Isaiah 9

Isaiah 9:6

THE MAN OF WAR—THE PRINCE OF PEACEIsa_9:6, Exodus 15:3THESE two texts are supposed to be in antagonism. The average man imagines the second refers to God and the first to Jesus; and that God is a “Man of War”, while Jesus is the “Prince of Peace”. The God of the Old Testament, in the judgment of many, is little better than a Moloch, delighting in the sight, and even in the smell of blood; the Lord of the New Testament, in the judgment of these same, if not the very Son of God with power, is easily the “Prince of Peace”; hence the patron saint of all who oppose bloodshed and battle.Paradoxical as it may sound, good Scripture students are agreed that the Lord of the Old Testament, the Man of War, is none other than the Lord of the New Testament, the Prince of Peace; and yet, as between these two there is no inharmony whatsoever.That fact I hope to make clear in the discourse of this hour. I invite your attention, therefore, first of all to the statementTHE LORD IS A MAN OF WARThis text, like every other, should be interpreted in the light of its context. When that is done we are profoundly impressed by certain facts, the first of which isThe Lord never provokes a battle. He is peace-loving to the last degree; and I speak of the Old Testament Jehovah in making this remark.

For years, His chosen people had been in Egypt, under the tyrannical hands of the Pharaohs; His very own had suffered every indignity, insult and hardship that could be heaped upon them, and yet, God never advised a rebellion. In His communications with Moses, He never suggested the sword.

His counsels are always conciliatory; His advice, patient endurance; and when at last mortal flesh can stand no more, He counsels no conflict, only a peaceful departure from the land once promised them by its own rulers; from the nations whose riches they had largely created, from the soil on which many of them had shed innocent blood, for Jehovah and Jesus are alike Princes of Peace.I defy any man, by the study, of history, either sacred or secular, to point to a single instance in which the Mighty God has provoked battles; in which He has spoken any word, or counselled any step that looked to the engendering of strife as between peoples who were at peace. John McCutcheon, in an issue of the “Chicago Tribune”, had a cartoon entitled “The Crime of the Ages”. At the edge of the landscape there lay a beautiful woman upon a couch of death. Through her heart was driven a bloody dagger and left in its deadly position. Her name was “The Peace of Europe” and concerning this crime of the ages McCutcheon put one question, “Who did it?” Who murdered that fair form? The Emperor of Austria was pointing to Servia’s ruler, and Servia’s ruler, in turn, was pointing to the Emperor of Austria, and Germany’s Kaiser was pointing at Russia’s Czar; and, in turn, the Russian Czar was pointing at the German Kaiser.

The King of England was pointing at the German Kaiser, the ruler of Belgium was pointing at the German Kaiser. The President of the French Republic was pointing at Emperor William while the ruler of Italy, stood with folded arms, refusing to say who was responsible.

But there is one thing marked in the whole procedure. Not a man had his finger lifted upward bringing accusation against God, and it is only the low-browed and black-hearted that dare make such indictment. The first drop of blood ever shed upon the earth, God justly punished by compelling all men to turn their faces from that murderer, and driving him forth as a social outcast.And from that hour until this, God has sickened at the sight of blood shed by men who were created to be brothers. Poorly instructed students of the Scriptures imagine that Jesus was the first to teach that no man should take the sword lest he perish by the sword; but, on the contrary, way back in Genesis, the ninth chapter and the sixth verse, God warns against battle by saying, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”. And again, in the same Pentateuchal writings, Moses records Jehovah’s injunction, “Ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the Children of Israel” (Numbers 35:33-34).He takes no pleasure in bloody battles.

That false philosophy of militarianism, which has been well nigh universally accepted by modern nations, and which has resulted in the creation of ever-increasing standing armies and ever-enlarging navies, is unknown to any instance of favor in the Old Testament. God, who owns the earth, has a right to determine to whom He will lease any portion of it; and when He called His people to quit Egypt and journey to Canaan, He did not at the first enjoin battle either in the going from the one land or in the coming into the other.

He asked departure from the first and promised possession in the second. Every conflict in Egypt was in consequence of Pharaoh’s stubborn and grasping spirit; and every battle in Canaan, a result of the hatred of holiness and holy people on the part of her sinful inhabitants. With Pharaoh, God was more than patient, He was long-suffering. He only struck with death in the sea, when they proposed to quit even their own territory and take back to an unthinkable slavery men whose feet were already upon a free soil; and like a tender mother, He had no contention with the Canaanites until they refused His people a possession created by the God of titles.I have read again the story of the fall of the first city in the land of promise, namely, Jericho; and while I find it is true that Joshua and his armies “utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword”, I have been unable to discover where the command of the Lord enjoined upon him so to do. Even God’s men often outrun the Divine command. David was God’s man, the captain of the hosts of the Lord, a king by Divine choice, and yet, just because he shed blood, God refused him the privilege of building the Temple, preferring to have His House unspoiled by the touch of hands stained in human blood, and hence, the opportunity of Solomon, the prince of peace.Has it ever occurred to you in your study of the Scriptures, that while prophecy declares that the last days of this age are to witness such wars as the world has never seen, and is to end, finally, in conflict and carnage hitherto unknown, yet God’s position in it all is revealed in the vision of John, who saw: “Four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree”.

And John “saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the Living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads”? In other words, the very angels of God have done their best to hold back the fiery holocaust with which Satan will yet sweep the whole world.In what sense, then, is Jehovah, or the Lord, the Man of War?

No one will perhaps object when I say, in a very substantial sense:He bares His arm for justice and right. When His favored people have endured for centuries every conceivable cruelty and hardship, when after weeks of worry, waiting and constant begging to be released, they are not privileged, and at last take their peaceful, silent departure in the watches of the night and make their way to the sea, God parts it and permits them to go over dry shod, and never even stretches out His hand against this wicked and perverse people of Egypt until they propose to quit their own land and drag these helpless, innocent men and women back to a slavery worse than death, in order to satisfy their own love of ease, their own lust, their own greed, their own tyranny. Then God bares His arm and stretches it over the sea and turns the wall of waters into the channel and leaves the Egyptian hosts dead. Who objects?There has come about a strange and faulty logic with the new and false philosophies of the twentieth century, resulting in the anathematizing of the Name of the Jehovah of the Old Testament because He was a God of battles; and yet, with the next sentence, praising the God of the present because when men fight, He puts His favor upon those whose causes are just. Americans have no objection to a God who gave us the seal of His approval when we sought to be a free nation; no objections to a God who consented that the Spanish forces should be sunk when they were sent to oppress the would-be free. Why, then, will you tell, should Americans object to a God of the Old Testament who never intervened in any war save in the interests of an oppressed people; and who never bared His arm in battle against any mortal man who was not a rebel against all Divine authority and a foe to the truest interests of the human family?

And now that nearly the whole of the world was recently embroiled in such a war as the world had never seen, when nation was at the throat of nation, when the command of rulers to their soldiers was, “Spill your blood willingly and spare not an adversary,” what did you expect of God? That He would sit upon the circle of the heaven with folded arms and say, “This is none of My affair,” or, that in His own good time He would lay His finger upon the people who have provoked all this, upon the potentates who have been tempted by the slaughter of their fellows, to increase their own borders, upon the soldiers who espoused injustice and iniquity, and at His touch they perished.

I tell you, beloved, that America ought to learn from this late terrible conflict, that revealed at once the fortunes of war and the fate of nations, the meaning of Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional: “God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line,Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart;Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire;Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!Judge of the nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!“For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard—All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding, calls not Thee to guard—For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!”There is a sense in which the Lord is a Man of War, and every believer of earth expects that when all conflicts are over, God’s interference will be the one thing about it all, applauded by every angel and approved by every good man, forTHE LORD IS THE FATHERHis entire attitude toward men, whether in peace or in war, is determined by that fact.He is animated by Divine affection. His part in battles only reveals His paternity. He participates contrary to His nature, and His desire; but in perfect accord with His paternity. He would willingly war with none, but when circumstances demand it, He must either surrender His throne, prove His unfitness to administer a world, or else make bare His arm.I think that those of you who know aught of the woods, will consent with me that there is no more peace-loving and timid creature to be found in the deep shadows than the partridge. Did you ever hear of one of them undertaking to fight a man? I saw that recently!

I, myself, had the experience of it. The occasion accounted for this strange conduct, out of all accord with the nature of that timid bird.

We were driving to a little town in the Northern part of the state, and the mother partridge lay in the middle of the road, her brood of little ones, not more than two days old, safely tucked in, their heads jutting past her feathers, creating almost an embroidery about her body. Our horses were within three feet of her, when we stopped them.I, supposing her wounded and unable to move, got out and walked to her, and put down my hand; and suddenly she fluttered a few feet, and the little ones quickly took themselves to cover, but before they could accomplish it, and while she supposed them in danger, she suddenly turned and reversed every feather on her body and ran at me with a whirring sound, making battle for her own. What animated her? Mother love!Would you have a God who is indifferent to the fate of His children? Would you have a God who, when their lives are put in peril, by followers of the adversary, folds His arms and refuses to interfere? Then He would never be a Father.There are some men in America who have a new name for God; He is a “force”.

I prefer the old name given Him by the One who knew Him best, “Our Father”.Mark you also, He is the eternal Father. “The Everlasting Father” is His Name. God, then, is not compelled to do what He does, quickly; He is not under the necessity the Japanese were under, a few years since, of either winning the victory quickly or not at all.

He is not situated as Germany is supposed to have been, where the time limit told absolutely the final tale of battles. If it can be done quickly, then victory; if delays occur, then defeat is certain! We are told that Napoleon once came upon the battle-field to find his forces flying before the enemy. Taking out his watch, he looked at the time and turned to the discouraged and disordered troops and said, “There is just time enough left to regain the day.” And under the inspiration of his presence, they did it. God always has time enough to regain the day. Let no man imagine then, in the end, His cause will not triumph.

Stafford Brooke says, “God dwells in the great movements of the world, in the great ideas which act in the human race.”Certainly He does! The poet who wrote: “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world,” should have changed his phraseology—“God’s in His Heaven, and in all affairs He will over rule.”And He will be justified of all.

Of the Lord of the Old Testament it is written: “For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet”. The great day then belongs to the future. It is the day of God’s perfect triumph. It is the day of which Horatius Bonar wrote: “O, wondrous day!—God’s day, not man’s as heretofore;Christ’s hour, not Satan’s as before;When right shall be might ,And might shall all be right And truth, for ages sorely tried,By error mocked, reviled, defiled,No longer on the losing side,Shall celebrate its victory.And wave its ancient palm on high;When good and ill unmixed flow on forever,Each in its distant channel fixed,An everlasting river!”THE LORD IS THE PRINCE OF PEACEThe Man of War, the Everlasting Father, He is the Prince of Peace. There are a number of senses in which this is true. One might almost say that in every sense it is true.He provides peace for the individual. The experience of a man who yields himself to God is always in fulfillment of the promise of Jesus. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you”. “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding”, is his experience who has found in the Prince of Heaven, a friend. It is written, “Great peace have they which love Thy Law”. Father Ryan, the poet priest of Louisville, puts a sweet message into his words: “Restless hearts! restless hearts! Ye are toiling night and day,And the flowers of life, all withered, Leave but thorns along your way;Ye are waiting, ye are waiting, till Your toilings all shall cease,And your ev’ry restless beating is A sad, sad prayer for peace.Restless hearts! God is Peace.”For the nation, He is a Prince of Peace. The prophecy of wars and rumors of wars for the end of this age is relieved by that other prophecy of the end of wars when the Prince of Peace shall come. The Psalmist saw that day from afar and of it he wrote: “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire” (Psalms 46:9). Isaiah, the Prophet, joined with the sweet singer of Israel, in picturing the day when the Prince of Peace “shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: 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”.

No wonder he concludes that sweet vision with the words, “O House of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord”.All talk of disarmament has meaning only with those who understand that disarmament will occur solely in consequence of the toppling of the thrones of earth, the taking from a few men the power to hurt and kill, and the putting of all her interests, temporal and eternal, into His hands, whose right it is to reign; and whose plan is peace! Sherman was right—“War is hell.” The horrors of it never looked as yesterday, when thousands of our fellows were dying daily.

Nor has the promise of the Prince of Peace in the place of power and the experience of peace for every portion of the earth, ever seemed so sweet as at this moment. Blessed be God!He plans peace far the universe! The man who studies the Book of Revelation will find that God’s last act in dealing with this world will be the overthrow of all rebels against Himself, the end of all rebellious spirits and intentional insurrection of their captain and leader, Satan. When that is accomplished, then will be a new heaven and a new earth, God dwelling in the midst. All tears will be wiped away, “no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away”.And who did it? The Prince of Peace!

For it is written, that “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new”. Brethren, in the light of it, let us change but one word, then sing this song; sing it in spite of sorrow, sing it in spite of the war clouds that gather again; sing it in faith; sing it in anticipation of the glad day to come when the Prince of Peace shall prevail and war shall be no more. “Joy to the world! the Lord will come; Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare Him room, And Heaven and nature sing.“Joy to the earth! the Saviour will reign; Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plain, Repeat the sounding joy.“No more He’ll let sin and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.”