EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW (AND PREACHERS WERE AFRAID TO TELL YOU) ABOUT GUN CONTROL-PART TWO

Everything you wanted to know (and preachers were afraid to tell you) about Gun Control by Pastor Pete Peters (part 2)  INTRODUCTION            The Christian God of the Bible once made an appeal through His faithful prophet Isaiah sent to a sinful, dying, soon to be a conquered and enslaved nation. Come now, and let us reason together... Isaiah 1:18            This treatise concerning what you should know about gun control is not just an attempt to reason from statistics, history, opinions or even the Constitution of the United States, but to ultimately reason from the Word of God, the Bible, the highest of all laws and ultimate authority for any and every man who has installed Christ as King above all rule and authority. (Ephesians 1:21)

KNOW THE PATTERN, HISTORY, AND LAWS OF GOD REVEALED IN THE HOLY BIBLE OPPOSE GUN CONTROL. The Bible has much to say concerning weapons, war, and self-defense. Perhaps none has are clearer and more pertinent to the issue at hand than Luke 22:35-36:            And He said to them, 'When I sent you out without purse and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?' And they said, 'No, nothing.' And He said to them, but now, let him who has a purse take it along, likewise also a bag, and let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one.'

Note the words, "LET HIM WHO HAS NO SWORD SELL HIS ROBE AND BUY ONE." Are these words not every bit as much a common as, Love your neighbor, or turn the other cheek? Yet, how often have you heard them in a sermon? How often have you heard them explained in the present-day Judeo-Christian church world. For most the answer is NEVER.            In the days of Jesus the weaponry consisted of such items as spear, bow and sword. The sword of that day would have been the nearest thing to a handgun of our day. It could be carried on the waist, rapidly drawn from its scabbard, and used for personal defense or deadly offensive purposes.             IT WAS A LETHAL WEAPON, equivalent in our time to a pistol, a rifle, a machine gun and, yes, an assault rifle. When you carried a sword, you were as well armed as any member of Caesar's swat team.            Some may say this command was only for the Apostles, yet, Jesus told them to teach us, .. .to observe all that I commanded you; ... (Matthew 28:20)            A Christian who does not own a firearm and/or does not resist gun control disobeys the will of His Lord, Jesus Christ, who has clearly instructed him to purchase a major lethal weapon of the day. The Bible has stories of assassinations, murders, and war deaths numbering in the multi-millions all with swords. Then Jesus Christ, prior to his departure, tells the Apostles to BUY A SWORD. Naturally, this doesn't fit modern concepts of Christ and Christianity and we will address why shortly, but suffice it to say, a Christian without a gun is disobedient to the intent of those words in Luke 22:35-36.            I Timothy 5:8 says, But if any one does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.

How can a Christian man provide safety for his wife and children if he disobeys the words of Christ and does not buy a modern-day equivalent of a sword? It is his ultimate responsibility, not the government's, to do the providing. Without a firearm one is in the same shape as the soviet citizen.            Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his book, WARNING TO THE WEST said, "We the dissidents of the U.S.S.R., have no tanks, no weapons, no organization. We have nothing. Our hands are empty."            I Corinthians 10:6 and Romans 15:4 explain that the Bible   history of Old Testament times was written for our learning and instruction. This means we are to learn from the story in I Samuel  chapter 13. In reading it you will find God's people Israel (the actual forefathers of those White Christian minutemen at Lexington Green) oppressed and conquered by the nation of the Philistines. Guess what the Philistines thought was best for Israel? Yes, that's right, sword  control. I Samuel 13:19-22 tells the story well.            Now no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said 'Lest the Hebrews make swords or spears.· So all Israel went down to the Philistines, each to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, and his goad, whenever they had to sharpen the edge of the goads, of the mattocks of the forks, and of the axes, and to fix the goad points. So it came about on the day of the battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan.            Jesus Christ himself made and used a weapon against evil men. This may sound incredible, even blasphemous to some, but it shouldn't, for the story is right there in the Bible.            And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers seated. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and overturned their tables;         John 2:14-15

Note from these verses that Jesus made a whip-like weapon, a scourge. Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary defines a scourge as "the instrument used to inflict severe pain." Note that He used this weapon against men. (Space does not allow us to go into detail to explain what these money­changers were really doing, but it was not too unlike our modern-day fractional reserve banking and Federal Reserve Act.  For more on this, we recommend our CD #159, "The Unmentioned Sin of America" for a $5.00 offering).            These examples and the command to buy a sword will no doubt seem strange and even un-Christian, un-Scriptural to many, for many have been taught a distorted Gospel and another Jesus Christ.            KNOW THE BIBLE HAS BEEN DISTORTED AND PERVERTED WITH ANOTHER JESUS BEING TAUGHT TO THE PEOPLE.             I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.                               Galatians 1:6-7

The story goes of three blind men who jointly visited the local zoo. While there they were allowed to examine an elephant. One man felt his trunk, the other its legs, and the other its tail. When asked to describe what they found, the one who had handled the trunk said it was a snake. The one who examined the leg said it was a large tree and the man who touched the tail said it was a rope.             That is the state modern Christians are in. They have only heard small, select portions of the Bible, and as a result, have a completely distorted idea of what the Gospel of the   Kingdom of Christ is about.            They have heard only about a lowly, gentle Jesus. After John3:16 they have heard about love, forgiveness, turn the other cheek, and they are like the ignorant blind men while confidently thinking they know what Christianity is all about.

Once in a lecture to a sizable group of Christians, I passed out pen and paper asking each to briefly describe God. The    answers were, God is love, God is merciful, God is just, God is understanding. Why did I not read about God is a God of wrath, God is a jealous God, God is a God of vengeance, God is a God of war? These descriptions of our God are also in the Bible. The answer is that a distorted Gospel had been preached to them.            The fact that the gospel has been distorted in America is self-evident when one compares modern-day theology with that during the War for Independence. Many so-called Christian  leaders are helping to disarm Americans. The following excerpt from a current newspaper article illustrates this point.            Compare such an article to the following excerpt on the War for Independence from pages 290-291 of the history book, The Light and The Glory:

Nor were the exhortations of their ministers confined to words. These men did not hesitate to put their own lives on the line.     During the battles of Lexington and Concord, Chelsea's minister, Philips Payson, captured two British supply wagons single-handedly. John Craighead raised a company of militia from his    parish and himself led them off to join Washington in New Jersey, where it was recorded that he 'fought and preached alternately.' So numerous, in fact, were the fighting pastors that the Tories referred to them as, 'the black regiment," and blamed them for much of the resurging zeal of the Colonial troops. One of the most colorful examples is what happened in a staid Lutheran church in the Shenandoah valley of Virginia, one Sunday morning in 1775. The thirty-year-old pastor, Peter Muhlenberg, delivered a stirring sermon on the text,            "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1).            He reached the end of his sermon and said a solemn prayer-and then continued to speak. "In the language of the Holy Writ, there is a time for all things. There is a time to preach and a time to fight." He paused, and then threw off his pulpit robe to reveal to the startled congregation the uniform of a colonel in the Continental Army.  "And now is the time to fight!" he thundered and then he called out, "Roll the drums for recruits!" The drums rolled, and that same afternoon he marched off at the head of a column of three hundred men. His regiment was to earn fame as the 8th Virginia, and Muhlenberg was to distinguish himself in a number of battles, rising to the rank of brigadier general, in charge of Washington's first light infantry brigade.

In light of this change, consider the following quote taken from the treatise, "Why Many Ministers Preach Pure Marxism":  Many today are amazed to find that the majority of the ministers in their community are on the other side when parents and concerned citizens are opposing subversive forces in their schools. This is true of the fight against sex education, which condones promiscuity and refuses to include morality in its teachings.  The majority of the ministers are for it! This is also true of the fight to restore Bible-reading and   voluntary prayer in our public schools-the majority of the community's ministers are against it. In many communities this also includes rabbis and Catholic priests.  But it is especially true of the majority of the Protestant ministers, particularly the younger ones. What has been happening to many of our clergymen over the past 40 years? What happened to the younger and middle-aged ones in the divinity schools? ...Every American concerned with this problem should read the story of Karl Prussian, who spent 26 years of his life in the Communist Party and who was offered a scholarship by the Party to attend Union Theological Society in New York City to be made a Methodist minister while he was still a devoted Communist. Karl Prussian served as a volunteer agent for the FBI during the last 12 years of his membership in the Communist Party and he is today devoting his life to openly exposing the Communists and warning the American people of the aims and tactics of these enemies of our nation.            KNOW HOW TO ANSWER FROM SCRIPTURE THE OBJECTIONS AND DISTORTIONS THAT PROMOTE GUN CONTROL AND CHRISTIAN PACIFISM.             When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the adversary He always countered with an answer from Scripture. Following are objections to the general theme of this treatise with appropriate  answers.

Objection:       Jesus said we are not to live by the sword. Answer:          This statement was made by Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane after Peter tried to stop His arrest by swinging a sword and cutting off the ear of a slave of the high priest. (Matt. 26:52). Notice, Peter had a sword in keeping with the command of Christ (Luke 22:36, 38), but he misused it by trying to interfere with the foretold arrest and crucifixion of Christ. The point is, a Christian is not to live by the sword. Christianity is a way of life wherein a  disciple is to endure and suffer a wrong, go the extra mile, forgive, petition, pray. It is not a militant, aggressive lifestyle of one living by the sword.            It is true a Christian is not to live by the sword, but it is equally true he is not to live without one. The actions, petitions, prayers, and long suffering of our forefathers are evidence they did not live by the sword but their refusal to lay down their guns showed they also refused to live without the sword. Objection:     Jesus said to love your enemy and turn the other cheek. Answer:         Jesus did teach this in Matthew 5:38-44 in the     Sermon on the Mount and we should consider each verse in light of the rest of the Scripture. First of all, it should be understood that a key to understanding the meaning of Matt. 5:38-44 lays with Matt. 5:17, Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; …  Although the ceremonial laws added 430 years after the time of Abraham (Galatians 3:17) were fulfilled and eliminated by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Galatians 3:15-25), the Laws, Statutes, and Judgements codified by Moses and existing even before that with Abraham obeying them (Genesis 26:5) were not done away with and exist even today. At the time of Christ that law had been twisted and perverted by the Pharisees (Mark 7:13).            "You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." (Matthew 5:38) This was from the law and is  explained in detail in Leviticus 24:18-20. "And the one who takes the life of an animal shall make it good, life for life. And if a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has    injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him." Note this has to do with serious civil matters involving the inalienable rights of life, liberty, or property. This applied to judicial matters but not to one's private conduct involving pride and honor as the Pharisees had taken it to mean. Matthew 5:39 covers this area.  But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.            Here Christ is not addressing that which involves a judicial rule but rather that which involves private conduct. It was not to be one of revenge or pride motivated conflict. The slap on the cheek was an insult and a challenge rather than a damaging blow. It was similar to the dueling day of New Orleans, when a man took his glove and slapped his opponent across the cheek with it, challenging him to a duel. In such a case the teaching here is to humble yourself and not engage in a conflict. This was not dealing with a damaging body blow or the taking of life, liberty, or property. AH: The rest of this article is available in the Scriptures for America Dragon Slayer newsletter, Vol. 4, 2023. To receive it, email preacher@sfaw.org or call 307-742-7582.