Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, what constitutes a just war in the sight of God and man? Part two. Yes, part two of what constitutes a just war.

And this is an important question for the church to ask today. We have covered in the past four of seven principles of a just war. And today, I want to cover those last three and underline them for you, because it's such an important question for the church to ask of our culture today. Because is the war that we're fighting with Russia justified? We are in a virtually undeclared war with Russia.

Oh, how did this happen? Is it just justified? Do we have any business sending troops to Ukraine or helping her with any kind of aid like weapons and finances? Oh, dear listener, the drums of war are being steadily sounded for you. And our emotions are being stirred up by stories of atrocities by one side or another.

Don't listen to the passions of the moment, I advise you, because many with far greater wisdom than us have wrestled with this question for centuries. In fact, the church has long wrestled with the question of whether it is right and good for the Christian to pick up a weapon at all, or whether a Christian king or magistrate should muster armies at all and fight wars. These were all pressing questions in the early church, especially to those being persecuted by the authorities of the Roman Empire. Ah, but the attitude towards war began to change as more and more people became converted to the Christian faith in the Roman Empire.

People came to recognize that the magistrate is a servant for your good, who is an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. And oftentimes that would be, oh, for example, invading barbarians in the Roman Empire. Ah, so then it was the appointed authority, the rush or the Roman magistrate, who does not bear the sword in vain. So these questions were also asked by early Christian princes like Constantine or Justinian, and the church formulated an answer. It took them a long time to do, very many centuries, really.

We don't have time to go into its history today, but know, dear listener, that the fathers of the church spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears literally crafting the just war theory. It was shaped not in the ivory tower of the intellectual, but literally on the bloody battlefield of the soldier and in the councils of the courts of kings. But it was also given, perhaps, its finest expression in the works of San Agustin in his magisterial work, The City of God. And these, then, are the seven major principles that were articulated by San Agustin, and they're taught even today. These are not just ancient, dusty history lessons.

No. For example, the just war theory is still taught at U.S. military academies. In fact, it forms the basis for much of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Any of you who served in the military, you know that this is indeed that thick book, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, by which you were administered justice and order and law and order in whatever branch of the military you served. Well, you may not have known it, but indeed, what we're articulating today, the just war theory, forms the basis for much of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Well, what are those principles then? We covered four of them last week, and I'll just briefly mention those, and then we'll treat of the last three. First of all, number one, a just war can only be waged after non-violent options have been exhausted, and that means every one, as many as you can muster. Oh, the Apostle Paul tells us this. He says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Oh, that's a principle that the church indeed has trumpeted down through the centuries, and something that we should take up today as well, and do so even as nations, right? If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Now, that's not something we can do in every circumstances. There are circumstances in which we must fight, in which we must use violence in order to defend ourselves, our families, and our property. But that was the first one we treated, and I refer you to last week's message, and you can find that on our website, omnispotestas.org.

Well, excuse me, the second of the principles of a just war are number two. A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. A legitimate authority. This curbs terrorism. Justice is not served by actions taken by individuals or rogue groups.

Governments duly constituted are deemed legitimate. And we saw last week with a questionable status of our present administration who did, increasingly we're seeing, steal the election of 2020, that he is more and more seen to be an illegitimate authority. He has no business waging war on behalf of the United States of America. Number three, the third principle of a just war theory. A just war must redress wrongs suffered.

Oh, that provision was included so as to exclude wars of conquest and empire. We've seen throughout history that so often magistrates and kingdoms march off to war to add to their lands and increase their sphere of influence and power, right? No, no, no. The just war must redress actual wrongs suffered. And we see that our involvement in the Russian and Ukrainian war is only aggravating wrongs.

We're only creating more wrongs by our participation in it. There's no way that we will redress wrongs suffered no matter who we identify as being just because our very involvement is aggravating wrongs rather than redressing them. And then number four, we looked at last week, a just war must be undertaken with a reasonable chance of success. Oh, casualties incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable. That's the prohibition on the old romantic lost cause of many a rebel.

And it only causes further bloodshed. And we do not have a reasonable chance of success in Ukraine. Despite the valiant efforts of Ukrainians, the Russians will, in the end, eventually prevail. And they will see to it that they do. Our involvement will only aggravate and increase suffering.

Well, those just very briefly were the four principles of just war that we covered last week. Let's take up number five for this week. Number five, the fifth principle of a just war out of seven is a just war must have as its goal, the increase of peace. Oh, the increase of shalom, of peace. The peace established after a war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed had the war not been fought.

A principle evolved by the church in order to guide states that would engage in warfare. We are called to live lives of peace, dear listener. Oh, the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4, he says, make it your ambition to live quiet, peaceable lives, minding your own business, working with your hands so that you might win the respect of outsiders and not have to be dependent upon anyone. And of course, the verse we just cited from Romans 12, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. It's not a hopeless irony that a just war can bring peace.

No. For example, from history, the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars and brought a peace to the European continent that lasted for a century. Despite the brutal conduct and methods of the Roman army, another example from history, the peace that ensued, the Pax Romana, as it's famously called, that peace was greater for generations than the peace that would have prevailed had her wars not been fought, even church fathers like St. Augustine made the argument for the continuation of the Roman Empire and his encouragement for all Christians to pray for the peace of the empire.

Well, the same cannot be said for the current war in Ukraine. Increase of peace will not happen in Ukraine. It must be emphasized that we are virtually trying to separate two very fierce, scrapping wolverines, if you will, and as happens when we stick our business in the midst of two fierce animals, we get hurt. And conflict is only inflamed and magnified as we participate. It's not lessened.

Peace is not increased by our participation in this war. Our involvement in Ukraine only lessens the odds for peace and does not increase them. Dear listener, ponder for a moment. Let the passions of war being generated in your breast subside for a moment. Can any of you who are being provoked by the rhetoric of this administration, can you really think that Biden and his evil hosts are competent to bring peace to this region of the world?

After so shamefully withdrawing from Afghanistan, bungling that withdrawal, are we really ready to follow in the wake of the charge of Joe Biden into war? Have you been so blinded by your emotions that your reason is clouded? Do not let that happen. The Biden administration cannot bring peace to America, much less Ukraine. Dear listener, we, even now, even at present, we're interfering in what is essentially a civil war between Slavic peoples that's been going on for centuries.

If you know your history, you know this is nothing new in this region. But these bloody civil wars have been going on for centuries, and we have no business getting involved there. For example, from history, again, England and France both wisely stayed out of the blood feud that was our civil war in the 1860s. They stayed out because they saw no advantage to meddling in our American fratricide. There was no upside to taking sides in it.

We had to settle that blood feud ourselves, howsoever bitter and bloody that it turned out to be. Oh, the same can be said for our meddling in this Slavic blood feud. We will not increase the chances for peace by getting involved in it. Our meddling will only aggravate conflict and increase the chances that any peace, quote unquote, that ensues will be more fragile and bitter than before it started. Do not listen, dear listener, to the foolhardy warmongers in the deep state who keep beating the drums of war.

There will be no peace following these wars. You and your children will only pay dearly in American blood and treasure for generations to come. And this is not even to mention the chances that are being taken for nuclear war. They have been vastly increased. How can you tell me that peace will be achieved at the end of this when nuclear war is on the table?

Fools like Representative Adam Kinzinger have beaten the drums for nuclear war, threatening nuclear war on Russia. Oh, and then on top of this, the United States of America has no war objectives. No one goes to war. Even Jesus told that parable of before a king goes to war, he sits down and plans it. He has war objectives.

We have no war objectives. We don't know what we want. We don't know what victory would look like, much less defeat. But there will be no victory if indeed we go to nuclear war in this. Peace will not be increased by this administration, by our participation in this war between Russia and Ukraine.

Ponder what the results of nuclear war would be. Go and read and look at the consequences for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II and see the dreadful effects of those bombs and extrapolate that hundreds of times with the improved so-called, quote-unquote, improved bombs we have now. In any case, number six, the sixth principle of a war is that in a just war, the violence used must be proportional to the injury suffered. Oh, that's a tough one to enforce. The violence used in war must be proportional to the injury suffered.

War is brutal by its very nature, isn't it? And once the passions of war are inflamed, it's almost impossible to control excesses. Examples can be multiplied from almost any war. The massacre of Jews by the so-called People's Crusade in the Crusades, or the rape of Nanking by the Japanese during World War II, or even the massacre at Mai Lai by Lieutenant Calley and his command in the Vietnam War. Well, once the so-called dogs of war are unleashed, they must hunt, mustn't they?

But oh, what a price is paid as they wreak their bloody havoc. The church has tried to maintain a measure of restraint on this tendency, and thus the sixth principle of a just war. The violence used must be proportional to the injury suffered. But it's not always realized, for example, that the Old Testament maxim, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that's from the Old Testament, was actually a biblical restraint on vengeance that was imposed on the followers of Yahweh. Many other cultures, like those under the Code of Hammurabi, for example, allowed for excess of vengeance by the upper classes on the lower classes.

But the Bible has always held for strict application of equal justice, an eye for an eye, not two eyes and a hand, or a tooth for a tooth, not a mouthful of teeth and a foot. Well, what can be said for the war in Ukraine? If you've been following the unfolding events, dear listener, getting your news from more than the mainstream media, well, shills for a corrupt deep state war machine, then you know that atrocities have been committed by both sides in this conflict. Both sides. To say that it's all on Russia is sheer propaganda, meant to inflame your righteous indignation.

By any measure, this war is not a just war by either side. And we, the United States of America should not be involved at all at any level. Well, the seventh and final principle of a just war is a just war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants insofar as it is possible to avoid them in attacks upon military targets. Yes, a just war, if it's going to be just, must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, right? Civilians.

Oh, civilians have always gotten sucked up into the vortex of the deep drain of war, haven't they? For example, in a egregious example, Attila the Hun deliberately savaged and raped and tortured the peoples that he conquered. Islam, too, has always treated any non-Muslim peoples indiscriminately as kafirs that is unclean and indistinguishable from soldiers.

And so, under Islam, as Islam conquers, all civilian or combatant are liable to the sword in every conquest by the armies of Allah, or even the Allies bombing of Dresden in World War II, which created a firestorm, a literal storm of fire over the entire city, killing thousands, hundreds of thousands of civilians. Oh, well, the church, in its admonishments to the princes of Christendom, as this was developed, these principles of a just war, they attempted to restrain the bloodlust that always accompanies war. Proverbs tells us, Proverbs 24, 11 says, rescue those who are being taken away to death.

Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. Or Exodus tells us this in warfare, keep far from a false charge and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. Oh, and of course, Proverbs tells us again that one of the seven things that God hates is the hand that sheds innocent blood. Oh, this is a principle well-established in biblical tradition, and the bishops of the church constantly discipline princes whose passions drove them to excesses.

Just one example from A.D. 390, when Emperor Theodosius impetuously slaughtered over 7,000 Thessalonian residents because someone had killed his governor, and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, excommunicated the emperor. That took a lot of guts, but Ambrose, in his discipline of Emperor Theodosius for this crime, excommunicated Theodosius for the murder of thousands of innocents. Now, this is a great rollicking good tale. I encourage you to look this one up and read about it, because a stubborn Theodosius at first refused to repent, but eventually he did. It was a long journey to that repentance, though, as repentance so often is.

But think of an emperor under these circumstances. But these casualties, these so-called collateral damage casualties. Well, on Theodosius' part, they were deliberate, weren't they? The American military, however, has a euphemism for this phenomenon, and it's called collateral damage, isn't it? When a so-called smart bomb aimed to take out a house filled with terrorists, maybe, maybe it also kills innocent bystanders or neighbors.

Well, they're tabulated as collateral damage. What a euphemism. Innocent civilians is what they are, right? While United States soldiers have an official policy of minimizing collateral damage, it is always easier to maintain in the classroom at West Point than it is to strictly adhere to in the fog of war. But it is nevertheless one of those principles, dear listener, that most officers and soldiers honor, and they try to live by.

We must respect them for that. But this element of the just war theory is being transgressed, certainly, by Russian forces, as whole cities are being subjected to bombardment and shelling. This is not a just war. Reports of civilians regularly being shot and blown up, along with the military of Ukraine. Well, this is a commonplace in the news.

Well, there seems to be no effort to distinguish between civilian and soldier, despite protests to the contrary by President Putin. This is an egregious violation of the just war principles by Russia. Well, all in all, we must conclude that America's involvement in the Ukraine war is a transgression of almost every point of the just war theory. An evil, corrupt, deep state administration. Have you forgotten this?

Have you not seen this evil, deep state administration violate your rights? Demonstrate its desire to establish a tyranny over you? Have you forgotten this? This evil, corrupt, deep state administration led by an incompetent, illegitimate commander-in-chief is waging an undeclared war, which is producing utterly evil consequences. Do not be fooled.

Do not be manipulated by your emotions. Do you who feel passionate about risking nuclear war, do you know what we face? All the consequences of nuclear war would be devastating. We have no concept because we've never been through one. But look at the results of the atom bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

And we will see two even further greater devastating jaw-dropping consequences for nuclear war if we ever actually engage in one. Albert Einstein said this, I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Oh, I've quoted this last week and I quoted again today because this is what we face. Utter annihilation and destruction. And some people do it so glibly, like Pelosi or Biden or Kinzinger or even General Milley.

Oh, so those of you, let me ask, do you who blindly follow Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, General Milley, Lindsey Graham, Adam Kinzinger at all, do you mean to tell me that these evil incompetent leaders, they've already demonstrated this, do you mean to tell me that these evil incompetent leaders who have destroyed our economy, sickened our culture and cynically imposed tyranny on us, do you now mean to tell me that they are suddenly righteous patriots who will successfully wage an honorable war? Oh, give me a break. This war and our involvement in it is just another step in our enslavement and progress towards tyranny.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it very succinctly when he said, a state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. A state of war, which we are in now, only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. My suspicion is that those who rule over us now are using the state of war precisely for those purposes, dear listener. And if you just benignly tut tut that, oh, Pastor Bass, you're only a conspiracy theorist. Well, if I'm a conspiracy theorist, then you are a naive brainwashed Pollyanna and you are being fooled.

Let us instead of pursuing war, let us pursue peace and reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine. And above all, the United States should have no part in the fighting of this war. While the just war theory, which we just reviewed for you over these last two weeks, while the just war theory is in many respects a high ideal that is very difficult, if not impossible to achieve completely. Nevertheless, the just war theory is a valid metric by which we can gauge our performance before an all-holy and righteous God.

If you want to know what God thinks of fighting wars, the circumstances under which they can be fought, and the means and ways by which a righteous war can be fought, then you must consult the just war theory. So I think that the church, in crafting this metric, dear listener, guided by the scriptures, indeed, the church has given us a high ideal by which to live. May we indeed live it. And dear listener, may you, as the Apostle Paul exhorts us all, may you, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all, from Romans chapter 12.

If possible, may it be true for you, may it be true for me, if possible, so far as it depends on us. May we live peaceably with all. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. If you've been thinking of visiting us, I just urge you to go ahead and cross our threshold.

You'll find a warm welcome and an opportunity to worship God in spirit and in truth. So we meet for holy worship once again on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for feedback or more information at area code 208-523-0196. That's area code 208-523-0196.