My dear readers,

Answers to Remaining Questions from Calvary Pandan Church Camp 2025 (15)

Question 1: How should Christians fight in war (during war times)? What should our purposes be that will bring glory to God? Also, in war, is it okay to support certain countries or side with them and want them to win? Or should we stay neutral?

Answer 1: The Old Testament recorded many accounts of wars from when Israel came out of Egypt. They fought to defend themselves. They also fought as instruments of God's judgment on Gentile nations whose sins were full in God's eyes. An example of this truth was when God sent Israel to conquer the Land of Canaan (also called Amorites) and renamed it the Promised Land. Genesis 15:12-16: “¹²And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. ¹³And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; ¹⁴And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. ¹⁵And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” 

Question 2: Please provide bible verses that explain why the Assyrians attacked Israel and the Babylonians attacked Judah. Is there any historical background to them being the enemies of Israel and Judah, respectively?

Answer 2: God is sovereign. No nation can touch God’s people without His permission. He protects them because they are His people with a spiritual mission to point the world to Jesus Christ. When God destroyed Israel and Judah and terminated their sovereignty and monarchy, it was because of their unrepentant transgressions and iniquities. They failed to witness for Christ in holiness as the covenant with God demands, i.e. to be holy as God is holy. The northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah) committed the heinous sin of idolatry. God sent many of His prophets to rebuke them, but the people of God, especially the kings, refused to repent and get rid of their places of idolatry and idols. Thus, God sent Gentile nations like the Assyrians and Babylonians to “clean” the Promised Land of idols and idolatry, which they did.

Israel’s destruction by the Assyrians -- The Assyrians attacked Israel because God sent them as His instrument of chastisement against His people who refused to repent of their sin of idolatry. God sent many prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Hosea and Isaiah to rebuke them against their idolatrous way of life, but they refused to repent. Instead, they vilified and persecuted God’s servants until the end came.

Isaiah 10:5-7: “⁵O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. ⁶I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. ⁷Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.”

The biblical reasons for Israel’s destruction by the Assyrians -- 2 Kings 17:1-18: “¹In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. ²And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. ³Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents. ⁴And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. ⁵Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. ⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. ⁷For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, ⁸And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. ⁹And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. ¹⁰And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: ¹¹And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: ¹²For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. ¹³Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. ¹⁴Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God. ¹⁵And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. ¹⁶And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. ¹⁷And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁸Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.”

Judah’s destruction by the Babylonians -- God said that Judah was worse than Israel because she had her elder sister, Israel, as an example of warning not to be idolatrous, but she did not learn from her sister’s mistakes and destruction. Jeremiah 3:1-11: “¹They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. ²Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. ³Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed. ⁴Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth? ⁵Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. ⁶The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone

up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. ⁷And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. ⁹And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. ¹⁰And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD. ¹¹And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.”

2 Kings 21:1-16: “¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hephzi-bah. ²And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. ³For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. ⁴And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. ⁵And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. ⁶And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. ⁷And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the LORD said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever: ⁸Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them. ⁹But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel. ¹⁰And the LORD spake by his servants the prophets, saying, ¹¹Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: ¹²Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. ¹³And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. ¹⁴And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; ¹⁵Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day. ¹⁶Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.”