What To Do With The Enemy? An Ancient General & His Commander-In-Chief Answer.

[ photo, courtesy of newscientist.com ]

The Law of Warfare -- Part III -- Deuteronomy 20:10-20

This passage from the Old Testament records how Moses instructed the Israelites about God's strategy for dealing with their enemies. It provides us with much insight into how we can deal with our enemies -- be they nations, powers, principalities, entities, groups of people, or individuals. Our enemies may be physical or they may spiritual, or social, or psychological.  Whoever they are -- here are some gems that you can rely on:

First, realize you are strong, your army is mighty, and that God is with you. Moses has been saying this all along to the Israelites. God has to repeat it later in the book of Judges to the various leaders He has appointed to rule Israel. They had to have their fears allayed before going into battle.

Second, especially when the enemy is physical -- don't go after them with the intent of wiping them off the face of the earth.  God would have you leave that to Him if necessary.  Don't be like Iran's leaders that publicly boast about wanting to eliminate the Great Satan (the U.S.) and the Little Satan (Israel) off the face of the earth and are just waiting for the right opportunity. Instead, the Israelites were told (verse 10) to first offer their enemies "terms of peace". But not all their enemies as we will see later.

The enemy is your enemy for a reason -- they did something that they should not have done. They killed your loved one. Or they attacked your land. The cheated you. They hurt you or someone under your care. They deny or worse still, hate your God. The fact that you are to first offer them peace and they accept it, does not mean they are to be 'scot-free'. Not at all. They still have to be dealt with. They still have to pay for their evil. And that may mean some sort of punishment. That is why in verse 11 of Deuteronomy chapter 20, we read that if the enemy does agree to make peace with you, they have to serve you as forced labor. There are prisoners of war to be taken and put to work.

We each have to decide what that means in our individual cases wth our own enemies. I remember once being involved in an organization in which one of its subsidiaries rebelled against head office and did all it could to take the assets assigned to them to look after and shed the corporate entity. We decided to fight and fight hard. They lost. Relationships were broken. All the assets were returned to their rightful owner. Some time later we decided to sell them the assets they thought they deserved at fair market value. Being a Christian does not always mean 'lying down and playing dead'.  If you believe someone is getting away with something they should not, you have a responsibility to fight hard to make it right. If not for your sake, for the weaker ones that come after you.

Another example would be discovering that your local retailer cheats you on a deal. You may feel or argue that it's just not worth fighting. Not worth the hassle.  Not worth the time. You can shop elsewhere.  And the amount they ripped you off for is insignificant to you. Fine. But then you think of your children that may want to shop there, you think of the little old lady that does shop there who is on a limited income, and you think of the retailer who may never have another chance to go clean. And you go after them, involving the authorities where and when necessary. There are times when you face your 'enemies' square on.

Now what happens if after your enemy is given a chance to make peace with you and they refuse? Verse 12 says you besiege it -- you force it to surrender. In today's terms, you legally "throw the whole book of the law" at your enemy. (Now, of course, the New Testament tells us not to do that with our fellow brothers and sisters, our fellow Christians.  True.  But that's not the case we're talking about here.)

Verse 13 and following now get really bloody (for lack of a better word). If an enemy nation would not make peace with Israel, or surrender to Israel, and God gives it into the hands of the Israelites, they were to  kill all the men with the edge of the sword. Women, children, animals, and objects in the city were to be taken as 'booty' for the use of the Israelites. They were to consider that a gift from God.

I don't know about you. I struggle with the justification that many Christians use today to say that the New Covenant has changed all that. We are no longer to go to war. We are no longer to dole out punishment for crime and evil against us. And I believe a lot of that is true -- in certain personal cases.  "Vengeance is Mine" says the Lord. I get it. But I also believe that when people or nations come against you because of the fact that you believe in God, then that changes everything for me. To me there's a difference between an enemy country that steals you oilfields, and one that says there is no god but Allah and behaves as if they believe, by their continued executions of Christians, that we are Allah's enemies and we must be killed. (I'll let you think about that and please leave a comment below.)

Now, in verses 15-17, Moses shares a rule -- "Just do what was mentioned above to those enemies that are far away from the land God gave you as an inheritance; offer them peace first, then act accordingly depending on how they respond.  But to the nearby ones that are part of your inheritance, don't leave anyone alive." Wow. How unfair.

But not if you can see it from God's perspective. Moses wants us to do just that. So he gives us the reason why in verse 18: "That they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God."  God had no patience, no tolerance, no heart or desire for any of that to happen to His people, and thus His strong measures against those that would do that to the Israelites.  That's how much God loved them.

I believe the general principle that this Scripture is giving us here is that we are to keep our house and those near to us "clean and pure" -- no ifs, buts, or why's.  And perhaps there is some leniency to let others worry about far off lands today. Domestic policy trumps foreign policy as a priority.  That's why so many of us are fighting the new global reset, the new liberal, anti-God, anti-faith policies of our governments. Does that make sense?

Finally, for those of us that believe God also loves the earth that He created, Moses says God warned the Israelites against destroying any trees that would provide them with food.  That would have been unwise to say the least. In fact God says these trees are not the enemy -- they are not people -- to be besieged by the Israelites. They are to be saved.  And the trees they are to cut down (the ones that don't bear fruit) are to be put to use in constructing the equipment they would need to fight their enemies.

Yes, Christians have a God-given responsibility to protect nature and to use it wisely when necessary. And whoever thought we'd have that idea reinforced from a passage on war and fighting our enemies. You have to love the O.T.

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