The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in Panorama 

City, California, By John MacArthur Jr.  It was transcribed from the tape,

GC 90-48, titled "War in the Gulf: A Biblical Perspective" Part 1.  A copy of 

the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama 

City, CA 91412.



I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription of the 

original tape was made.  Please note that at times sentence structure may 

appear to vary from accepted English conventions.  This is due primarily to 

the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in 

placing the correct punctuation in the article.



It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this transcription 

of the sermon, "War in the Gulf: A Biblical Perspective" Part 1, to 

strengthen and encourage the true Church of Jesus Christ.



Scriptures quoted in this message are from the New American Standard Bible.





                               War in the Gulf

                       A Biblical Perspective (Part 1)



                               Copyright 1991

                                     by

                           John F. MacArthur, Jr.

                            All rights reserved.



This morning as I share with you a Biblical perspective on the War in the 

Gulf, I want to hasten to say that I am not going to give you any rhetoric.  

We have, perhaps enough and more than that, than we care to have.  I am not 

here to give you any kind of poll or any kind of consensus, or the opinions 

of any experts.  I am not here to play upon your patriotic emotions.  I am 

here basically to endeavor to have you understand war and this war from God's 

perspective.  



It is more of a lesson, more of a Bible study, in some ways than a sermon.  

And it really comes as a result of a question that I have been asked 

throughout this week, "How should a Church respond to what is going on in the 

Gulf?  How should a Christian respond?"



A few days ago I received a phone call and the man on the other end of the 

line said, "All across America, religious leaders are taking their stand with 

the antiwar protests, and we are calling you because we want to do an 

interview with you to play on our syndicated radio system.  And we want you 

to tell us where you stand on this because we believe you perhaps may take 

another view." 



They asked the question, "What is the Church to do in response to this?  What 

is a Christian's proper response?  And are all religious leaders unilaterally 

committed to an antiwar position?"



Well, if you are watching the news and listening at all, it does seem that 

all across America religious leaders are marching and protesting and "sitting 

in" and crying out for peace and demanding the end of American involvement in 

Iraq.  It is a time when people are looking at the Church and saying, "Can 

you help?  How am I to understand this?  How am I to cope with this?" And as 

I have said, I don't want to give you rhetoric and I don't want to play on 

your emotion.  I want to give you an understanding out of the Scripture, so 

that you can perceive this scenario from the viewpoint of the Lord, as much 

as is possible.



I believe first of all, that "Evangelical Bible Believing Christians" are not 

antiwar, necessarily.  I think everybody is antiwar in the sense of the 

tragedy and the pain and the suffering and the death that is involved.  But I 

think Christians, who understand the Word of God, look at war and even this 

war differently, because they look at it from a Biblical viewpoint.  While 

war is tragic and painful in a myriad of ways and while we have every reason 

to hate war we must understand what God says about it.  Because there are 

times when war is not avoidable.  Many people are praying for the war to end 

and that is fine, but if we are praying that way then our prayers must be 

based upon understanding.     

 

Now, there was in my mind, earlier in the week, some prompting to consider 

some of these issues and reflect upon the Word of God.  By Wednesday, I spoke 

in the chapel at the Master's College, and I spoke to the student's on a 

perspective from God's Word about the war.  And following that message I 

began to think more deeply about it and realize that perhaps I should widen 

the things I said and bring more Biblical insight together and share it with 

you this Sunday and next Sunday at least, for sure.   



And as I was thinking through what I would want to talk about and how I would 

want to divide it down in manageable bites so you could comprehend it, I came 

up with four questions that I think I need to answer for you and help you to 

see in the Scripture.



Question number one, "Why does war happen?"

Question number two, "Can war be just or moral?"

Question number three, "How are we to understand the present war in the 

Gulf?"

Question number four, "Is this a sign of the Coming of Christ?"



Today, and next Lord's Day, I want to endeavor to answer those questions.  

Let's begin with the first one, "Why does war happen?"



There is a certain amount of frustration in our culture about the fact that 

war even exists.  There are certain people who just can't imagine that it is 

happening when we are so far along the evolutionary chain.  We have come so 

far, we are so advanced.  We are so educated.  Not only is everyone exposed 

to education via schools, but certainly everyone is exposed to education via 

media.  We are so advanced and there is so much talk of peace and there is so 

much talk of love.  And we have so much technology, sociology, psychology, 

and theology, then why are we still killing each other?



Isn't man, basically, far enough up the evolutionary ladder that it is true 

of him that he is a noble being whose deepest desires are for love and peace?  

Isn't he good at heart?  If left to himself won't he find that which is the 

best?  Isn't he the noblest beast?  Sociologist and philosophers and 

psychologists and theologians tell us "he is!"  And thus, there is a lot of 

confusion about how can this be happening in a modern world.  



But all of that is a lie.  Man is not a noble beast.  The heart of man is 

wicked, rebellious, proud, selfish, deceitful, violent, destructive, 

murderous.  Not every man acts on the outside like he is on the inside, 

because there are built into cultures some restraints, by God's mercy.  But 

man left to himself is a vile being, not at all the apex of an evolutionary 

chain, but the bottom as it were, of a declining morality that started down 

in the Garden.  And evil men, in fact, are getting worse and worse.  It 

always interests me that even the peace lovers appear hostile and violent 

when they don't get what they want.    



And so we ask the question, "Why is there war?  How are we going to explain 

war in such an advanced society; after all, we are not running around in loin 

cloths with spears in our hands?"  And somebody might say that there are as 

many reasons for war as there are wars.  That's a rather generic statement 

and perhaps not at all correct.



Why are there wars?  Let me suggest to you that there are three components:



Number One: Evil Aggression.  Not all men are as wicked as they could be.  

Not all men are as wicked on the outside as they are on the inside.  Some are 

better at constraining their internal wickedness because of trained 

consciences, because of wanting peer approval, because of some kind of 

religious expectation, because of police and government control, and a myriad 

of other things.  Not everybody is as bad as he could be, but there are some  

people who are as bad as they can be.  And some of the people who are as 

wretched as human beings can possibly be are in positions to enact 

unbelievably horrendous acts.



Evil aggression, whether you kill one person, or whether you are a mass 

murderer of thirty, or whether you massacre millions, that kind of hostility 

is generated from a wicked, wretched, evil heart that has gone to the 

extremes of evil and knows no compunctions.  War happens because of evil 

aggression in the heart of man unrestrained.  And everyone of us, because we 

are fallen and sinful, and particularly those who are without the redemption 

and transformation of Jesus Christ, have the capacity to effect crimes of 

heinous character, were it not for restraints of one kind or another.  



A good insight into this evil aggression cause of war is found in James 4. 

Let us look together at this chapter, in the first two verses, because I 

think the principle that James gives here is directly applicable.  In James 

4:1, James writes profoundly, "What is the source of," and the Greek words, 

"wars and battles among you?"  What is the source of them?  Where do they 

come from?  And then he answers the question, most interestingly, "Is not the 

source your pleasures, your lusts, your desires?"  That word there is the word 

Hedone [hay-doe-nay] (Gr), from which the word hedonism comes, which is a 

word that means self-gratification.  The word, actually, means the yearnings 

of self-gratification, to fulfill your own hedonistic desire for personal 

gratification.  That is where war comes from.  Is not the source, your 

hedonistic self-gratifying passions that wage war in your members?



Now notice this please, before the war ever gets on the outside, it starts 

where?  On the inside.  You say, "What is this war?"  This is a war between 

self-gratification and conscience.  That's right, self-gratification and 

conscience.  Conscience is battling self-gratification.  The desire for what 

is forbidden and what is known to be wrong, and what is visceral, and what is 

lustful, and what is passionately wanted for the sake of self-pleasure, self-

promotion, self-prestige, self-plunder, self-power, or whatever else.  That 

wages war against the conscience.  And everyone has a conscience, which 

functions to one degree or another.  And according to Romans, Chapter 2, 

every man knows something of the law of God, written in his heart, right?  



This is a moral sense in human beings that even a Saddam Hussein or an Adolf 

Hitler possesses.  What happens is that war breaks out on the inside, between 

the yearnings for self-gratification and moral conscience.  And some people 

win the war, in terms of conscience.  Conscience is assisted by religion, 

(and I am not even talking about Christian people), by expectations, by 

habits that they have been trained with since they were children, by the fear 

of retaliation from governmental force; and so they are not as bad as they 

could be.  In other people, conscience becomes the victim of self-

gratification.  They become the criminals, the mass murderers, the demigods, 

the dictators, the rulers who massacre whole populations of people.  All the 

way up the ladder.  



So the desire for what is forbidden and wrong wages war against what is 

right.  You could say that morality battles gratification.  James says, 

"That's where war starts."  And when the hedonistic desire for self-

gratification dominates, the war goes from the inside to the outside.  

Because now, in order to gratify himself, there has to be some victims.  To 

get what he wants, he has to rape somebody, or plunder somebody, or kill 

somebody, or steal something, or destroy something.  And so in verse 2 he 

says, "You lust and you don't have."  So what do you do?  Your self-

gratification has won, you want it but you don't have it, so you kill to get 

it.  That's it.  You're envious, you want what somebody else has, you can't 

get it, so you fight and you make war.  That's the war of self-gratification, 

going from the inside to the outside.



You ask yourself why a man like Hussein does what he does?  The answer is 

because self-gratification lusts have overpowered conscience.  I don't know 

anything about the man's background, to know whether his conscience was 

exercised at any point in his life, to a noble point.  But it seems to me 

that it was not.  And you put a man in a position of ultimate authority where 

he answers to absolutely no one, and you will find conscience having a very 

difficult time winning its victories.  What happens is, lust leads to 

passion, passion leads to war.  Whether they want pleasure, power, prestige, 

or wealth, it drives men to kill, it drives them to destructive behavior, it 

drives them to deadly aggression.  And if they don't get it, they are 

unfulfilled, and they will make war.



Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was such a war.  Revenge, hatred, lust for 

money, lust for oil, lust for power--and believe me, he is not through.  He 

doesn't want just Kuwait, he wants the world.  He is an evil aggressor, 

classic, absolutely classic.



There's a second component that creates war, second element, and that is what 

we call "Just Protection."  There are wars and elements within war caused by 

the desire to defend, protect, liberate, and free the victim of the evil 

aggressor.  Paul spoke about this look at Romans 13.  No one can understand 

how to view war without understanding Romans 13.  It is one of many New 

Testament Scriptures we will look more deeply at it next Lord's Day, and at a 

number of other New Testament Scriptures.  But for this morning, I want to 

read it to you and make a few comments.  Romans 13:1 and following, "Let 

every person be in subjection to the governing authorities.  For there is no 

authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God."



Make this general note in your mind, government is a God given mercy.  Did 

you hear that?  Government is a God given "mercy."  Government is given its 

primary task--to protect innocent people from evil aggressors.  That is the 

primary role of government.  Government has overstepped the bounds of its 

Biblical responsibilities, its God given responsibilities in many, many 

ways.  But this is it, initially and substantially.  Therefore, verse 2, 

says, "He who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they 

who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves."  



God puts government in place to control sinful man.  Otherwise sinful man 

will run amuck.  It is government and the institutions of government, law, 

police, the courts, jails, the right of Capital Punishment; all of that 

restrains man and gives conscience some help in winning the war.  That's God 

given or sinful men would run amuck in the world, to the destruction of 

everyone.  And so if you resist the authority, you are resisting the God who 

gave the authority for the preservation of society.  



And then in verse three He puts some leverage in the hand of authority and 

some power, "For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for 

evil."  In other words, the government exists to make people who do wrong 

afraid.  And if government can't make them afraid then they are going to 

continue to do wrong.  Very simple.  If they do not live under the fear of 

just and swift punishment then conscience cannot win against passion, the 

passion of the fallen heart.  So he says in verse three, "Do you want to have 

no fear of authority?  Do what is good, and you will have praise from the 

same."  You do not have to live under fear, if you just do what the laws 

says, and God has given the law for the preservation of mankind.  



And then in verse four He says, "Look, the authority is a minister of God to 

you for good."  Whether on a local level with the police on a national, 

international level with the armies of nations, they are there to protect you 

from evil aggressors.  If you do what is evil, be afraid.  Look at this, "For 

it does not bear the sword for nothing."  Why does it bear the sword, to do 

what?  To use it.  Government is not symbolic; government is not a pageant.  

Government has real power, and its power is in its sword.  Now what do you 

do with a sword?  Rap people's knuckles?  No.  Spank them?  No, you kill 

them.  That's what you do with it, you take their life away.



What restrains, ultimately, the evil aggressor, is the power of the sword.  

The deadly force that government can bring against ultimate acts of evil.  

That's God ordained.  In fact, He says, "Not only does it not bear the sword 

for nothing; it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the 

one who practices evil."  Never does government act in a more God intended 

way than when it takes the life of an evildoer, to protect the innocent, to 

preserve life in a society.



I personally am convinced, that based upon the Word of God, America and the 

Allies' response to Hussein is a noble war.  It is a just war of protection 

motivated by the noble cause to deliver an embattled people victimized by an 

evil aggressor.  It is even an unselfish war.  For they are not us; they are 

a people of a very different culture then we are.  You say, now wait a 

minute, aren't we really motivated by oil?  Aren't we really motivated by 

prosperity?  Aren't we really motivated by economics?   



Certainly we are a grossly materialistic culture and there might be some 

people along the path whose only compulsions in life are financial gain, but 

if the United States of America was a nation motivated by those things we 

would simply destroy all the Middle East nations and claim all the oil for 

ourselves.  Plunder all the oil and control the world.  Then we could drive 

the market down as far down as we wanted.  We don't attack: we never have.  

We have never been the evil aggressor in a war.  You see down below the 

footings of this country, as far away from God as it has become, there are 

the notions of nobility, in terms of what government is all about.  It showed 

up in our Bill of Rights and Constitution.



We are there to ensure the freedom of Kuwait which the prosperity of Kuwait 

depends upon, and which prosperity per capita is probably greater then our 

own.  We are there to keep Kuwait a free market participant, to operate on 

their own in the world market and reap their own wealth.  We don't even need 

their oil.  We are still moved by the morality of defending nations against 

vicious destroyers.  That's what governments are supposed to do.  Whether you 

are talking about local police or national force, we exist to protect people 

from evil aggressors.  By the way, down in verses 6 and 7, he says, "Pay your 

taxes."  Why does he say that?  Because it takes a lot of money to support 

this government enterprise.



There is a third component.  I am going to say more about Romans 13 next 

time, a lot more.  There is a third component that we have to put into war.  

This is more mysterious, less discernible, just as real.  That is that war is 

divine judgment.  War is divine judgment.  The reality is, my friends, that 

the "Wages of sin is?"  What?  "Death."  That is a divine principle.  All 

war--I believe all war--to some degree or another, expresses God's wrath on 

man's sin, directly or indirectly.  What do I mean by that?  Some wars in 

history have been commanded by God.  In other words, there were times in the 

Old Testament when God said to Israel, "Go to war!  Go over here and wipe 

that people out."  God also said, "Not only do I want you to go, I'm going to 

lead you."  



And so there are wars in which God was the Commander-in-Chief.  And God 

directly commanded those wars to be fought.  And then there are the other 

wars which are indirectly used by God to enact His judgment on nations.  To 

give you another perspective; one which you must have about God because 

everybody today is talking about the fact that these religious leaders are 

saying God is Love, and God is Kindness, and God is Peaceful, and this should 

never be a reflection of God, and so forth and so on.  Let me give you 

another perspective if I might.



In Exodus 15:3 God Himself is called a "Man of War."  A Man of War.  In 

Numbers 21:14, there is a mention of a fascinating piece of literature which 

is not available to us now, but it is called, listen to this, "The Book of 

the Wars of the Lord."  Numbers 21:14, "The Book of the Wars of the Lord."  

Apparently the ancient people of God kept a book which consisted of victory 

songs written to be sung in celebration of the triumphs of the Lord in the 

conquests of Canaan.  And whenever there would be another battle won they 

would write another song and sing it to the glory of the God of War, who had 

won a victory.  Several times in the Old Testament, wars that God commanded 

are called Yahweh Wars, God Wars (Yahweh being the old Hebrew name for God.)  

First Samuel 18:17, for example, First Samuel 25:28, God Wars. 



Scripture even speaks about God warring.  Psalm 68:21, "God will shatter the 

head of His enemies."  Isaiah 42:13 says, "The Lord will go forth like a 

warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war, He will utter a shout, 

yes He will raise a war cry, He will prevail against His enemies."  There 

were times when God told Israel to defend herself against attack, such as in 

Ezekiel 17:18 and following.  Numbers chapter 21, "God says, You defend 

yourselves against attack."  That is what government is for, to protect these 

people from an evil aggressor.  



There were times when God said, "You fight against wickedness."  Numbers 

31:7, "You go against that nation and remove them because they are a cancer, 

and while they may not attacking you militarily, they are destroying you, 

through the cancer of the ideology and idolatry."  And God told Joshua, "When 

you go to the land of Canaan," Joshua, chapter 1, and again in chapter 6, 

"Take that land by military force."  You say, "Isn't Joshua and the people of 

God the Evil Aggressor?"  No, again they are the Just Protectors.  You say, 

"Why?"  Because the life, behavior, conduct of the Canaanites was a cancer on 

human society, and God says they must be removed.



In David's song of praise, in 2 Samuel 22:35 he says, "The Lord trains my 

hands for battle; so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze."  That's 

repeated, by the way, in Psalm 18:34.  Later in Psalm 144:1, David said, 

"Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for 

battle."  And in Numbers 32:20, the people of Israel were told, "Arm 

yourselves before the Lord for the war."  A very significant chapter on war 

is Deuteronomy, chapter 20, and while I don't want to take time to read the 

whole chapter, I do want to mention the first few verses.  



Deuteronomy 20 goes like this; verse one, "When you go out to battle against 

your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, 

do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, who brought you up from the 

land of Egypt, is with you.  Now it shall come about that when you are 

approaching the battle, the priest shall come near and speak to the people.  

And he shall say to them, 'Hear, O Israel, you are approaching the battle 

against your enemies today.  Do not be fainthearted.  Do not be afraid, or 

panic, or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with 

you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.'"  



And so what am I saying?  That during God's particular time of setting Israel 

in the land as His people, and preserving the righteous seed, He sent them to 

war.  There are times when God is a Man of War.  By the way, the rest of the 

chapter, chapter 20 of Deuteronomy, gives the rules for war.  What to do with 

captives; what to do to the people; what to do with the spoils; what to do 

with the trees and shrubbery; who should and who should not serve.  God laid 

out some very clear directions for war.  



So under God's leadership, either by direct command to defend yourself, or to 

go and cut out, as it were, the cancer of that society, there were times when 

God sent His people Israel to war, to protect themselves or their allies or 

to cut out some destructive culture.  And so they fought battles and they 

fought wars with God's help.  And if you look at the history of Israel, for 

example, take the time of the conquest of Canaan and the settling, there are 

many, many wars.  



During that period they destroyed the wicked Canaanites; they had to fight 

continually, battle after battle after battle against the Philistines.  And 

then, not only were there those people who really lived in the territory and 

really possessed the land, such as the Canaanites or the Philistines, but 

there were Nomadic tribes, Nomadic tribes moving around all the time 

threatening the life of Israel.  And of course, you know, behind all of this 

is the great orchestrator of the death of Israel, namely Satan, who seeks to 

destroy Israel at all times.



So they had to battle these Nomadic tribes, like the Amalekites and the 

Midianites, and the Ammonites, and the Aramaeans for self-preservation.  And 

then when you get out of the settlement period and you move into the period 

of the Monarchies where they had the Kings, the wars continue with some of 

the same people, particularly the Philistines.  And then you add wars with 

the Moabites.  But beyond that, the powerful destructive forces of the 

Assyrians and the Babylonians that came and would have literally have 

swallowed them up; in fact, they were victorious on occasion.  And when you 

study their history between the Old and the New Testament, history not 

recorded in Scripture, the time of the Romans and the Greeks, you read like 

Flavius Josephus writing of that time, who talks about endless wars with 

Greek and Romans.  The last and worst of which occurred in the siege of 

Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Romans.



Now it needs to be said then, that through all of the history of Israel for 

the sake of the preservation of that people to be a witness nation to the 

world, and through whom the Messiah would come, and to whom ultimately God 

would give a Kingdom in the future, for the sake of the preservation of that 

nation (which Satan wanted to obliterate from the face of the earth, in order 

to thwart the plan of God) wars had to be fought.  Wars of defense and wars 

of surgical purification.  Just wars to protect themselves.  



It also needs to be said, and I hasten to say this, that when Israel forgot 

God, and when they became wicked, they lost the wars.  And there were many of 

those wars.  In fact, you could say, perhaps in all of those wars, judgment 

was a two-edged sword, because many of the Jewish people died as well.  And 

God was continually reminding them of their own wickedness and sometimes they 

were slaughtered greatly, as God turned the wicked nation on them to be the 

executioner of His judgment to them.  



So we can say, that God has used wicked, destructive nations to judge the 

less wicked.  Such as Assyria, who is called an axe in God's hand in Isaiah 

10:5.  Such as the Chaldeans.  Do you remember when Habakkuk was saying, 

"Lord work in your people, work in their hearts, turn them around, revive 

them."  And God said, "I am going to do something."  And he said, "What are 

you going to do?" "I'm going to bring the Chaldeans to wipe them out!"  And 

Habakkuk, he said, "How can you do that, how can you use a worse people, the 

Chaldeans, pagan, wretched, bitter, and hasty nation?  How can you use them 

to judge your own people who aren't as bad?"  Sometimes God does that.  



Furthermore, sometimes the Jews were used to execute their own people, in 

civil war.  One of the most shocking accounts in Scripture is in the thirty-

second chapter of Exodus, verse twenty-five.  After the terrible sin of the 

people in making the "Golden Calf," Moses comes down, he saw the people were, 

verse 25, "Out of control, out of control."  What does that mean?  That means 

that selfish gratification had conquered conscience, and they were gratifying 

themselves.  And Aaron had let them get out of control.  



What do we mean by that?  Aaron was supposed to be government.  Aaron was 

supposed to rule.  Aaron was suppose to bear a sword, keep order.  He didn't 

do it!  So, "Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Whoever is for 

the Lord, come to me!"  And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him.  

And he said to them, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Every man of 

you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in 

the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every 

man his neighbor.'"  So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about 

three thousand men of the people fell that day."  They killed their own 

people, their own relatives, their own family members.  That was an act of 

God.



We can say, yes, God used Israel as a tool of judgment against evil, 

aggressive nations, who polluted the human stream, and culture, and who 

defied His holiness.  Yes, that is true.  But sometimes God "turned the 

tables" and used those pagan nations as tools of judgment on Israel.  And 

sometimes God turned Israel on itself in its own judgment.  I believe in all 

wars that God is directly involved.  It is mysterious to try to assess all 

the components of what He might be doing, but I tell you one thing, while on 

the one hand we may think America is the Just Protector of Kuwait, Saudi 

Arabia, et al.,  And we may think that America is the execution sword used by 

God against Iraq, and there is a sense in which that is true.  That does not 

at all protect us from the judgment of God being turned on us for our sin as 

well.  



And if anything, this war should be a "wakeup call" to America.  Because, as 

we lose our own young, we have to take stock of the reality of the fact that 

this nation has every right to feel the judgment of God.  And sad as it is to 

say, the young generation now over there in the Armed Forces fighting this 

battle, is the most hedonistic, dissolute generation this nation has ever 

known in its history.  They are not a holy people.  And whatever comes 

against America should awaken us to the reality.  The only reason we haven't 

suffered the wholesale judgment of God through some war is because God is 

presently merciful.  



The ethics of war do not include blanket approval for all wars and all 

methods.  Many wars and many methods are forbidden and receive harsh rebuke.  

For example, in Habakkuk 2:6-19, there is a harsh rebuke of cruelty in war.  

It is a marvelous chapter.  Amos for example; in chapter 1, verses 3-13, and 

then right at the beginning of chapter 2, Amos strongly protested and forbid 

a war of evil aggression, and forbid ruthless, pitiless war.  And Psalm 68:30 

says, "He has scattered the people who delight in war."  God has no pleasure 

in that.  But as you look at the war now, the Gulf War, you see these 

components don't you?  



Evil Aggression is there, Hussein.  Just Protection is there, the Allies and 

the United States, in a noble effort to do what government is supposed to do, 

with the leverage that government has been given by God through the sword, 

through the instrument of death.  And I believe you see the component of 

divine judgment.  You look at a God rejecting, Christ rejecting nation like 

Iraq, that for centuries and centuries and centuries has not only rejected 

the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but has done everything it can possibly do to 

stamp out the people of God, namely Israel.  And it says in Genesis, chapter 

12, "That whoever curses that people [Israel] will be cursed," and you can 

easily see the judgment of God as a potential reality there.



Perhaps we need to be as wise as we should be and see also the judgment of 

God upon our own nation as some of our young and wonderful people give their 

lives.  Take stock of the fact that we stand on the edge of death in a very 

advanced culture and can't seem to do anything about it, and maybe wonder if 

in fact it isn't something due to the life style we live.  By the way, we can 

thank God for the tremendous interest in the Gospel.  You are very much aware 

of the fact that this is the first war fought by Americans in history, where 

there are no drugs and no alcohol, no prostitutes, no nothing to corrupt 

them, or to salve them, to give them escape.  And so they are facing the 

stark reality of the barrenness of the place there and also the inevitability 

of death.



We may be an instrument of God temporarily.  We may be on the other end of 

it, if we don't change.  Israel served as God's tool for deadly judgment, but 

other nations also served as God's tool for deadly judgment on Israel.  I 

can't help but think about 70 A.D. when the Romans came into Jerusalem and 

killed 1.1 million Jews.  And you follow that all the way down to Adolf 

Hitler.  Even after the destruction in 70 A.D. they destroyed 985 towns in 

Palestine, massacring people.  



The Jews, even though they were chosen by God to be the nation through whom 

the revelation would come and the Messiah, are not preserved from the 

judgment of God, even though they are His covenant people.  And they are a 

people, even to this day, under present judgment, awaiting the time when they 

will look on Him whom they have pierced and embrace Him as the Messiah, come 

to faith and receive the Kingdom God has prepared and promised to them.  



All of this complex of factors pulls together in perfect precision, not for 

you and not for me, but for God.  And because I want to tell you this, God is 

sovereign over every bit of it.  God is in absolute control of all of these 

things, and is working out and perfecting His holy purpose perfectly.  In 

Isaiah 46 (a good reminder of two verses you ought to know by memory, if you 

don't), verse 9, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no 

one like me."  Listen to verse 10 of Isaiah 46, "Declaring the end from the 

beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My 

purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.'"  

What is that saying?  God says, "Remember me?  There is nobody else up here 

but me, and I'm in charge of everything!"  In Acts 17:26 it says, "He 

determines the boundaries of nations."  A graphic illustration of God's 

sovereign control comes pointedly, poignantly, powerfully to our minds in 

Daniel, chapter 4.  Look at it with me.  Daniel, chapter 4, Daniel is among 

his people Israel who are captives in Babylon and under the reign of a man by 

the name of Nebuchadnezzar.  Hussein says he, "Wants to be Nebuchadnezzar."  



Why does he say that?  Nebuchadnezzar ruled the world.  As king of Babylon, 

he ruled the ancient world.  He was the head of gold in Daniel's image, the 

most powerful world empire in human history.  And he was king, it says in 

chapter 4, verse 1, to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language 

that live in all the earth.  That is "some" kingdom.  He was king over all of 

it.  And he, of course, was a passionate hedonist led by self-gratification, 

lust, and he was also dominated by almost inexplicable pride.



One day he had a dream.  He called Daniel to interpret the dream, Daniel 

4:24, "This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most 

High," that is of God, "Which has come upon my lord the king."  Here's your 

dream and here's what God means to say, "You will be driven away from 

mankind, and your dwelling place be with the beasts of the fields, and you be 

given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven; and 

seven periods of time [seven years] will pass over you, until you recognize 

that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on 

whomever He wishes."  Did you get that statement?



God controls it all.  "And in that it was commanded to leave the stump with 

the roots of the tree, your kingdom will be assured to you after you 

recognize that it is Heaven that rules."  Boy, isn't that good?  Nothing is 

out of hand; nothing is out of line; nothing is gotten away from God.  

"Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: break away now from 

your sins by doing righteousness, and from your iniquities by showing mercy 

to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity."  There is 

a hint that Nebuchadnezzar was a wretched, evil, wicked aggressor.

  

You know what verse 28 says?  Obviously, he didn't repent, so it all happened 

to him, "Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace 

of Babylon.  The king reflected," now listen to this soliloquy, "Is this 

not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the 

might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?"  Not exactly a humble 

soul is he?  



"While the word was in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven, 

saying. . ." you want a conversation, you got one, "King Nebuchadnezzar, to 

you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, and you will be 

driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of 

the field.  You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of 

time [seven years] will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High 

is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whomever He wishes."  



"Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was 

driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was 

drenched with the dew of heaven, until his hair had grown like eagles' 

feathers and his nails like birds' claws."  God's in control of everything.  



Nebuchadnezzar ruled in the Mesopotamia Valley where Saddam Hussein is.  Same 

basic piece of earth, same basic goal in mind.  God told Nebuchadnezzar, He 

[God] was in charge; God maybe be telling Hussein the same thing.  He became 

a raving maniac, crawling around the ground eating grass like an animal.  

Unkempt for seven years.  Verse 34 says, "At the end of that period I, 

Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, 

and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever."  

Boy, what a transformation.



"His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from 

generation to generation.  And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted 

as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among 

the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, 

'What hast Thou done?'"  God is absolutely in control.  "At that time my 

reason returned to me.  And my majesty and splendor were restored to me for 

the glory of my kingdom, and my counselors and my nobles began seeking me 

out; so I was reestablished in my sovereignty, and surpassing greatness was 

added to me."



God didn't have to do that, "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise, exalt, and honor 

the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is 

able to humble those who walk in pride."  Wouldn't it be wonderful if Hussein 

got saved?  Then we could give him back Iraq.  It is all in God's hands.  It 

is all absolutely in God's hands.  



Why is there war?  There is war because man is sinful, lustful; he is 

desirous of sinful gratification; he becomes an evil aggressor.  There is war 

because some governments are noble enough to understand what they are to do.  

The United States is one and so are our allies, to stand against that kind of 

evil aggression and provide just protection for innocent people.  And in it 

all the inexorable judgment of God is at work mysteriously, as God is doing 

His perfect purpose.  



That leads us to the second question, which I will only introduce this 

morning.  And that second question you already know the answer to, but it 

needs elucidation.  Second question, "Can war be moral?  Can war be just?"  

We already said, "Yes," but we need to say more than that because somebody is 

going to say, "Well, that's all Old Testament, and what about New Testament?"  

That's the typical argument.  We'll get to the New Testament, but let me say 

first of all, just to think about it, "Can war be moral?"



Let me have you use your mind with me for a moment.  The pacifists and what 

we use to call the "Peaceniks" deny all war.  They say there is no just war:  

"No war! Never have war!"  We saw all of that during Vietnam.  We all agree 

that war is tragic, reflects the worse of man's wretchedness, but not all 

warring actions in themselves are evil.  War is tragic, but it is not always 

evil, and it is often necessary as government does what God instituted 

government to do.  Not all war can be avoided.  To let violence, murder, 

slaughter of innocence, to go on unchecked is not noble.  It is not right.  

It doesn't eliminate evil, it perpetuates, tolerates, and honors the evil.  



We understand, don't we, the atrocities reported by the Amnesty International 

Report on Hussein.  We understand that he has gouged out thousand of peoples' 

eyes, that he has cut off their tongues halfway up, that he has ripped the 

fingernails out of their hands and feet.  That he has burned them with every 

conceivable thing, hot irons, fire of all sorts.  We understand that he has 

murdered and massacred to the point now where it is questionable in the 

vacuum when he goes, that there would be anyone capable of stepping into 

leadership, at least anyone known to anybody, because they all have been 

assassinated.



We understand the massacre of the Kuwaiti people, the atrocities against the 

children and the women.  We understand all of that.  It is much too 

simplistic to stand back and say, "Stop fighting, stop fighting!"  Government 

exists to bear the sword against the evil aggressor for the sake of the 

preservation of those who are his victims.  We have to recognize that in a 

fallen world it is simplistic, if not stupid, to say let violence, murder, 

slaughter of the innocent, go on unchecked.  



We must recognize that in this fallen world any refusal to exercise force to 

deter evil would mean to let evil rule.  And then the whole world would be in 

chaos with the collapse of society.  Look at it this way.  If having military 

force and using it against deadly wickedness is immoral, then it is immoral 

in principle, right?  If it is immoral to do that, then it is immoral in 

principal.  Well if it is immoral in principal for us to try to protect 

people from deadly wickedness, then it would be equally immoral, in 

principal, to do that at any level.  So it would be equally immoral to have 

police or the national guard or the coast guard or the sheriffs or the 

highway patrol or the FBI or private security.  



If it is immoral to restrain evil, then open all the jails and let everybody 

out; eliminate the death penalty.  That's absolutely unthinkable.  What would 

happen?  What would happen if that was the principle that we adopted?  We 

would all be terrorized to the point of death.  You see, if in principle it 

is moral to use force at all, then it is moral to use force period, in the 

right situation.  



If a rapist is attacking a young girl, attempting to rape that girl with a 

gun to her head, and he kills her after the rape, goes along the rest of the 

day, finds another young girl--there's a bulletin out on him, the police are 

looking for him, they find him in the process of rape, with the gun in his 

hand, and in the milieu that occurs in that moment, they take his life, is 

that immoral?  Is it immoral to protect that girl from the plundering, 

raping, murdering intent of this individual?  Would we stay back and say, 

"Stop the war, stop, don't invade, don't step in."  It's ludicrous.  Is it 

immoral if you find a man murdering his fifteenth victim, and the only way 

you can deal with the man is in some kind of combat, and you have to take his 

life?  Is that immoral?



It seems to me that a lot of the people who are crying that war is immoral 

would be the first ones who would grab the nearest weapon to fight off 

somebody who tried to come and murder them or somebody they loved.  See we 

have self-defensive instincts.  God has designed that in the best way 

possible, in a fallen world, He wants us to be blessed and live a happy life.  

An ideal or just war is conceivable in principle, just as it is conceivable 

to assume that somebody could take the life of someone trying to murder 

somebody else.  Plunder them and destroy them.  



But an ideal or just war would be limited, and I want to share this with you 

because I think it is very important to note this.  And these are things I 

did not put together as a result of this current war.  These are long time 

standards that I have understood.  You can see this perfectly fits what is 

happening now.  



A just war would be limited to halting the evil aggressor and defending the 

oppressed and freeing them.  That's the just war, it is limited to that.  

What do I mean by that?  I am going to give you five principles of a just 

war.  



Number one, a just cause.  A just war would be marked by a just cause.  What 

do I mean by a just cause?  I mean it is defensive, it's protective.  It is 

the noble effort of government to wield the sword in the way that government 

is designed to wield the sword, and that is for the protection of the 

innocent victim against the evil aggressor.  It would have to have a just 

cause.  



Secondly, a just war would have to have a just intention.  A just intention.  

What do I mean by that?  Peace, safety and freedom, not revenge, plunder, and 

conquest.  Peace, safety and freedom, not revenge, plunder, and conquest.  



Thirdly, a just war is a last resort war.  That is to say, it is only engaged 

in at the end of all possible negotiations.  When every option has been 

utterly exhausted.



Fourthly, a just war has limited objectives.  A just war has limited 

objectives.  Not total destruction of everybody, not the devastation of 

everybody.  Limited objectives in the sense of specific targets, specific 

goals; peace, deliverance, and withdrawal.



And fifthly, a just war engages limited means.  That is, its force is limited 

to its objectives.  Think about that.  



I think what you are experiencing in our country right now is an illustration 

of what government was designed to do, very graphically.  It is a noble 

effort.  First of all we have a just cause.  We are the defenders of the 

freedom, the safety of an oppressed people.  Secondly, we have a just 

intention.  Our intention is peace, safety, and freedom, not plunder and 

conquest.  Thirdly, we have gone to war only as a last resort, having 

exhausted all attempts at negotiations.  Fourthly, we have limited 

objectives.  We are not trying to destroy the whole place.  You realize of 

course, don't you, that if the United States set out as an objective to 

destroy Iraq, we could destroy Iraq in a matter of minutes.  But we also have 

limited means, because our means are limited to our objectives.  Our 

objective is not to destroy Iraq.  We could do it with Nuclear Weaponry, in a 

moment in time.  But we are fighting a limited objective, with limited means.



I have been fascinated to see how skilled we are at hitting exactly what we 

want to hit and little or anything else.  That's a noble effort, that's a 

noble effort.  Those are responsible approaches to the issue, reasonable 

ones.  But the question is still posed, as reasonable as those are, "Is the 

use of military force in resisting, restraining, in punishing violence, 

really entrusted to human government in the Bible?"  You say, "Yeah, we know 

Israel in the Old Testament, but what about the New Testament?"  That's for 

next time.  And next time we are also going to talk about how we are going to 

understand this war, particularly in the light of Old Testament promises and 

the problem between the Arabs and the Jews scripturally.  And then we are 

going to answer the question, "Is this a sign of the Return of Christ?"  That 

question has been circulating around our young people at the college.  Some 

of them are very distressed because that have not yet had the opportunity to 

engage in marital bliss.  And they are somewhat hopeful that the Lord may 

delay His coming.  We will talk next time about such things.  In the meantime 

our pastoral staff is available for premarital counseling for any of you who 

want to hurry and enter into this blissful condition.



Let's bow together in prayer.  Father, it seems such a far-fetched thing, 

that we could pray as a people for the salvation of Saddam Hussein.  And by 

the transforming Grace of Jesus Christ, embrace him as a brother, if he were 

genuinely redeemed.  Father, we don't want to hate the man, we just hate the 

sin and we despise the Satanic influences behind him.  But we would ask in 

Your sovereignty, if you would see fit to do to him what you did to 

Nebuchadnezzar.  Send him out in the desert until he knows who the true God 

is.  



And may this whole war, in some way, betray the faith of all those people who 

are believing in a false god.  May it be clear that their false god is not 

the true God.  We pray Father for the salvation of many of the Iraqi people, 

somehow the gospel would penetrate their Muslim darkness.  Lord, we pray 

somehow that you would cause them to come to the knowledge of the truth.  We 

know that you must have your people there someplace.



We pray for the continued ministry among our troops in the salvation of many 

of them, many of whom will perhaps perish.  Lord we pray for the awakening of 

our own country.  We know that after war, typically through this century, 

there has been a renewal of interest in the gospel, because people came face 

to face with death.  We can only pray Lord, that America might hear the 

wakeup call and recognize that it is walking on a path that's going to bring 

about its own judgment.  This may be but a taste, as some of our precious 

young life is snuffed out.  Lord, we pray mostly that this might somehow 

extend the gospel, exalt the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, advance the 

Kingdom and lift up your great name.  



And we would pray Father, that the work could be done swiftly and quickly and 

be done with, over with, so that it is not necessarily prolonged.  We just 

want you to be glorified in it all.  Even as we see Israel implicated in this 

we are again reminded to pray for the salvation of many in Israel.  We know 

that there are many evangelists there.  I know of one who is on the street 

preaching, may there be many who hear his message of the Messiah, and the 

time of fear come to those from the one who alone can deliver from all fear, 

even our Christ.



We thank you that you have given us in your word, insight to be able to 

understand the times and the seasons in which we live, and we await further 

instruction as we look again to these things this next Lord's Day thankfully 

in Christ's Name.  Amen.



Transcribed by Tony Capoccia



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