Brothers and sisters, please turn in your Bibles to the Scripture reading for today. This comes from Matthew's Gospel, chapter 16, verses 13 to 23. Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew, chapter 16, verses 13 to 23. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they say, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you bind on earth shall also be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. and he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan, for you are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Let us pray. Most gracious heavenly Father, this is your word, and we are your people, both begotten by your Holy Spirit, O God. We ask the Lord now that you would please illumine our hearts and minds to understand your word and what we would take from it. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Please turn to the sermon text now from Luke chapter 22. Luke 22, verses 35 to 38. Luke 22, verses 35 to 38. This is the word of the Lord. And he said to them, when I sent you out with no money bag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything? They said, nothing. He said to them, but now let the one who has a money bag take it, and likewise a knapsack. and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me. And he was numbered with the transgressors. For what is written about me has its fulfillment. And they said, look, Lord, here are two swords. And he said to them, it is enough. Thus far the reading of God's word. You know I prayed after the scripture reading instead of after both scriptures, but the Lord will still bless All right brothers and sisters so Luke 22 35 to 38 You've heard the word of the Lord Two weeks ago Seems like a long time ago, but just two weeks ago on the 29th of December 2019 a relatively young man with an extensive criminal past walked into a Fort Worth church, and murdered two church members in cold blood. Two of your brothers in the faith, members of the same visible church, were gunned down by a man who apparently targeted them because of their faith. Now, because another of this man's ilk had not long ago entered a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and had murdered 26 of your brothers and sisters and injured several more. Now, Christians like you and me, in churches across this state, have been given permission to allow their members to carry guns on their persons in church. Prior to that, it had been outlawed in Texas, in places of worship, but not after Sutherland Springs. As a result, The gunman in White Settlement was only able to kill two of your brothers before he himself was shot, and the horror ended right then and there, within five seconds after he had first opened fire. Equally without doubt, the gunman intended to murder still others in that congregation that morning. Imagine for a second what the news would have been reported had Jack Wilson not been there. Brothers and sisters, that can happen here. It can happen here if it can happen there. Brothers and sisters, that can happen anywhere. But you may say to yourself in times such as these, and it seems to be happening more and more times lately, You may say to yourself, if that's God's will, there's nothing I can or even should try to do about it. So as I said, you may be tempted to think that if that's God's will, There's nothing I can do, and there's nothing I should do about it. I'm here to tell you that such would actually be an unbiblical attitude to adopt. Such an attitude comes not from the Lord or his apostles, but from philosophical notions of fatalism and determinism, very different from the doctrine of God's sovereignty taught in the scriptures. I'm going to impart biblical truth today that some of you may find very uncomfortable. So be it. Ministries of Christ are to give comfort to those who mourn, to those who suffer, but not necessarily to those who may err. I've divided today's sermon into four parts. The first, called Let Him By a Sword. And that will expound today's sermon text. The second, called Calvinism versus Fatalism, will discuss the difference between the two. Then we'll introduce the distinction between God's will of decree and his will of precept, which will in turn introduce the third section, called the Sixth Commandment. in which we shall consider the relevance and application of the sixth commandment to Christians and indeed to all mankind. And then we shall close with a concluding section called sword control. So section one, let him buy a sword. Our Lord issues a command to his disciples in this passage. It is a command that receives little acknowledgement in the church. in my experience, and probably in your experience as well. It is a command in our Bibles, and it is a clear command. It is a command to his disciples, namely, you. The disciples of Christ are, state the matter very succinctly, to obtain weapons and carry them. And in need to use them in self-defense. as they go about their father's business in this fallen world. That is the substance of this command and its application for you and for me. I can relate this as the sum and substance of this kingly imperative delivered to the church of all time for several reasons. Our Lord prefixes the command by asking his disciples about their prior activities. He asked them what sort of preparations they had undertaken in times past to secure themselves against bodily need. They affirmed that they took no precautions, nor made any provision at all for their physical needs. Then our Lord said, and you did not suffer any want, but, he in fact goes on to say, that was then, and this is now. That's how things were then, but now and going forward, these shall be your standard operating procedures. But now is the phrase that signals this change in policy. He is here laying out new marching orders for his disciples. That is the first reason we should understand this current applicable, this new policy that he has established for his disciples, and there's no record of a change in this policy, to my knowledge, in the scripture. And, as we can see better, how this command to obtain weapons and carry them applies to all of us and not just his immediate circle of apostles. We can know this by how Christ phrases this command. If he had phrased it, you shall obtain a sword, you might have at least had an argument that the command must be understood as applying to his immediate audience alone. But he looks at his disciples and says to them instead, let him who has no sword get one. This third-person imperative, aorist construction, communicates a kind of nomic, or that is, a proverbial quality in this command, a command that would apply universally to his disciples. Like when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, let a man examine himself then about discerning the Lord's body in the sacrament. Such a third-person imperative communicates a standing order for the church. So in conjunction with the contrasting language of but now, it becomes clear that this is a principle for living in this fallen world that all his disciples are thenceforth to heed. But a natural question presents itself. To Christians unaccustomed to hear preaching on this passage, what conceivable use would disciples of Jesus have for swords? He commanded his disciples to have swords. What conceivable use would Jesus' disciples have for swords? War? Conducting executions? Armed rebellion against the Romans? Just war theory of the early Christian church notwithstanding, those uses are highly doubtful as the uses for swords Christ had in mind at the moment he issued this command. The context actually suggests that self-defense is the reason for the command, as I intimated before, in this way. He said, as you need provisions, basically, if you need provisions to maintain the life and health of the body, the money bag for buying food and wine and other necessaries of life, so in our Lord's mind, we need a sword to defend our bodies. All those needs present themselves to his disciples in a fallen world. Indeed, why else, brothers and sisters, I put that question to you. Why else would our Lord command his disciples to carry weapons, if not simply to maintain their lives against the violent? The context then informs us of his intent behind this command. Where I said you shall make no preparations before, now I say be prepared. Now let's pause a minute to consider some understandably predictable objections. You may be tempted to retort, well, Peter used one of these very swords later to try to defend Jesus. What did Jesus do? Jesus rebuked him. So how can he be commanding us to obtain weapons for the purpose of self-defense? I replied, it was not for their possession or use that Peter was rebuked, but in how and why Peter used it. Brothers and sisters, firstly, we mustn't forget, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that Christ came into this world not only to teach the kingdom and not only to obey God's commandments on our behalf, but he came into this world actually to die for our sins. Peter erred there, as he had once before, in trying to prevent the physical death of the Redeemer. He once replied, as we saw, with a kind of God forbid at the prospect. And Jesus defined Peter's error as satanic. For to prevent his death at the appointed time would be to derail God's plan of redemption. In other words, once his time had come to prevent Christ's death would be the only time preventing the unjustified taking of human life would be wrong. And therefore defending innocent life would not be required of Peter or laudable. Another objection might make reference to the specific words of Jesus' rebuke, that rebuke to Peter, when he preemptively and aggressively lashed out against Malchus and cut off his ear. Namely, those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. But those words should be understood to apply against all those who would live a life devoted to violence and aggression. This rebuke would not have in its crosshairs those who would defend their lives with a sword. To apply this rebuke to all who would own and carry a weapon for defensive uses under normal circumstances would force a contradiction to emerge from God's mouth, as we see in the command by Christ in Luke today, and as we shall see again before we conclude. Additionally, brothers and sisters, when John the Baptist was asked by soldiers how they ought to live. He did not reply that they should lay down their swords and become pacifists, but that they should be content with the wages that the army was paying them. Think about that. Another objection might emerge, if you've ever drawn an all-comprehending principle of absolute pacifism from our Lord's words at Matthew 5, 39 about turning the other cheek. But such a principle not only runs against our understanding of the sixth commandment, and not only makes our text today into an unsolvable riddle in our Bibles, it also misses the point of that divine command entirely. Let's turn to the passage for a moment together, Matthew 5. Matthew 5 and 39. Matthew 5, 39. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. But know what our Lord is reacting to. Let's read verse 38. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Who said that? Who said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Jesus says you have heard that it was said. Who said that? It was Moses in giving the law to Israel. So is Jesus disputing with Moses in verse 39? Is he taking issue with the law, with God's commandments? To ask that question is to answer it. Hardly so. He is addressing a Jewish misuse and misapplication of that law. You see, this law was given as a general principle to follow in the formal system of criminal justice in Israel. It's called the Lex Talionis principle. This Lex Talionis principle lays out the requirement of proportionality. The punishment, brothers and sisters, must meet the crime. Or must fit it, excuse me. Judges in Israel were to avoid undue disproportionality in meeting our penalties. But Jewish tradition had warped this principle of criminal justice into a standard for conducting their personal lives. They adopted a principle of retaliation for perceived personal wrongs and misused this criminal law principle. to justify it. So our Lord is saying that we are not free to adopt a policy of retaliation over real or perceived personal affronts. He's not saying we may not defend ourselves against a knife-wielding maniac or a crazed gunman who wants to kill us or our family or our church family. Brothers and sisters, a slap, literal or figurative, Consider this well, brothers and sisters. A slap is not a bullet or a blade either. No one ever died from a slap on the cheek. A deadly attack is not what's in view here. suffering in insult, being long-suffering in our personal relations, and not seeking to respond tit-for-tat when others offend or trespass against us. Here summarized as a mere slap on the cheek, is hardly equivalent to a life-and-death encounter with a murderous assailant. To take our Lord's principle here in such a woodenly, literal fashion, would, in the name of consistency and honesty, require us to carry that same hermeneutic into the neighboring command that we not resist evil to. The Greek is ambiguous, by the way, whether it should be rendered evil or evil one. So abortion is evil, but sorry, we can't resist it, because our Lord said we can't. Rape, genocide. Those things are evil, but we can't resist them either because of what our Lord says here. No, our Lord is telling us, and that generation specifically, that the criminal law principle of proportionality between crime and punishment must not, as it had been, warped into a personal policy of retaliation over perceived wrongs in our personal relations. Okay, let's return now to our sermon text, Luke 22. 35 to 38, where we will consider the word sword, which translates the Greek word mechairon. In this period of history, the word mechairon refers to a sword generically. In all likelihood, it refers to the 16th inch Roman legionary sword of the Pompeian type. This type was current in that time and place, and would have been easily concealable. Why do I note that this sort of Roman short sword was readily concealed? Why do I make note of that? We shall come to that later. It is, in fact, the same word, however, used of the sword wielded by the Roman magistrate in Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 13 and verse 4. There, the magistrate possesses the machairon to maintain peace and order. But for Christ's disciples, the use would clearly be self-defense in a dangerous and violent world. So Christ commands his disciples to obtain a current military weapon with which to defend themselves. He tells us to buy one, and if need be, sell something in order to be able to buy one. This is, again, an imperative mood in the Greek. It is a command, brothers and sisters, it is a command to his church. Now, pacifists are presented with a real problem in this command, obviously. But so are fatalists, which brings us to the next section of today's message. Calvinism versus fatalism. Some in the church, perhaps many, may assume that they need not obtain and carry weapons because such would be, not only to be unspiritual in some way, but would also perhaps be to fail to entrust themselves to God's sovereign will. That if it's their time, then it's their time. And to try to defend oneself or one's family would, to this frame of mind, be tantamount to opposing God's will. One major difference, however, between a biblical concept of divine sovereignty on the one hand and philosophical fatalism or determinism on the other, is to appreciate the important distinction between God's will of decree and God's will of precept. Calvinism makes that distinction, while fatalism and determinism, they do not. You see, God's hidden decrees of whatsoever shall come to pass, these are not our concern. God's will of decree, that is something that we cannot change. That is something that we cannot affect. That is something that we cannot even know beforehand. But His commandments and His precepts or His revealed will, that is our concern. So we can never indulge the thought that well, if God has decreed that I or my spouse or my kids are to die by the hands of a violent man, so be it. And then go on to conclude that therefore, I shall not arm myself and be prepared to defend them and myself. And this is because we would then be trying to crawl around inside God's hidden decrees and actually ignoring his explicit commands. Like the one in today's text, as Moses puts it in Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. And we don't seem to fall prey, do we, to such fatalism or determinism in other areas of our Christian walk, other areas of our lives, do we? For instance, God requires husbands and fathers, in his revealed will, to work and to provide for their families the best they can. Do Christian men in such roles then say, well, if God wants me to work, he will just give me a job. So I don't need to actively look for one, and I don't need to prepare my resume well Or God can get me a job if he wills it. And so therefore he can also drive me to my interview. And he can just drive me to work every day himself if I get the job. After he wakes me up every morning on time without the benefit of an alarm. After all, if God willed me to be on time at my job, he would wake me up on time himself. Or in another line of thought in this strain, do we refuse to have fire extinguishers or smoke alarms in our homes? Because we are confident that God doesn't want us to burn to death, and if he does, that's so be it. No, we still buy fire extinguishers. We still put fire alarms in our homes, smoke alarms, even though we know God is sovereign and can, if he wants to, protect us from fire. The same sort of determinist thinking would be plaguing us if we adopted the attitude that if God wants my family to be defended from the violent, he will defend them himself by his sovereignty and his power. No, brothers and sisters, all our confidence in God, all our surrendering to his will counts for naught if we ignore his revealed will. Our duty is to obey Christ's commandments, not to presume upon and anticipate his hidden decrees. It is an unbiblical sort of piety that closes its ears to God's commands in the name of trusting in God or his will. His commands are his will, that will with which we have to do. And this brings us to the next part of today's sermon, the sixth commandment. The divine command in Luke, brothers and sisters, is not the only commandment of Christ the King respecting this positive duty of self-defense. The sixth commandment, which prohibits murder, in fact, not only requires us to defend ourselves, it requires us to defend the innocent, to protect the innocent. In keeping with the maximalist approach her Lord takes with respect to her commandments, the Reformed Church interprets the Sixth Commandment, not only to require that we refrain from murder, but that we defend and protect the lives of the innocent. From Westminster Larger Catechism number 135, which asks the question, what are the duties required in the Sixth Commandment? The Westminster larger canon goes on to answer that question, the duties required in the Sixth Commandment. The duties required in the Sixth Commandment are all careful studies and lawful endeavors to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices which tend to the unjust taking away the life of anyone. by just defense thereof against violence. And then wraps up with, and protecting and defending the innocent. That's what's required in the Sixth Commandment. This interpretation imposes a positive duty upon all of us to defend life against violence and actively to defend and protect innocent life. It does not merely teach a negative duty, simply to refrain from something, to refrain from murder. The Sixth Commandment, moreover, brothers and sisters, like the rest of the Ten Commandments, is what we call a summary of the moral law of God. And in Chapter 19 of our Confession, we assert what the Bible teaches, that the moral law of God doth bind all. Indeed, this duty falls to all, male and female, both within and without the church. The duty to protect and defend innocent life is a duty laid on all humanity of all time. Be grateful that we still enjoy some semblance of the ability to obey these divine precepts. Many people, even in this country, are forbidden by the laws of men to carry or to own guns, to carry them on their person. which brings us to the final part of today's sermon, sword control. As I have in fact mentioned once before in passing in another sermon, the Roman Empire forbade the carrying of swords by subject peoples like the Jews on pain of death. Why would our Lord command his disciples, his immediate audience, then being under the Roman rule, Why would he command them to carry swords? Presumably secretly, when it was illegal. How dare God command man? I suppose we must ask when man forbids. The sixth commandment requires all mankind to protect and to defend innocent life. Christ commands his disciples to use a standard military weapon for self-defense. In an age of firearms, when the violent have access to firearms, these commands can only be obeyed by obtaining and becoming proficient in the use of firearms. But looking at the commands in the first century context, what were his disciples to do then? When the Roman government outlawed their possession of such weapons? When the Romans implemented sword control? Well, Peter sums it up when in another context, a law of men conflicted with the law of God. Peter and John both said there in Acts chapter 4, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. This is why I believe the two swords, then in the possession of Christ's disciples, were carried concealed. If they were going to obey God rather than man and carry weapons when it was punished with the death penalty, why advertise? They were concealing these weapons from the Roman government and from those who might snitch on them from their own people. So if you, brothers and sisters, if you were to obtain firearms legally today in obedience to these divine commandments, only to learn tomorrow that your government had outlawed them. What would you be obligated to do? In Romans 13, which I referred to earlier, Paul tells us to submit to the governing authorities, and that the magistrate is actually God's minister. So if the gun control laws hit your town or state or country, should you submit to them? Should that happen, I need not tell you explicitly here today what to do. I only direct you to this passage and to the Sixth Commandment. Knowing that the magistrate is acting beyond his authority and without divine warrant, when he outlaws what God commands or commands what God forbids. And that when he acts in such a way, he no longer acts as God's minister at all. In short, I'll borrow the ubiquitous phrase of the Puritans, respecting what I've told you today. You are wise and you know how to apply it. As it is the case that these divine commandments do not at the present time conflict with the laws of Texas, I will close with a question adapted from our text today, followed by the command itself. Have you no sword? Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, our glorious God and King, we thank you that you would make provision for us that your kindness towards us is wrapped up in your commandments, that you do not command us to do anything that is contrary to your holiness, that is contrary to your goodness and mercy. We ask, O Lord, now as always, that you would cause us to love your commandments, to enlarge our hearts so that we might run in the way of your commandments. so that we might keep them to your glory and pleasure. It is in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.