Template:Self Defense
The more you are filled with the Holy Spirit the less you will have to draw your sword.
A sword on the side of the righteous keeps the swords of the unrighteous in their sheath.
Freedom of speech is also a part of that right of self defense that is both the Law of Nature and Divine will.
Self Defense
DO CHRISTIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE?
- Part 1, 11-7-09
Do Christians Have a Right to Self Defense - Part 2, 11-22-09
Do Christians Have a Right to Self Defense - Part 3, 12-5-09
Do Christians Have a Right to Self Defense - Part 4, 1-2-10
Do Christians Have a Right to Self Defense
This series of article which appeared at News With Views after I read a Chuck Baldwin article on the same subject has been used for some time in a private run police academy in Florida as a part of their training courses. I was amazed when they approached me for permission to incorporate it in their curriculum.
There are two spirits working or warring in America today, even in the whole world. One is of the light and liberty and righteousness of the Kingdom of God the other is of darkness coveting and seeking the tyranny of Hell to bite and devour one another.
If God did not want people to use carnal weapons you would see that prohibition clearly stated over and over again as a precept in scripture. There is simply no evidence of such a prohibition. Not only did Jesus say to his disciples to obtain a carnal weapon and carry it along with their purse but when Peter used it to protect Jesus he was not told to get rid of it but "Put up thy sword into the sheath" because Jesus knew that the cup which His Father hath given Him he was willing to drink.
But the blood of the innocent or the weak who may die at the carnage of the mad mass murderers of the world is on the hands of the slothful man or coward who so often out of a false sense of self-righteousness refuse to arm themselves wisely as Christ told His disciples.[1].
If men will not wisely stand and defend others with the means that are within their reach are they good men? The man who refuses through his sloth, neglect or cowardness to arm himself to protect the innocent is as guilty of murderer and violence as the evil and wicked.
There is no greater power than the Holy Spirit but we have no right to tempt God by misplaced or arrogant claims to faith. Carnal weapons are only a tool for good or evil but to refuse to touch the tool because of a self-righteousness interpretation of scripture is refusing to accept a responsibility and the right granted by God and directed by Jesus.
While some will try to argue against an armed Christian asking where did Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Justin the Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, or even Origen advocate violence? But why would anyone suggest that using a tool to stop violence is violence? The truth is to fail to restrain a wild beast or a bull that pushes by any means within your power is violence by neglect and you can be held accountable as if you were the beast yourself.
A Christian is nonviolent. You seem to think that having a gun is violent. It is not any more violent than having a hammer which kills a lot of people. A gun is a tool like your hand. Even using it to stop a beast or crazed man is not violence.
It is strengthening the beast by not having the adequate tools at your disposal to stop evil when you could have... that is violence by neglect. That is why he said be armed to his disciples. It is common sense.
- "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." - Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century Cesare Beccaria), criminologist, jurist, philosopher, and politician, who is widely considered as the most talented jurist and one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. 1774-1776.
To say you love your neighbor and refuse to be prepared to come to his defense from a crazed beast or the demonically possessed by whatever means at your disposal is the definition of "dishonest hypocrisy" and by its nature apathetic violence.
It is fundamental to do what we can to protect our neighbor from unwarranted harm.
I have faced mobs and murders without a gun but I would never take away the right of people to use a little leverage. And neither did Christ. As far as Christ's doctrines are concerned if he didn't say it it isn't his doctrines but he did tell his disciples "he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one". To use an imagined doctrine to justify personal apathy is "mental gymnastics "
We are supposed to believe in Jesus not Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Justin the Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, or even Origen, who did not contradict Jesus' statement to his disciples to be armed. How could those disciples as servants turn around and suggest a doctrine that Jesus never instituted that would disarm the people in free assemblies. And while certainly, those men did not recommend salvation through insurrection against even the semi-legitimate governments of the world but neither did they say or command the people disarm and let every thug, murder, robber, and rapist or rampaging beast violate your community.
Thugs and Beasts
Someone who read these News With Views articles conjectured that I actually never answered the very question I raised.
He attempted to summarize the articles with maybe a hint of sarcasm:
- "Christians have the right to defend themselves, their family and their neighbor using whatever force is necessary against thugs bent on doing them ill. That is unless the thug represents the government, in which case they should take their copy of Black's Law Dictionary to the nearest law library, study the countless laws they've subjected themselves to determine what is permissible in the situation they encountered. Of course such an endeavor should only be undertaken with the guidance and discernment provided by the Holy Spirit as few mortals would actually be able to fully comprehend what they're reading without divine guidance. After completing such a course of study one would know what the morally correct thing they should have done all those decades ago."
Well I thought I would make a feeble attempt at a summary avoiding the step by step in depth look that may have encouraged the teachers at the police academy to approach me for the use of these articles. Maybe this will allow me to answer the question as to who is the real thug. Who resulted to force first? After all according to Mark Passio it is the one who through the first blow that is critical in deciding who is really the thug.
Summary
The question is answered in the first article which clearly states you not only have a right but a responsibility and, even an obligation to defend yourself and others.
The rest of the articles show you why you are loosing your right to obtain the means to meet this natural obligation because you will not gather together as one body bound in Faith , Hope and Charity by way of Freewill offerings of the people, for the people and by the people through the Perfect law of liberty in Free Assemblies. Instead you bind yourselves together by contracts with Benefactors who exercise authority one over the other including over your neighbor. This desire for benefits at the expense of your neighbor alters society makes you merchandise, curses children and it is all because your application to eat at the table of rulers is a snare and a trap.
People fail to defend themselves and their neighbor from destitution through accidents, by unforeseen poverty and disease etc. Because people pray to government for social security, Medicare and Medicaid and other social and health benefits and care. Their provisions are of the Nimrods of the World who are taking on your responsibilities and are licensed by you to take from you and of course all your neighbors and thereby obtain a right to regulate your life.
You want to take from the rich because he is rich and it is your own possessions and rights which are forfeited. Your desire for One purse has captured you in a net of your own making. When you cry out because of your oppression you will not be heard by God.
Like the father who says if you live under my roof and eat at my table you go by my rules.
This is undoubtedly why Jesus said Call no man Father
- What was Christ trying to tell us about fathers on the earth?
- http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/fatherabba.php
This is why article 4 states clearly, "While the State of Montana has recently made an attempt to protect individual rights by enacting state provisions, few understand that individual rights require individual responsibility. Gun rights advocates wait to see what the Federal reaction will be. The difficulty the Federal government faces will remain, as always, how will they maintain the delusion that US citizens still enjoy natural God given rights as free people, while continuing to regulate such rights as the privilege they have become?"
The liberal label is for those people who believe in the right to choose except your right to choose to not pay for their abortion, or free education or healthcare. They actually do not believe in the right to choose at all and the gun advocate has already decided that it is okay to force their neighbor to pay for government services ( Health, Education and Welfare) at the point of the government's gun. They have chosen, given consent, to take away the right of their neighbor to choose and have lost their own right to choose.
Americans have already proved themselves violent thugs and predators and unworthy of firearms when they through Covetous Practices apply for benefits from men who call themselves Benefactors but who exercise authority. So I continued to write "Americans have failed to retain those rights by failing to recognize the consequences of applications for and acceptance of benefits, along with pervasive participation in social schemes dependent upon mutual surety and debt as seen in Pharaoh's Egypt, Nimrod's Babylon, Caesar's Rome, or Herod's Judea."
And then finish with "If you will not take back the responsibility to govern yourselves, to care and protect one another, to live by faith with hope through charity under the Perfect law of liberty which is love, and the duty of every Christian and God loving man, then you are probably to irresponsible to own a gun without being regulated by one government or another."
Americans have become comfortable with the idea of taking a bite out of one another. They have become little benefit beasties. Bound together by contract they all have the Mark of the Beast and have created a Beast by their Covetous Practices that goes about devouring who it wills.
- ↑ Luke 22:36 "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take [it], and likewise [his] scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."