjamites, and his division were 24,000. The 10th captain for the 10th month was Maharai, the Netophathite of the Tzarites. In his division were 24,000. The 11th captain for the 11th month was Benaiah, the Pirithonite of the children of Ephraim. In his division were 24,000. The 12th captain for the 12th month was Heldai, the Netophathite of Othniel. In his division were 24,000. Father, we thank you for your word and we want to live by and treasure every part of your word. Give us wisdom. Open the eyes of our understanding as we dig into this passage. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well in my last sermon I gave an overview of chapters 23 through 29 and we covered a huge potpourri of issues. Issues like business administration and management and mathematics and music, and leadership issues, and mentoring issues, and specialization, division of labor, and how laymen, women, and girls can be involved in a church, concealed carry in church, family worship, emergency savings, and there were a few other things. And we saw that there is just a fabulous amount of gems that are hidden in these passages here. And because we covered so much material, I debated whether to make the last sermon, the second to last in our series on the life of David. But as I was reading over these chapters more and praying to the Lord for wisdom on the direction I should be going, I really do feel that there are more issues in at least chapters 27 through 29 that I would like, and I think our congregation does need to hear about. And the issue I want to look at today is the military. Now, I have preached on military issues in the past. For example, I devoted two full sermons critiquing some of the ways in which the American military has drifted away from both Constitution and Bible and the way in which it's structured and how it is functioning. I also gave a sermon that was very positive in terms of the value of the military and I don't intend to repeat what I've said about that in the past, but here is a chapter where God blesses the military with His stamp of approval. And the reason I thought I really should preach on this is because there is a movement, not just in Reformed circles, but across the evangelical church that pretty much disses the military, rejects the authority of the military entirely. And from one point of view, I can kind of understand it. I can sympathize with what they are saying. When a country like ours abuses its powers, when it becomes imperialistic, when it becomes the so-called good cop of the entire world, which it was never intended to be, And in other ways, when it exceeds its biblical and constitutional powers, it's very, very easy for us to throw out the baby with the bathwater and overreact. But we saw last time that all of chapters 23 through 29 was given by inspiration of God. David did not do this numbering and all of these divisions and this Administration all the things we looked at on his own initiative. No, this was something that God Prompted him to do by inspiration. He was a prophet and so these instructions on a godly military I think are instructions that can help us to not overreact in our own day But it also gives us a fascinating glimpse into eschatology, where in the future at some point there will no longer be a need to be militarized. And so it's a wonderful passage, I think, to close off our discussions of the military. And the first point in your outlines deals with God's general attitudes towards war. I'm going to highlight two attitudes that may seem to be in tension with each other. There's the attitude of God who is a warrior. He calls himself a warrior. He commands his armies to go to war and to be valiant. And then there's the attitude of wanting war and armies to eventually disappear from the earth. I mean, he wouldn't even let David build the temple because he was a man of war. So what's with that? Well, we'll look at that a little bit. But those two attitudes of God being a warrior and yet disqualifying David because he fought so many wars, even though they may seem like they are intention, they are not intention at all. They are not in contrast to each other. In fact, I believe that it is absolutely essential for countries to have a strong military defense during the transition period to what is promised in the future in eschatology, and I'll get into that in a bit. Now the first sub-point that I want to address is that God clearly approves of war when there is a godly cause. He is not a pacifist and he does not want us to be pacifists. I don't want us to miss the point that God establishes the divisions of this reserve army. God is the one who guided David the prophet to organize the army and make sure that it was prepared for any emergency And if you remember the life of David, you remember there is a lot of emergencies. It was a good thing they had a reserve army that was prepared. But I want you to flip to a few scriptures that very explicitly say that God approves of war in his law. It's implied here just because God has laid out the military divisions, but it's made explicit in the law. And I want you to turn first of all to Exodus chapter 15, Exodus chapter 15 and verse 13. This is a verse that's part of a long song celebrating the destruction of Pharaoh's entire army. Now granted, it was miraculously destroyed through God's intervention in the Red Sea, but it still is a very appropriate verse to tell us about God's attitudes towards war. Exodus 15 verse three. The Lord, anytime Lord is capital letters, it's Jehovah, right? So it says Jehovah is a man of war. Jehovah is his name. Jehovah is not pictured anywhere in scripture as a pacifist, okay? It would be impossible to read the book of Revelation without realizing God is a warrior. Now he's gentle with his bride in that book, that is very true. But Jesus was a man of war. And by the way, when it says here that Jehovah is a man, that may seem like odd language. Anytime there were visible manifestations of God in the Old Testament, and we call those theophanies, those manifestations of God that they could see something, whether it was a cloud or some other manifestation, most of the times, It is a manifestation of a man when it represents God the Son. And the reason for that is from eternity past, in God's counsels, God had determined to unite God and man through the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so even before the incarnation, when God the Son is manifesting Himself to people, He will do so frequently, not always, but frequently, in the form of a man, some supernatural man. So this passage says Jehovah is a man of war. Very interesting language. See, Jesus was a manly man, not the effeminate man pictured in some of the artwork. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 17. 17 and verse 16. For he said, because Jehovah has sworn Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. And because Jehovah declares war, he insists that Israel declare war. And they did, they fought against Amalek. And there are numerous other wars that God commanded in Exodus through judges. I want you to turn to one more. It's in Joshua, Joshua chapter five, and we will read verses 13 through 15. This verse actually stands as a wonderful rebuke, not only to pacifists, but it's also a rebuke to war hawks who are warring when God does not want them warring. Okay. It's a rebuke in both directions. And I think a lot of Republican wars are rebuked in this passage. Joshua five, beginning at verse 13. Now let me stop there for a bit and point out that commentators say that this was a theophany of God the Son. I probably should define theophany. Theophany is made up of two Greek words, theos, which means God, and phonos, which means a visible manifestation. So a theophany was any time God very visibly manifested Himself to man. Well this was a theophany or a visible manifestation of God the Son. Now that it was God can be seen by three facts and we'll read those in a bit. But the first is that Joshua worshipped this man and the man did not rebuke him. If it had been an angel, he would have been rebuked. Anytime elsewhere you see a man bowing down and wanting to worship the angel, the angel immediately insists, you cannot worship me. You have to worship God alone. It would be blasphemy for an angel to receive worship. But here the worship is welcomed. It's not at all discouraged. Secondly, verse 15 says that this man made the ground holy and necessitated Joshua taking the shoes off of his feet. No angel can make the ground holy, OK? Only God can make the ground holy. Thirdly, in Chapter 6, this being continues to speak, and if you look at Chapter 6, verse 2, it says, and the Lord said to Joshua, and since Lord is all capital letters there, it's Jehovah. Jehovah said to Joshua. So this supernatural being manifested as a man is clearly Jehovah. But the second thing to notice is that God the Son has his sword drawn. He's ready for battle and he draws near to Joshua because God is ready to lead the army into battle. I want you to look at the second half of verse 13. And Joshua went to him and said to him, are you for us or for our adversaries? That's a rather impertinent thing for a captain to say to a general. Okay, God's not there to serve Joshua. Joshua's there to serve God. God is not there to serve armies. The armies are there to serve God. And so God says, no, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, what does my Lord say to his servant? Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take your sandal off your feet for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. And then in chapter six, God the Son gives instructions to Joshua on how the battle should be engaged. Now, if our armies here in the United States of America would bow before God, and would seek to battle only God's battles and seek to engage in those battles according to the principles of God's law, we would be a blessing to the world. rather than being hated by a lot of the world. Now, we'd still be hated by some people, but there would be a blessing that we would bring to the world. The Bible gives a ton of information about godly warfare. We've barely, barely dipped into the subject in this series on David. For example, the Bible gives information on cleanliness and sanitation during warfare. Sexual purity during battles, something that our military has just flagrantly violated in recent years. How to handle the environment, what to do with prisoners, when to negotiate, when not to negotiate, tactics and strategies. I think H.B. Clark does a very, very nice job of summarizing some of the laws in the Pentateuch related to all kinds of military issues. It's a book worth getting from American Vision if it's still in print. But the key thing I want pacifists to take away from this passage is that God not only approves of war, He wants to be the commander of every battle. He wants to be the Lord of the army and we should desire that in our military as well. Our military, I think, would be wonderfully transformed if it would bow its knees before King Jesus. Now if we trace this theme of God approving of war from Genesis to Revelation, there would literally be thousands of verses. Passivists are ignoring huge chunks of the Bible. Now if you turn back to 1 Chronicles chapter 27, I want to give one more hint. In this passage that it's not just God who approves of war. God wants his people to approve of war. Verse one begins by saying and the children of Israel. These were not instructions for a professional army of the United Nations. This was a citizens army and they were to willingly give themselves to battle if God called them to battle. And of course this theme is almost as pervasive as the first sub point. Psalm 58 verse 10. It says that during a righteous battle, saints should be able to rejoice in justice rather than being sickened by it. A lot of people just get sickened when they see, you know, the impacts of war. But let me read that for you. Psalm 58, the righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked so that men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely he is God who judges in the earth. Now that didn't sit too well with a lot of Americans. They're sickened when they see an ISIS sniper being blown off of a roof. Not me. The Bible says, the righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. In other words, he's calling the righteous to say amen to a godly war and to not shirk their responsibilities to defend their families and to defend their homeland. And if you keep reading through the Bible, you will see that though biblical armies were made up of volunteers, it was considered wickedness for able-bodied men to not volunteer when there was a crisis that needed to be faced, that God called them to fight for. God urged people in Numbers 32 verse 7 to not discourage the hearts of the other soldiers by refusing to be a part of the army. In fact, the number is 32 verse 23. It says that pacifism is sin. It is sin. Okay. Let me read that for you. After commanding them to go into battle, he says this, but if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out. Now they couldn't force him to go to war, but he said if you don't do it, you're in sin, quite clear. It's not simply an issue of manliness, it is also an issue of moral responsibility. It's one of the reasons that I preached a tribute to godly warriors of the past based on David's tribute to Jonathan. Now, there can be sin in joining the army, depending on what kind of ungodly causes that the army is engaged in. There can be sin in that direction as well. But we need to understand that failure to fight is sometimes sin. God is at least for some wars. Now, let me hasten to say that even though the Bible makes it a sin for a man to refuse to join a godly military cause, he does not make it a crime. There's a big distinction between sins and crimes. In the former, a person will be culpable before God. In the latter, he would be culpable before the state. In other words, in a biblical state, the civil government cannot force people to join the army. Deborah prophetically rebuked men and rebuked entire tribes for failing to fight in their righteous war, their righteous cause. There were a whole bunch of people didn't join with them. They still won the battle, but they were rebuked. So it was clearly treated as a sin, but it's just as clearly not a crime. And there were other cases where righteous men like David just resigned because he could no longer in good conscience continue to fight. But in a godly cause, God is for it. So that's the first half of the equation of God's attitudes towards war. He is a warrior. He calls manly men to be warriors in defense of their homes, their counties, and their nation. There is nothing intrinsically evil or sinful about militaries or about war. But this chapter hints at a balancing counterpoint that is absolutely critical that we understand. The trajectory of history is towards peace. And God does not consider war to be the ideal. Let me restate that. Even though He is a warrior, even though He calls men to fight in a godly cause, He does not consider war to be an ideal. Even though he's a warrior, he does not consider it to be an ideal. If we only emphasize the first sub-point, we might become Republican hawks. If we only emphasize the second sub-point, we might become pacifists. And I've got two sub-points under the section that says the trajectory of history is towards peace. Now it'll take me a little bit to develop this. But I want you to first of all notice that this chapter was not necessarily a paradigm for Solomon or for times of peace. And the first hint of this is that God gave these prophetic instructions to David during his war years. During his war years. For example, take a look at verse 7. Verse 7 mentions Asahel. When did he die? He died in 2 Samuel chapter 2. He died a long time ago. Also, if you look at verse 33, it mentions Ahithophel as leading the army, but he's long dead as well. And there were some others who had died in the meantime, but they're mentioned to make it clear that these divisions were intended during times of emergency, were not intended during Solomon's reign of peace. In fact, it helps to explain why Solomon later on is rebuked for building a big war machine during time of peace. There was no need for that. So David received these instructions much earlier. And the question comes then, well, why did they insert them into the rest of the chapter, which obviously was occurring right before David's death? Why bring it up here? Well, I believe the Holy Spirit wanted to make a point and hopefully I can develop the point adequately. If you flip over one chapter, chapter 28 and verse three, this is David speaking and he tells his nation, but God said to me, you shall not build a house for my name because you have been a man of war and have shed blood. Now I want to point out that David was not disqualified from building the temple because of illegitimate shedding of blood. Okay, no. His wars were legitimate. They were even commanded by God. They were legitimate wars. He was disqualified from building the temple because he was a man of war and that temple was to foreshadow the reign of peace that Jesus Christ will eventually bring in on planet Earth. So there is an order in these chapters. For example, God had told David, Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around. His name shall be Solomon, for I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days. Now, that's the whole trajectory of chapters 27 through 29. It's moving from warfare to peace. It symbolizes the fact that history is going to eventually be moving from What Matthew 24 talks about is wars and rumors of wars that happened all throughout the Roman Empire in the last days of the Old Covenant, the beginning of the New Covenant. So it's moving from those wars and rumors of wars off into the distant future into a time when there will be worldwide peace. So this is all symbolic. And if you want to flip with me to Isaiah 2, I think this summarizes this trajectory in history so nicely. Isaiah chapter 2. is a fabulous description of worldwide peace. Let me start reading at verse 3. Verse 3 shows that it's not a humanistic peace. Rather Isaiah says this, many people shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord or to Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." So that's the trajectory of history. Eventually, nations, according to the Great Commission, are going to be discipled, right? So that they obey everything that's commanded in the Word of God. They're going to be Christian nations. And there will be no more need to learn war anymore. There will not be naval academies. There will not be any military schools because there won't be a military. Okay. Now it's hard to imagine a scenario like that, but it's going to happen in human history. God is guaranteed it's going to happen. Now, sadly, the United Nations has the second half of verse four on their motto. But because they removed God and His gospel and His law from the equation, it is a ghastly, horrible attempt at peace. It's produced the exact opposite. The United Nations has been a disaster from the start, and it has actually supported most of the demonic agendas that are out there. A few months down the road, it's going to take us a while to get to Revelation 6, but a few months down the road, when we get to Revelation 6, we're going to be seeing that the white horse there represents Rome's Pax Romana, their imposed peace. And there's a lot of the classics who say, this is wonderful. Because Rome is a worldwide empire, we've got peace. This is the thing that we need to be looking forward to. But the way Revelation 6 describes it, it's not that. It's one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse that brings disaster to nations. But the gospel later on, the true horse, the white horse, and the true right rider, the Messiah, not the messianic pretender, he will bring peace where men could not achieve it. So even though I would not call war evil, or even a necessary evil, it is not the ideal. It is a defensive measure that is designed to ward off the demonic attacks of armies. It was designed to protect from outside attacks, not to control inside population. But it's precisely because armies are so routinely used to promote tyranny and statism, that biblical law put so many checks and balances into place. And we've looked already at some of those checks and balances in previous sermons. And this passage illustrates a few as well. So let's look at a few things that had to be in place for this army to have God's blessing. Verse one makes clear that God's intent is not for a professional army, but rather for the training, the ongoing training of an effective reserve army. It starts by saying, and the children of Israel. Okay, that's the population of Israel as a whole, learning how to defend itself. Now, there was a professional army. It was made up of David's militia, plus the Cherethites, plus the Pelophites, but it was extremely small. Okay, only verses 32 through 34 deal with that professional army that was directly under David's control. The army in verses 1 through 24 was a reserve army of citizens. And then the passage makes clear that they served the king by divisions that only lasted one month long. Well, you can't build a professional standing army with that kind of a pattern going on. It made it much tougher for the king to misuse the army. And it was misuse of armies against their own populations that have been such a consistent scourge down through history that to a man, our founding fathers did not want a standing army. Standing navy, yes, because that's used for defense. But standing army could be used for control of the population. So just as one example, Sam Adams, one of our founding fathers, said this. The militia is composed of free citizens. There is therefore no danger of their making use of their power to the destruction of their own rights or suffering others to invade them. Now in contrast, he said this about a standing army. A standing army is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a body distinct from the rest of the citizens. And I'm not going to delve into this too deeply because I've spoken to this on a previous sermon, but the phrase the children of Israel highlights that this was a citizen's army. It was not the king's army. The king's militia was composed, as I said, of 400 to 600 of his own militia, then the Pelophites and the Cherethites. But this army was different. Even though it served the king during war, it also served the citizens and was accountable to them. Throughout Africa, you have the exact opposite. You have armies that are used to control the population and to enrich the king. They have no problem firing on their own population if the president asks them to do them. Oh yeah, without any question, they'll start firing on their own populations. And this is what made our founding fathers so insistent that the army needed to disband within two years of a peace treaty being signed. The Constitution said that the army could only be funded for two years at a time because they were so nervous about the president misusing the army. But I think this biblical provision should have been put into the Constitution. I think this would have been even a better provision during times of national emergency, which can be there, When the militia must be mobilized, have it mobilized in divisions that will last for one month out of a year. Only when there was an actual invasion of the land was that time extended. James Berg said in 1774, a standing army in times of peace is one of the most hurtful and most dangerous of abuses. And my previous sermon on this, I think, showed why, gave the reasons why. There's another thing highlighted in verse 1. Verse 1 hints at the fact that the militia reserve was numbered from the grassroots up, not from the top down. Here's the logic. Verse 1 emphasizes that this army was numbered, quote, according to their number, unquote. Now you wouldn't make too much about that phrase if it wasn't for the fact that verses 23 through 24 emphasize the fact that David's sinful top-down numbering of Israel was thrown out as unconstitutional. All of Joab's work was wasted. They didn't use it. Okay? Because it violated the law by being national, counting males under 20, violating other biblical principles that we've already looked at in 2 Samuel 24, it was not used. It was thrown out. Look at verses 23 through 24. But David did not take the number of those 20 years old and under, because the Lord had said he would multiply Israel like the stars of the heavens. Joab the son of Zeruiah began a census, but he did not finish, for wrath came upon Israel because of the census, nor was the number recorded in the account of the chronicles of King David. So when verse one is tied together with these two verses, it becomes clear that in contrast to the ungodly census, this census was taking numbers from the local level that were voluntarily given to their overseers, that were given to their tribal leaders, that eventually got up to David. Now, I preached a whole sermon on the evils of a national census, so I won't focus on it now, but it does tie in with the next point. Localism was evident in the military on many levels. We've already mentioned the census, but look at the third phrase in verse one. Rather than having a massive army where all local interests are erased, this trained division of the standing militia was organized under the clan heads, which I treat as equivalent to our counties. It speaks there of the heads of the fathers' houses. And as I pointed out before, with the exception of David's immediate militia, the entire army usually fought under their family's standard. That would be equivalent to our county. And each family would fight under their tribe's standard. It was voluntary, of course, because there were people who decided, I don't like fighting for my clan. I'm going to fight for somebody else's clan. Some of them did that with David, and we're going to be seeing evidence of others who fought in other tribal units as well. because it was voluntary but built into God's very law was a decentralization of authority in the military. It was one of the checks and balances that America had all the way up through the war between the states and even beyond it to some degree. Nowadays states have pretty much zero say in any of the modern wars. That was not so in the 1800s. Now the other thing that I notice in this chapter is that the captains of thousands and hundreds and all of the other officers that are listed in this chapter earned their place in the military's leadership. They did not get into their place based on seniority or whom they knew or even some politically correct idea of fairness. Every leader mentioned in verses 2 through 34 earned their rank by manly valor by discipline, ability to fight, ability to inspire, ability to lead their people. You didn't have fat generals who were there by presidential appointment or something like that. No way. They earned it. 2 Samuel 23 gives a fabulous record of the merits and the demerits. But the merits of each person's position within the military. Those were manly leaders who earned the respect of their men, not people put into position in order to fill out some politically correct egalitarian quota system. Now let me be even more politically incorrect. by saying that scripture absolutely prohibits women from serving in the military. Absolutely prohibits it. A lot of Christians will take issue with me on this and I've talked with females who are in the military on this and some of them I've convinced and some not. But my challenge to them is show me a single scripture where women are allowed to be in the military. I don't see it anywhere in the Old or in the New Testaments. I think it's really shameful that America is putting women into combat positions and elevating them through the ranks, not based on valor or abilities, but based on a quota of females. In fact, there are some politicians out there who want to institute a draft of females, of women, and if that ever happens, I hope every person in this congregation will fight that tooth and nail. Not only does it violate the family's jurisdiction, I think such a draft would be utterly destructive to the integrity of the family's jurisdiction. In our church denomination's constitution, it seeks to protect the members of our churches with this statement. And this is something you can bank on to protect your daughters. It says, the scriptures declare that civil magistrates are instituted by God for the good of both mankind and the church. We believe, however, that the family and the church are legitimate governments distinct from the civil magistrate. Accordingly, we reject the subordination of the family and church to the state in matters of faith and religious practice. As an extension, we believe it is allowed for Christians to refuse to serve in the military when, in the judgment of the General Assembly, such action is deemed unjust. It is not lawful for women to serve in military service except for voluntary acts of mercy. So if the state ever tries to draft your daughters, this is something you can appeal to and say, I want in a religious exception. Our denomination right from its beginning has always taken a hard line stance that women cannot serve, that it's a sin for women to serve. uh... in in the military and we actually have uh... committee that's working on even strengthening this language more but just the way it's been written right from the beginning i think is plenty strong and says it is not lawful for women to serve in military service except for voluntary acts of mercy and throughout the scripture you will find that the ones who are assigned the defense of the nation are males men, mighty men. And the scripture makes clear what the role of women is. Let me just read you one example. Joshua 1.14 says, Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan, but you shall pass before your brethren armed, all your mighty men of valor, and help them. So the wives were commanded to stay behind the lines of battle, and the men were commanded to go onto the battlefield. And Deborah was not an exception to that rule. Even as an advisor, she remained behind the battle shield. She was not even involved in recruiting the soldiers. And even with her very limited role as a prophetess giving God's inspired revelation, Judges 4, 9 through 10 presents it as a shame that Beric was not willing to go to battle without a woman tagging along. But certainly she did not fight. Nahum 3, 12 through 13 gives an insult to warriors when he says, you're like women. OK. Now, if the law had not prohibited women from being in the military, that scorn would lose its punch entirely. But it was scorn. It was effective scorn because the law of God did not allow women to be in the military. In any case, it's significant that in our chapter, men alone were allowed to be a part of the army. Now it wasn't just any men. The verse goes on to indicate that even during the emergency times of David's kingdom, the rotating divisions of the army were not composed of every male in the militia. Remember, we've seen before that militia was composed of every able-bodied male who was 20 years old and above. Well, the earlier censuses indicate there's a whole lot more males than are in this army here. So what is going on? Now, some people might emphasize the fact that this was a voluntary army, and that's true. That does explain it to some degree. Joel McDermott says. Based on this fact of God's sovereignty in the affairs of men and building on God's prohibition of offensive wars, God leaves the final decision of joining the fight up to the individuals themselves. This is apparent in the militia raising process that follows. The militia was purely voluntary and then he goes on to prove that the Bible is diametrically opposed to the draft that America's had ever since the war between the states. At one point in his book he said, contrast this with the modern American mentality in regard to the military and war. Not only have we had a draft in more than one instance, we have a tradition of ridiculing objectors, calling them cowards, traitors, and un-American, and in some cases even passing laws against detracting from a war effort or discouraging enlistment. From just what we have seen so far, this attitude can only be judged as ungodly, and God is no pansy when it comes to issues of war and judgment in the earth. He nevertheless has a higher standard for conscience and freedom. We have more often than not gotten His standard exactly backwards, whereas He gives men every opportunity to abstain from a battle, and invites those who would leave to do so, we often force everyone to fight upon threat of civil penalties and ridicule those who object. This is to place nationalism over godliness and thus to make an idol of one's nation or armed forces. So the low numbers in this reserve army can be in part explained by the fact it was a voluntary army and not everybody volunteered. There was no draft. But there's more to it than that. If you look at all of the evidence, you will see that people had to prove their worth to even be in David's reserve army. Now, when war broke out, that was different. Every male could enlist. But to be a part of that reserve army that went day in, year in, year out, there was a threshold of ability that was a little bit higher. And the reasons that are given in Deuteronomy are three. First, God didn't want fearful people demoralizing the rest of the army. Second, he didn't want the legitimate administration of home and business and house to hinder the efficient running of the army reserves, and so only those who could devote an entire month out of the year were even allowed to enter. That's a pretty high standard. Third, they really had to believe in the war's legitimacy to be effective warriors, and this meant they had to believe in the commander-in-chief. And that can be seen in the little phrase of our verse, serve the king in every matter of the divisions. So if they believed in the king, they would strive to be in his units. If they did not, it would hinder rather than help the military as a whole. So unlike standing armies that are paid to be in the military as a profession, Very few of the military had this as a year-round job. There were a few thousand who were permanent and had it as a professional job, but the vast bulk of the army donated their time once a month, I mean, excuse me, once a year or one month out of a year, and they only got paid by the government when there was a battle won and the loot could be divided. Their main income came from their farms and their other professions. So why would they join? Well, they joined because they believed in the cause and because they were defending their land and their families. So the implication from Deuteronomy's instructions on the military is if there is nothing to defend on the home front, men would be disincentivized from joining. And as godliness covers the earth, the nations stop fighting, which is the trajectory we've seen in Isaiah 2. There will be less and less incentives for men to volunteer to be a part of the army. And so each of these points reinforces the eschatology of planet earth that we started this sermon with. Modern militarism will never produce peace. It will guarantee increasing conflicts. But biblical peace that flows from discipling the nations will produce more and more demilitarized zones until the whole world will be completely free of armies. Now that is indeed the direction that history is traveling. I think it ought to make us rethink military issues. Yes, we need a military, but let's not value the way that it is currently structured. Let's try to get our military back to the way that it existed prior to the war between the states. I think it's much closer to the biblical ideal, and of course, you know, I'm a theonomist. I want to be pressing for the whole biblical ideal, right? Not just be closer. Now the next principle that I see in this chapter is that tribes, which are equivalent to our states, had the right to opt out of a reserve army. They could be shamed for doing so, and Judges chapter 4 certainly shames some of the tribes for failing to fight in a righteous cause. But they still had the right to opt out and no king could force a state to join. So that's the principle. Where do I see it in this chapter? Well, I see it in the fact that the tribes of Gad and Asher are conspicuously absent from the list. Now, some commentators have been puzzled by this because they think, hey, it's 12 divisions. It's got to be 12 tribes. But there's obviously not 12 tribes here. What's going on? Well, if you look at verses 6 through 7, it mentions Benaiah the priest. He's not even a prince of Israel, right? Benaiah the priest heading up people who may have well been from a number of different tribes and even the listing of tribes in verses 16 through 20 mentions quote-unquote tribes that weren't really tribal units such as dividing the Levites into two tribes and dividing the tribe of Manasseh into two tribal units. They needed 12 units in order to keep things fair, in order to keep the service down to one month out of a year, but it's clear that the tribes were able to opt out. And it certainly appears that the princes of Gad and Asher just didn't want to have any part of this. Now the point is that because the reserve army could not be enforced by a draft, And because of the balance of power between the feds and the states, tribes could opt out of sending their militias if they did not believe in a cause, and members of those tribes could join other units on their own. This reinforces the voluntary nature of the army that we looked at some months ago. But the balance of higher officers being under the direct authority of General Joab and lower officers representing local interests and leading the soldiers whom they knew and whom they loved helped to protect the military against abuses. It really was a wonderful system. Now the last principle that should be fairly obvious is that this chapter makes a sharp distinction, demarcation between three sections. In fact, it divides the reserve army and David's professional army with six verses that just deal with David's personal property. So, verses 1 through 24 deals with the nation's reserve army. And there you got checks and balances. There's a sharing of powers between federal, state, county, and individual jurisdictions. Then verses 25 through 31 deal with those who were hired to manage David's personal property. And then verses 32 through 34 deal with those who headed up David's militia and his national government, which basically remained completely unchanged from 1 Samuel 23. There was no intermingling of those three categories. The way the chapter is structured, verses 32 through 34 are kept insulated from verses 1 through 24. God made sure there was no blurring of distinctions. Well, the implications of that are huge. They're absolutely huge. This meant that David owned his own property, but he did not own the property of his citizens. Verse 31 says of the second group, all these were the officials over King David's property. They didn't have a Department of Commerce that oversaw everybody's businesses. No, they had one individual who oversaw only David's property. They didn't have an FDA that was inspecting everybody's farm produce and making sure that it was up to snuff. No, they had one individual who inspected the quality of David's produce. They didn't have a Department of Agriculture that oversaw all farms and all rural land. They had only one individual who oversaw David's farms. I think you get the point. David had no right to tax other people's property because he didn't own it. The right to tax gives a people the power to confiscate. There was no property tax in the Bible. That was considered an abomination by God. We need to do everything we can to get away from property taxes in America. This passage clearly understands the issues of property rights and makes clear David only had authority over his own property. Now the fact that the tiny standing army of David was set up quite different from the huge reserve army also shows a balance of powers. between the interests of national, state, and county governments. And I just want to point out again that early America, for the most part, followed this concept of limited powers for the federal government. That has since been largely erased, but this chapter, I think, is a great chapter to once again encourage citizens to get our country back to its foundations, away from the centralized statism that we have gotten into. This chapter is not a call to a centralized military serving a centralized government with centralized plans. Quite the contrary, it was a call for a decentralized military designed to eventually fade away in history. It's a decentralized government with decentralized plans and a trajectory toward peace as nations become Christianized. And if we keep the trajectory of chapters 27 through 29 in mind, I think it'll keep a balance between the extremes of pacifism on the one hand and ultra hawkishness on the other hand. May God help us to maintain that balance of knowing, yes, our God is a God of war, but that he has brought the gospel and designed it to put the brakes on the kind of wars that America has engaged in. A great book to get you started with, and it's just a tiny introduction, believe me, there's so much more material, but a great book to get you started on this is Joel McDermott's book The Bible and war in America, a biblical view of an American obsession and steps to recover liberty. And as more and more people start studying the scriptures, may we see a movement towards small, godly, and efficient armies in our own lifetime. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word and that it applies to every area of life. Help us to value it. Help us to not turn to the right hand or to the left hand of it, to not add to it, to not subtract from it, but to love your law, to say with David, oh, how love I thy law. It is my meditation all of the day. Bless this, your people, as we seek to be salt and light in our society, as we seek to influence to your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.