Question and Answer Program No. 90

So, your vow to remain single was not biblical. It might have been well-intentioned and you might have been very sincere, but it was like the vow of Jephthah in Judges 11. Emily, you might want to look at Judges 11. He makes a foolish vow that he would sacrifice whatever came out his door to God, because God had given him victory. And he thought, you know, the dog would run out the door or the cat.

You know, as far as I'm concerned, that would have been fine. But what happened was his daughter runs out the door. Hello and welcome to Wisdom for the Hearts with Stephen Davey. Stephen's the pastor of Colonial Baptist Church in Cary, North Carolina, and he's the Bible teacher on this daily program. However, we set aside our normal Bible teaching in order for Stephen to answer questions that he's received from listeners.

The clip that you heard just a moment ago was a portion of one of those answers. We're so glad you've joined us today. If you have a question that you'd like Stephen to answer, I'm going to come back in just a few moments and give you a number that you can call. We've heard from a listener in Greensboro, North Carolina named Paige.

My name is Paige and I'm calling from Greensboro, North Carolina. My brother is a veteran who suffers from combat-related ailments, especially guilt. I was guided to your sermon series titled I Pledge Allegiance, which talks about how we are to submit to and support our rulers, but only as long as it does not go against God's commandments. God commands us to not murder, yet killing is an inevitable outcome of war. Biblically, how does a soldier come to terms with having killed?

And if God consents to such action, how do we know we've rightly qualified someone as our enemy? I look forward to your thoughts, Dr. Davey. Paige, we are really glad to hear from you today and sorry for the struggles that your brother is having. Well, Stephen, war by definition is extremely violent. It is, and the results are lifelong in the lives, especially of our soldiers.

In fact, our heart goes out to these men and women who are engaged in combat, like Paige mentioned her brother has been. And it's really interesting to me that I think everyone's becoming more and more aware that apart from the discussion, which we won't get into, about whether war is just, which war is just, because that's another topic. But I think we want to address what Paige has asked, and that is the difference between killing and murder would be one of those.

And there is a difference, certainly. Murder is the taking of a life of an innocent individual for self-serving purposes. Killing is that which takes place on a battlefield. When a soldier is under orders, that's another part of Paige's question.

And we did deal with submission to government and governmental authority. And a soldier is certainly under orders. The decision of who to fight and when to fight and where to fight are really decisions that soldiers don't make. Their commanders do. We need to be careful, though, because a soldier still has a moral compass.

He still has the sense of right and wrong. And if he is ordered to kill innocent people, obviously our own culture, our own unbelieving culture considers those war crimes. But if a soldier disobeys his commander, there are consequences there as well.

He's going to be court-martialed and pay some serious penalties. I think it is important to understand that, again, our unbelieving culture is addressing not just this idea of soldiers killing or, by the way, guilt from having not been killed when their buddies lost their lives. That also brings a tremendous amount of guilt and shame and pain. But our world is beginning to talk about the moral issues relative to war. They talk about a moral injury that a veteran feels, which I think is very interesting, because that takes us into another realm, which is where, Paige, I believe your brother and every soldier can find hope and help. And that is whether or not it was right or wrong, whether or not it was justifiable or unjustifiable. There is a guilt that comes to a veteran, a soldier, because there's been the taking of another life. In fact, there are a number of studies that have been done in recent years, soldiers returning from Iraq. Forty percent of them who reported either killing or being responsible for killing during their deployment suffered tremendously with the effects that led to PTSD, alcohol abuse, anger, relationship problems and, in fact, suicide. One article I came across made the rather astonishing and tragic conclusion from research that the total number of U.S. active duty suicides in one year was higher than the number of combat-related deaths. So obviously, there's a tremendous amount of guilt and shame, even if a soldier's under orders, even if it would be considered a justifiable war. And by the way, if a soldier, you know, felt nothing emotionally about taking the life of another human being, that's what we would call a sociopath, and it would be a very, very great danger to society. So the fact that Paige, your brother, feels guilt and feels this internal struggle is actually a good thing.

So where do we go with this? Well, we go to the Scriptures, of course, and we think of one of the leading apostles who himself was guilty of murder. He was complicit in the killing of Stephen, an innocent man who preached a message that the religious leaders didn't like, and he organized it, implied in the fact that he kept the cloaks of those, and watched as Stephen was stoned to death. We also know from Paul's own testimony that he suffered in his own soul the guilt of the memory of incarcerating, putting families into jail, no doubt leading to the deaths of early believers, which is why the Church had a hard time accepting Paul early on, and Paul on several occasions gave apology, in a sense, for having been involved in those activities. What does Paul have to say? Well, what was Paul's hope? Paul's hope was the Gospel. Paul's hope was connected to the killing of his Savior, who by the way was sent and was under orders by the will of God, the Father, to die. And it's that death, the death of Jesus Christ, that solves every other death and all of the guilt and shame related to it that has ever taken place on the planet. Wartime killing, even a murderer who's listening to me right now.

What is the solution to all of it? It is the death of Jesus Christ, and the blood of Jesus was shed to cover all of the crimes, all of the sin, all of the killing, all of the murder, whether right or wrong, covers it all by his blood. And we can find forgiveness by taking it to that cross, laying it at the feet of the one who was killed on our behalf, murdered, as it were, by the will of God. Stephen, I think that's a really great and important reminder that the only source of relief for guilt and the shame surrounding our sin is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's right, and even the Apostle Paul, whom I mentioned earlier, wrote it this way, that God has now reconciled us through Christ in his fleshly body through death in order to present you, that's Scott, Stephen, Page, Page, your brother, to present you before him, God, holy and blameless and beyond reproach. That is because you continue in the faith, firmly established, steadfast, not moving away from the hope of the Gospel that you have heard. Well, that's our hope, and John also, in one of his letters, wrote, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he himself was the satisfaction for our sins.

So we take every sin, every right, every wrong, every question, every doubt to the cross. Scott, I'm so grateful that Page called in. Page, there are a number of resources that might be helpful for you. I happen to be the son of missionary parents who've worked with the military for 60 years.

If you want to call our studio, we can give you some information about how to connect, or you can Google missions to military, and they have written resources that would be helpful. Scott, we're grateful we live in a country that is safe because of our soldiers, our men and women, our armed forces that have put their lives on the line, and I personally praise God for the benefit that we have as a free country because of their sacrifice, but I'm aware that their shame and guilt, this moral injury, even our secular culture calls it, and the only solution to all of that, friends, is to take it to the Lord and believe by faith the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Like you, Stephen, I'm grateful for those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms, but I'm also glad we had the opportunity to address those who survived but who carry with them the burden of guilt over the violence of war.

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Page, and give us a call if we can help further. The number that Page used to reach us is 910-808-9384. That's a number that we've set up for you to call in any time, night or day, with your Bible question. It'll be recorded on that line for us to play on a future broadcast for Stephen to answer. It's not a number that you can use if you need to speak with us, but if you have a Bible question, you can use this number, 910-808-9384. Here's another question that a listener had for Stephen.

Hi, my name is Jeff. I'm calling from Virginia. I've always been torn between the two extremes. I was raised up in a legalistic kind of church where you weren't allowed to have fun, you weren't allowed to have a lot of possessions, you weren't allowed to have entertainment, and you had to live a, I guess, kind of a Puritan-like life. It seems biblical to me, but I found I can't live up to that, so I go to the other extreme and I start following a charismatic church, and there you can have all the possessions you want and all the fun you want.

It seems like it's seen as being a reward for being faithful to Jesus. So I'm torn between the two extremes, really. I wondered if you could help me straighten all this out in my head. I've been going back and forth with it for a long time. Thank you.

What do you think, Stephen? Well, I think that part of the answer is avoid those extremes. Avoid either one of those. Either one of those descriptions that you've given us in your question are places to avoid. Sounds to me like you haven't visited something in the middle. You haven't visited a church that's committed to teaching Scripture, not opinion, teaching prosperity theology, not the truth of what Scripture teaches.

So I think your search needs to begin with a church that's going to take the Bible and not give you what they think the Bible says, but tell you what the Bible actually says, and that can help you avoid the extremes. Now, let me add to that that Christianity, Jeff, doesn't solve all the questions. And balance, you know, it's easy for us to say, well, I'm balanced. And by the way, I believe people in both those extremes view themselves as balanced. Balance is extremely difficult. I remember someone saying that arriving at a balanced position is like a pendulum. And the only time a pendulum is in the center is when it's in the process of going from one side to the other. So, you know, it's very difficult to say, oh, I'm in the middle. Wait.

No, I'm not. And a lot of things change as well. A lot of issues that you struggle with and I struggle with are issues that generations before us and generations after us will not. We were just kind of talking here in the studio about some of those issues when we were children. I can remember when I was a little boy, a pool table was the paragon of evil. You could only play pool if you went into the pool hall, and pool halls weren't places you wanted to go.

And then it became associated with actually the pool table. And I can remember as a young boy, my dad, who'd been, I think it was at Sears and Roebuck, and there was a damaged pool table there. And he got down on all fours, realized that one corner could be repaired.

He repaired it and then went and purchased it for that sale price, which was pennies. And he brought it home and put it in the garage. And I'll never forget, it was sort of like, don't tell anybody, but let's go enjoy a game of pool. And then it was a couple of weeks or a couple of months, I can't remember, later when our pastor was at our home. I don't know if it was for dinner or he was stopping by or maybe he heard some rumors that the Davey boys were in deep trouble. But he came by and my dad and he were chatting about things. And the next thing I know, he was invited to play us a game of pool. I'll never forget all of us in the garage with our pastor laughing and having a great time playing a game of pool. That's not how I thought that story was going to go, Stephen.

You thought we were all going to get kicked out of church, right? Well, you know, I sure admired that man. He kind of saw through the legalistic battle. And by the way, that doesn't mean that questionable things should be immediately embraced. That's that other side, Jeff, that you talked about.

So what do you do? Well, you go live in Romans 14, for one thing. And there, Paul gives the principles of a Christian's conscience. They wanted to know if you could eat meat that had been offered to idols.

They expected Paul to come back with an immediate absolutely not. And he didn't. In fact, he gives principles of how to decide whether or not you could eat that meat. And he gives principles like, verse 5 of chapter 14, each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

He reminds every believer that you're going to stand before the judgment seat of God. So you better be careful, and you better know what you're doing, and Scripture is not violated, and you're not being disobedient in something you do. Scott had been in the past for now 31 years, and I've heard people argue from both sides of this issue. I've seen the legalists angry at those they would call licentious or libertarians. I've seen the libertarians scoff at the legalists. Both sides are wrong to condemn sensoriously one another.

Let's be gracious. And people disagree about a lot of things. They'll disagree with how to school a child, should it be Christian school, public school, or home school. I tell folks in our church, we've done all three, and none of them work perfectly, I'll add.

None of them work perfectly. But it's a decision you make as a parent. Don't scoff and look down at those who do it differently. And it will go all the way to the birth of a child. What kind of high charity do you put him in? Do you put him in store-bought diapers, or do they have to be cloth diapers?

Do you nurse, or do you use formula? I mean, Jeff, the issues are unending, frankly, because we're fallen selfish creatures, and we think our opinion matters more than anybody else's. So go live in the Scriptures, find a church in an assembly where it's expository preaching verse by verse, and the pastor doesn't insert his opinion in between each word, and that'll steer you correctly. And we've addressed the issue at length here on the radio. Scott, it came to my mind, we've done a series on Romans 14, and maybe we could offer that to him as well.

We sure can, Jeff. We have a resource that we think is going to really help you navigate this issue wisely, and anyone who's listening. Stephen has a nine-part series called Gray Matters that comes straight from the Scriptures in Romans 14. Gray Matters is available on our website. If you go to wisdomonline.org, you'll find that series, and you can actually listen to the messages right there on the website, or you can download and read Stephen's manuscript from those messages.

Those resources are absolutely free. If you prefer having it on a set of CDs, we can help you with that as well, but all of that information is at wisdomonline.org, or you can call us for more information. I'm going to come back in a few moments and give you the number that you can use to call us, but Stephen, we have time for just a couple more questions. Emily, we are so glad that you've called us, because there is hope for you in God's Word.

Yeah, we are, Emily. Thank you. Your question is multilayered, but let me begin first of all with this vow of chastity, and I'm going to be very direct with you, because I want to help you, and in order to do that, I need to tell you the truth, that this vow of chastity is nothing less than an act of penance. You're trying to atone for your immorality from your earlier years by vowing to be single. God never asked you to make a vow in order to be forgiven.

You don't do anything to receive God's forgiveness for your sexual sin or any other sin, the sin you'll commit tomorrow. By the way, that is covered by the blood of Christ, your Savior. Yes, sometimes in distress, we can say, Lord, if you get me out of this, I promise I'll do this, this, this, and that. I think of the two guys who were drowning. They were carried out to the ocean, and one guy said to the other, I know I've been rebellious, so I'm going to start dealing with this with God.

So he says, God, if you rescue us, I'll promise that I'll pay back the money to the bank that I owe, and I'll pay that creditor I shafted, and his buddy nudges him and says, hey, hold it, don't go any further, I see a lifeboat. Well, in other words, don't get too carried away with your vows. Well, for you, obviously, in agony, sensing, knowing the guilt of your former sin, you thought that somehow God would be impressed with you more if you made a vow than if you simply went to him and said, Lord Jesus, forgive my sin. So your vow to remain single was not biblical. It might have been well-intentioned, and you might have been very sincere, but it was like the vow of Jephthah in Judges 11.

Emily, you might want to look at Judges 11. He makes a foolish vow that he would sacrifice whatever came out his door to God, because God had given him victory, and he thought, you know, the dog would run out the door, or the cat, as far as I'm concerned, that would have been fine. But what happened was his daughter runs out the door, and she is given over to a life of virginity or chastity. She remains unmarried, and she's not sacrificed as he planned he would have done with an animal. She wasn't sacrificed. She remained single. That was a foolish vow by Jephthah, and in that world, his vow impacted her life for the rest of her life. So let me again make this clear. Your vow to remain single, though well-intentioned, was foolish.

It was unnecessary. God doesn't forgive you because you make a vow. He forgives you when you admit that you've sinned. If we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, we can be saved. If we admit that we're sinning, if we say the same thing as God, 1 John 1, we already referred to that verse, he'll forgive us when we admit that we're sinful. Now you're married.

Guess what? Those vows are godly. Those vows you made to your husband are God-honoring.

So your vow to remain single was foolish, but your vows to be married are godly, so it would be absolutely wrong for you to break your godly vows in order to keep a foolish one. So here's what I want you to do. Enjoy your marriage. Give it to God, if it hasn't already been.

Dedicate yourself as a wife to the Lord, and enjoy, dedicate, sacrifice, commit everything you have to the man you've married, because those vows were pleasing to God. Thank you so much for calling, Emily. We were really glad to hear from you. And friends, the number that you can use to call us is 910-808-9384. Steven, we'll give you one more for today.

Hello, this is Dave calling from Russellville, Kentucky. My question is, there's a hymn that says, he could have called ten thousand angels. My question is, could he really have done that? It seems to me the entire culmination of time itself, of creation, all messianic prophecies and divinely orchestrated scenarios pivot on the crucifixion of Christ.

I appreciate your response. Thanks for calling, Dave. Steven? Well, there's a difference between, could Jesus have called ten thousand angels, or would Jesus call ten thousand angels? I mean, first of all, on one hand, Jesus can do anything he wants to do. He's God incarnate. But Dave, you're right, because you're dipping back into the theology of redemption, and according to redemption's plan, which was determined in eternity past, Jesus wasn't going to do that. Now, we do see him as a man, fully man. He battled this in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying to his father several times, is there any way this cup can pass from me?

Is there any other way around this separation from you and becoming sin? And he always ended those prayers, we're told in the Gospel accounts, nevertheless, thy will be done. Now, I do have to say, Dave, that hymn is wrong, because we're told in Matthew 26, around verse 24, when Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, Jesus says, you know, put your sword up, don't you know I could call twelve legions of angels to assist me if I want? And a legion, six thousand. So we're talking about not ten thousand, but we're talking about he could have called seventy-two thousand angels to assist him. It'd be really awkward to sing it that way.

It would mess up the meter. He could have called seventy-two thousand angels. Well, the point is, he could have called a hundred million if he'd wanted. It isn't that he couldn't have, he could do anything he wants, but he wouldn't, because he'd come to Earth for the purpose of dying for our sin, rising, ascending. And by the way, it all wraps together, because he's soon coming back.

So the theology behind that hymn, Steven, is then the important truth that the hymn writer is making the point that Jesus went willingly. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks, Dave. Thanks so much for calling. We're glad to have heard from you.

That's all we have time for today, but let me give you some information before we go. The number that you can reach if you would like to speak with us is 866-48-BIBLE. Our website is wisdomonline.org. All of our resources are posted there, as well as additional information about our ministry. Thanks for joining us today. I hope that you have a great weekend. Make sure you join us on Monday, right here, on Wisdom for the Heart.