GOD'S BATTLE AXE

Rev. Bertrand Comparet

 

   As all of our regular listeners know, I lay great emphasis on Bible pro­phecies and their fulfillment ‑‑‑both Old and New Testaments repeatedly say that this is proof of the genuineness and Inspiration of the Scriptures, as well as of vital importance for our guidance.  Many of these prophecies deal with war: not only with the wars of the wicked against us, but also with our duty to have our part in God's wars against the wicked.  There is no pacifism in the Bible: only under Jesus Christ's personal government of the world can there ever be peace.  I want to talk with you about our duties in the meantime, in this im­perfect world.

   God knew that we must defend ourselves against the wicked; and He pro­mised us His help at such times.  Deuteronomy 20:3‑4 tells us: "Hear, 0 Israel: ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies.  Let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble neither be ye terrified because of them: for Yahweh your God is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies to save you."  Again, in Deuteronomy 2:25, God said, 'This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall trem­ble because of thee." Repeatedly He tells us, "Ye shall not fear them: for Yahweh your God, He shall fight for you."

    Of course, to get the greatest protection, we Must obey our God: for in Leviticus 26:3. 6‑8, He says: "If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My command­ments and do them; * * I will give peace In the land, and ye shall lie down and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land; neither shall the sword go through your land.  And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.  And five of you shall chase an hund­red, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword."

    Let there be no doubt of this: He is a God of peace to those who love Him and obey Him; but to the wicked who try to overthrow all His rule In this world, He I . as Exodus 15:3 says, "a man of war".  Psalm 24:8 reminds us, "Who is the King of glory?  Yahweh strong and mighty, Yahweh mighty in battle."  So in Psalm 18:32‑34, 32, David says, "It is God that girdeth me with stren­gth, and maketh my way perfect.  He teacheth my hands to war so that a bow of steel is broken by my arms. * * For Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me."  And II Samuel 1:18 records that David required that the men of Judah be taught to use the bow.

   But there was more to this than just the mere defense of ourselves against direct attack: it Is our job to be God's policemen in this world; and we must be ready, willing and able to do it.  In Jeremiah 51:20, God gives us our ord­ers, saying: "Thou art My battleaxe and weapons of war: for with thee of will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy k kingdoms.

   He will use His great power to see that we are victorious; but we can't hide under the bed at home while His work is done, we must do our part of to it, with serene confidence in His protection.  In Isaiah 54:15,17, God says, Behold, they shall surely gather together‑‑‑but not by Me: whosoever shall gather to ­together against thee shall fall for thy sake, No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.  This is the heritage of the servants of Yahweh, and their righteousness is of Me, saith Yahweh."  But remember, keeping the world in or­der is doing God's work, and we must do it, for He has said that we shall; if we decide that we are so much more righteous than God that we can make our own rules and say that surrender to evil is better than enforcing the right, then we should remember the terrible warning given in Jeremiah 48:10, "Cursed be he that doeth the work of Yahweh negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood."

    To be the instrument in God's hand, by which He brings righteousness and justice into an unwilling world is an honor; and that is what God calls it.  The 149th, Psalm says it clearly:"Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.  Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two‑edged sword in their hand: to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people: to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of Iron: to execute upon them the judgment written: this honor have all His saints.  Praise ye Yahweh."

   I can just see someone wishing he could say that this is from the Old Testament, that God was all wrong, and all this was done away with by the New Testament.  But I have a surprise for you: God was right, so He didn't have to change His mind or be taught higher ethics by men.  Let's see what the New Testament says.  In Matthew 10:34, Jesus Christ Himself  "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." And in Luke 22:36, Jesus Christ told His disciples, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one."  And Jesus Christ didn't have to change His mind, either; for in Revelation 19:11 we read this about Him: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called "Faithful and True", and in righteousness He doth judge AND MAKE WAR.

   You see, peace never comes by co‑operation with Satan, or with Satan's children and followers.  You can't co‑exist with a cancer: either you must out it our completely, or it will kill you; both cannot survive.  Therefore, the Prince of Peace must be in complete control over a world from which evil has been driven out.  Only then can the words of Micah 4:1‑3 be fulfilled: "But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of Yahweh shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.  And many nations shall come, and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in his path: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusa­lem.  And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."  Note that this does not come through the that Parliament of All Evil, the United Nations: it is done only by the might of God.  Therefore, we read how this will be done, in Isaiah 66:15:16‑‑‑"For behold, Yahweh will come with fire, and with His chari­ots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.  For by fire and by His sword will Yahweh plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many."

   Whether we like it or not, God Himself has said to us: "Thou art My bat­tleaxe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdom."   But we should like it: those who serve God willingly receive the reward therefor; but willing or not, we must obey Him.  If we obey the laws of our God, and follow confidently where He leads, we may be sure of His blessing: "Five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight."  I would rather face Russia and China on this basis, than to have to face them anyway as a punishment because we have defied our God and sought coexistence with Satan.

   I place great emphasis on Bible prophecy and its fulfillment.  How about these prophe­cies I have quoted to you?  Have they been fulfilled?  Have the Tribes of Israel and their later descendants', the Scythians, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Angli and the Saxons, and in our modern times, the Anglo‑Saxon, Scandinavian and Germanic nations fulfilled these prophecies?  Yes, indeed we have; and it is strange that the churches, which claim to be teaching the word of God, have not honored Him with the proof that He always keeps His word.

    You will remember that we have traced the people of ISRAEL, after their deportation by the Assyrians, into the lands around the Caspian Sea, where they became known to the Greeks as Skuths, to the Romans as Scythians, and to the Persians as Sakka, which in course of time became Sacasones, then Saxons; other tribes became known as the Angli; and yet others as the Goths, who divided into the Ostrogoths, or East Goths, and the Visigoths, or West Goths.  Now let us see what these Israelite Tribes did. A generation sufficed for them to fully throw off the Assyrian yoke, and they became a numerous and powerful people.  Their constant warfare against the Assyrians was not enough to fully conquer Assyria, but it did "bleed the Assyrians white", as the saying is; finally, the Scythians became allies of the Medes, their neighbors to the east, and the allied Median and Scythian armies captured Nineveh in 606 B.C., and the Assy­rain Empire disappeared from ancient history.

   About 550 B.C., Cyrus the great, of Persia, conquered Media and absorbed Media into the greater Persian Empire.  By this time, the Babylonian Captivity of Judah had been in effect for half a century.  Remember Nebuchadnezzar's dream I of the great Image, which the prophet Daniel interpreted for him?  The image s head of gold was Nebachadnezzar s own Babylonian Empire, the first of the four great heathen empires which dominated world history.  The image's breast and arms of silver represented the Medo‑Persian Empire; the belly and thighs of brass was the Greco‑Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, which extended from Greece through all western Asia even into northern India; and the legs of iron were the Roman Empire.

   Scythians were allies of the great Medo‑Persian army of Cyrus which con­quered the empire of Babylon and released a few of the captives of Judah and Benjamin to go back to Palestine.  What happened to the many other people of Judah and Benjamin who did not return to Palestine?  History records that the Scythians swooped down on the region around Babylon and took back with them most of the people of Judah and Benjamin, leaving the few who went back to Palestine.  The fall of Babylon was not solely the work of the Israelite Scyth­ians, of course: the prophesied rise of the Medo‑Persian Empire at this time required that the glory should go to it; yet Scythian Israel did play some part in it, even though not a large one.

   But Cyrus was ambitious, greedy, and ungrateful for the help his Scythian allies had given him. Nine years after the fall of Babylon, Cyrus led a great army to attack the Scythians, and was killed in the battle. His defeated army had to retreat.

     His successor, Darius I, raised a far greater army and led them north against the Scythians.  His armies were too great for the Scythians to fight; so, being a nomadic people, they retreated northward before him, keeping always tantalizingly just out of reach, while the weary Persians got farther and far­ther away from their base of supply at home. The pursuit continued deep into the Caucasus Mountains, the people of Scythian Israel crossing through the great pass now occupied by the Georgian Military Road, but which from that down to our own times has borne the name, "The Pass of Israel." At the tremendous chasm of the Dariel Gorge, which even a handful of Scythians could have defend­ed against his army, Darius turned back; and he left his name to the place to this day.

   Alexander the Great set up his huge empire in the 11 years between 334 and 323 B.C. conquering and absorbing the Persian Empire in the process.  Thus the "belly and thighs of brass" succeeded the "Breast and arms of silver."  No enemy overthrew Alexander's empire: it just fell apart into four quarters at his death, as the prophet Daniel had prophesied. However, Bactria (largely modern Afghanistan and eastern Persia) remained part of the Seleucid quarter of the old Alexandrian Empire; and Alexander had penetrated India as far as the Punjab.  And again we find Scythian Israel performing its job as God's battle­axe.  In 128 B.C,., the Scythians overran northern Persia, defeated several Persian armies, and collected tribute from several successive Persian kings.  Next, beginning about 126 B.C., the Scythians invaded Bactria, overthrew the Seleucid rulers, went on through Afghanistan and the Kyber Pass into India, where they set up a strong kingdom in the Punjab and part of Rajputan, which remained po­werful until the 5th century A.D. However, the fate of all invaders of India met them: they finally mongrelized their blood with that of the dark local races, and their greatness ended. However, the Jats, who are about half the population of the Punjab, and some of the Rajput tribes, still show traces of the Scythian blood. The rest of Alexander's Empire still had its part to play in history, but this eastern quarter of it was destroyed by Scythian Israel.

   Finally Rome, the "legs of iron" came on the*scene, and absorbed the other 3/4 of Alexander's Empire.  It ran its allotted course; but its overthrow fin­ally came at the hands of "God's battleaxe and weapons of war".  Nearly all the people of migrating Israel were by now deep in Europe; many of them already in Germany and around the shores of the Baltic Sea. In the year 410 A.D., the Visigoths completed their conquest of Italy by the capture of the City of Rome. However, they held Italy but a few years, then moved on out into France and northern Spain, where some of them settled permanently.  However, the other half of the powerful nation of the Goths, the Ostrogoths, were yet to play their part against Rome. In A.D. 493, the Ostrogoths conquered all Italy, including Rome itself, and set up an Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy.  While this lasted as an independent kingdom only until A.D. 552, it still marked the final end of "the glory that was Rome."  God's battleaxe and weapons of war had destroyed the last of the Babylonian Succession of Empires.