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Defender of the Weak
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When I was visiting North America, I noticed how deeply college sports culture runs through communities. On Friday evenings, when their teams play and the crowd gathers, one chant echoes repeatedly: "defense, defense, defense." The supporters cry out for defense especially when their team doesn't have the ball, when they're trying to shut out the opposition from scoring.
I think defense is such an important concept for us as we consider the theme of "turning tables." There's much we still wrestle with in Scripture, but I love that the Bible is the only book in history where the author shows up and interacts with you by his Spirit. That's powerful.
When it comes to war and conflict between nations, we navigate these tensions constantly. Jesus foretold there will be wars and rumors of wars in every cycle of civilization until he returns. Yet the Bible never revels in or glorifies war. It describes war honestly—as brutal, tragic, and a result of human evil and sin. All war and violence exist because sin has entered the world.
We've been deliberately engaging this theme of "turning tables" in a culturally aware, intentionally Jesus-centered way. Our messages are designed to flip our perspectives by showing how Jesus's example and Scripture overturn human views on anger, violence, conflict, and war. We must examine whether any concept of war aligns with God's heart.
We can look back at difficult Old Testament passages, particularly Joshua's conquest of Canaan, and ask: Does this reflect God's heart? Does it reflect the compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and love of God that we see exemplified through Jesus?
Job, one of the great Bible characters who suffered immensely, declares: "The Lord God Almighty shall become your defender." This isn't just his promise—it's a promise for everybody who trusts in God.
The Psalms echo this: "The Lord is my defender. I will not be moved." What a great declaration that would be. Other psalms cry out: "Defend me, Lord, from those who come against me." They appeal to God to be the one who does the defending.
Jesus reveals the crucial distinction between kingdom and empire in John 18:36. He's on trial before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. The Jewish leaders are in occupied territory—Rome has taken over Jerusalem. Though they can practice their religion, they're under Roman jurisdiction, so they need Rome to execute Jesus.
This is what Jesus says:
My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my kingdom is not of this world.
What does Jesus mean? He's not connected to any political or national entity. If he were, he would behave like everyone else. Empires and kingdoms try to consolidate power to ensure they hold all the authority. But Jesus says: "I don't behave like everybody else. All power has come from me. The earth and everything in it belongs to me. This is my kingdom. You're in my house. You're playing on my court."
Pilate misunderstands him. He thinks Jesus is about to lead a political revolt. But Jesus is turning the tables by declaring that the real rebellion isn't him against empires—the real rebellion is humanity against God. The real rebellion is people acting in sin in the world that God has made.
Though Jesus's kingdom is not of this world, he has come into this world to take it back and restore it to God, to put it in right alignment.
God's kingdom has a king, and it's the only kingdom that never ends. King Jesus is not like any other king—he's the King of Kings, the only one with ultimate authority in the end.
Jesus has declared there will be a time when he brings a final end to all empires and superpowers. But in the meantime, until Jesus returns to fully inaugurate his reign as King of Kings, those who are part of his kingdom must fight differently.
We need to take on spiritual weapons—prayer and praise. Our goal is kingdom advancement: proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ and seeing spiritual lives, souls, and spirits submit to King Jesus and give their hearts to him.
Jesus has already declared his hand and already has the victory. He will win in the end. But in the meantime, we find ourselves in a clash of kingdoms—a clash between kingdom and empire.
Let me address the framework called just war. A just war is the concept of "holy war," most commonly expressed as war justified on religious grounds, conducted by a legitimate government or force.
Just war theory has seven criteria:
This might sound like a good framework. But look at its origins: it comes from Greek philosophers—Plato, Socrates—way before Jesus's time. Christian theologians like Augustine in the fifth century and Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century reshaped these criteria so states and organized governments could fight evil.
Here's what's important: as much as religion has been blamed for holy war, holy war is not a concept taught in the Bible.
Some claim holy war comes from Old Testament passages like Deuteronomy 20, which describes rules of engagement for Joshua's conquest of Canaan. Moses set these with God, with priorities of bringing peace and caring for people and the environment.
Thousands of years ago, there were no rules about war. Tribal warfare happened constantly. Empires like Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, and Greece were always at war. So God—vastly before anyone else—turned the tables by doing something countercultural: he set rules of engagement.
But I don't think God was ever endorsing war. I think God was working with civilization and humanity from where it was, trying to move us toward understanding Jesus and the kingdom he's building. God always raises the bar—not just on war, but on women's rights, polygamy, slavery, and how we treat foreigners. God is always ahead of the curve, working with humanity from where they are.
When it comes to holy war, the nation of Israel was given a mandate—but only to conquer the land of Canaan. The command was for a specific time, place, and people. The reason was that the Canaanite people had committed great wickedness. After hundreds of years, God called time, saying enough. He would establish a people in this land to show him to the rest of the world.
There was no attempt to conquer other lands, no attempt to expand territory beyond Canaan. What you get is God in the Old Testament showing a description of war, not a prescription for the future.
This means Christians through Jesus are now forbidden to use violence to spread faith. That's not how we do it. We had the Holy Crusades hundreds of years back—violent means to spread and defend the faith. But God isn't giving us that prescription. It was a description of warfare at that time.
There is no biblical mandate for holy war.
People call for justice today in response to terrible atrocities—brutal murders, violence that erupts across society. Romans 13 says every person must submit to and support governmental authority over them. Why?
Firstly, it's the right thing to do. Every government is still under God, and authority is God-given. Secondly, it's wise: God designed authority and governments to hold society together. Without them, you get anarchy and chaos. Thirdly, it's tough—whoever is in power never has an easy task.
But the Bible says this authority is not absolute. People can be in authority without acting as God would want them to. Because it's not absolute, it's right as Christians to stand up against dictators and oppressive regimes, to make a stand against those who act contrary to God's ways and laws.
Those who commit atrocities need to be held accountable. Those who suppress rights must be opposed. Only then can we obey God rather than mankind—but only after discerning that this is genuinely the only way forward.
At no time does God give us the right to disrespect human life. Human life is precious in his sight. We may have justification to defend our property, but always within proportionate means. Defending your property does not mean you can willingly take someone else's life. We must entrust judgment into God's hands.
Every nation, government, and person in power will be held to account by God in the end. We must discern how to respond when our governments act contrary to God's will.
God always takes the side of vulnerable people. Scripture consistently shows that God pays special attention to those overlooked by society: the poor, the oppressed, widows, orphans, foreigners, outsiders, the powerless.
The Psalms say: "God is the father to the fatherless and defender of the widows." God identifies with people who have no protector and actively intervenes.
We must let God do it in his own time and way, but we don't have to fight as the world fights. We can keep appealing to God to be the defender of the vulnerable. Mary declares:
The Lord God has brought down rulers from their thrones and lifted up those who are humble.
We see that God will enact biblical justice—confronting those who oppress, humbling the proud, and lifting up the crushed.
We need to act in different ways with different weapons. Our weapon is righteousness.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:
We are human, but we don't wage war as humans do. We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.
This is warfare language—all about strongholds. A stronghold is a fortress built up so strong that nobody can get in or change it. Interestingly, the word for "stronghold" comes from the word for "defender." When you have refuge in God, a stronghold—a place to run where God protects you—that's where you channel it the right way.
But Paul is saying we must help people break down the fortresses in their thinking, their minds, their ideas, their reasoning, their philosophies—to bring God's truth to them.
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. We don't fight with worldly weapons. Instead, we trust God to speak truth and see those strongholds dismantled in people's thinking so they come to know Jesus.
As we finish thinking about God being the defender of the weak, let's ask ourselves some questions:
When the Bible calls God the defender of the weak, it implies we should be about God's kingdom more than just being right or taking ground through violence. Instead, God expects us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and to show Jesus through our means and behaviors.
God's character through Jesus becomes the model for how we should think about war. We adopt Jesus's weapons, not the world's. We fight in a different kind of way, practicing the weapons God gives us: truth, prayer, love, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, and trust that God will handle things in the end.
We can be confident that at the right time and in the right way, we can stand up for truth, justice, and righteousness. Think differently about war and holy war. Fight with the weapons of the kingdom, not the weapons of the world.
