The Cause of War

0:00:00    Hey, you’re going to miss out if you don’t listen to today’s podcast on more faith, more life, because I’m going to answer the question that’s been asked for years and years. If God’s a good God, why are there wars? Hello, everyone, and welcome again to another podcast of more faith, more life. And don’t touch that dial, as they say, because I’m going to answer the age-old question that millions have asked for thousands of years, and I’m going to answer it for you right now. The question is, what if God’s a good God?

0:00:27    Why are there wars? And I’ve been asked it many times, I hear it all the time, my entire ministry. People are asking, and sometimes they break it down, why are there sick? Why is there death? Why, you know, why is there famine? But basically, usually it’s that question, if God’s a good God, why are there wars? And I want to answer that for you. And it’s an easy answer because what God has done, he has set up a system of teaching us what is right, telling us what is right, but giving us a choice.

0:00:59    All right, so in the book of James, in the Bible, in the book of James, the very first chapter, I think, I think my Bible’s over there. I think. Anyway, the book of James answers that question also. It says, why is there fighting among you? Why are there wars? Why is there trouble? And he says it’s because people want something that they can’t have. They want something they can’t have. And so they fight, quarrel, whether it be in marriage or a world war, right?

0:01:31    And you can take that, too, in your life. You may see that yourself or people around you. It could be as simple as, you know, you don’t give me enough respect. You don’t respect me. Let’s just say that. And so now there’s a quarrel in a marriage. You don’t respect me or you don’t love me. In other words, I’m not getting enough love, I’m not getting enough respect, right? Could be the same thing on a job. I’m not getting enough money, I’m not getting enough recognition.

0:01:59    So a lot of times we think of the big stuff like wars, which it still works for that. But most of our conflict in our everyday lives is basically that you want something or somebody wants something that they don’t have or they can’t get, or they don’t know how to get. And so they argue, they get agitated, they get angry, and even if they don’t war with you, openly, they’re warring on the inside about you or about the money or about what they’re not getting.

0:02:29    So God allows us that. Now, the Bible obviously teaches us not to do that, but we can clear, we can go clear back to the Garden of Eden and understand this because are we going? Well, let me back up a second here. A lot of people don’t understand what I’m teaching right now and saying right now because they think everything is fixed. I was, I played before I was a Christian, actually, in college, I played the part of Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar.

0:03:00    And one of the lines that Jesus sings is in the musical, not in the Bible, but in the musical is everything is fixed and you can’t change it. And so I believed. I sang it and I believed it, but that’s not true. If everything is fixed, why would the Bible have us pray? Why pray if everything is fixed? One of the lines in the Bible is talking about when it says, you know, if the trouble comes and the things happen, it says, pray it doesn’t. Pray it doesn’t happen in winter.

0:03:38    Pray it does not happen in winter. Well, if it’s fixed, then it’s going to happen in winter or it’s not going to happen in winter. We don’t need to pray about it. So you get what I’m saying? So God, back to the garden of Eden now. So God gave him a choice. Says, you can eat of every tree here, but not of that tree, one tree. And the knowledge of good and evil, you know how that is. You get told no or you get told not that one.

0:04:03    Now all of a sudden you’re like, want to do it? You know, I remember kids, you know, parents say, don’t touch that, it’s hot. They reach out and touch it right after you say it. It’s just something about our nature. But so was it God’s will? Like, if everything’s fixed and sovereignly fixed constantly, then was it God’s will for Eve to eat of that tree? And when she did and had brought it to her husband, the fruit of the tree, and he ate a sin and death came into the world, was that God’s will?

0:04:39    I don’t think so. Because he told them to be fruitful, multiply, take dominion. They didn’t take dominion. Right? They got tempted rather than dominion, they got tempted. And she saw something she wasn’t supposed to have and she took it. She thought, I’ll do it anyway. And that caused sin and death. So through that we have things that cause death in the world. Sin causes death. Death causes trouble, right? Wars and sickness and all that kind of stuff. Things that kill people.

0:05:10    Right? And so today we have choices, and God gives us choices. And if we didn’t have choices, then God would have a perfect world, but he gives us the choice. And if we make wrong choices, if we decide to get angry about something, we can get angry. Not a good decision. But, goddess, there’s not divine control. And another thing that I hear all the time, even on television, and people and everything, it’s a common phrase, and people think it’s in the Bible, everything happens for a reason.

0:05:41    Now, I get it. I get it. I understand it. But it does insinuate that everything is pre planned. So when it happens, you don’t really need to worry about it or think about it, because it was pre planned for a reason. And now we just got to wait and find out the reason. Right? And I can tell you this, everything happens for a reason. Yeah. And some of it is to ruin you. Some of it’s demonic, some of it’s not good.

0:06:08    And so that’s why we need to be praying people. We need to have the Bible as a standard, and the Bible is not really that hard to understand. If you go. Go get some translation, that’s easy for you to understand. There’s lots of them out there that you can read. Don’t be speaking Shakespearean. People think that’s the holy language of God is thee and thou. Thou shouldst and thou shalt not. God doesn’t talk in Elizabethan English.

0:06:39    That’s Shakespearean. Shakespearean language is what I call it. And so it’s funny. People talk in regular language, and then when they go to pray, they start speaking Elizabethan English with thees and thous. Like, that’s how God talks. Just get out of that. Make it simple. Talk to God like you always talk. All right, so anyway, God gives us choices. So wars. Why do wars happen? If God’s a good God, why do wars happen? Because God gives us the choice to go to war, to make war, to make bad decisions, to make bad choices gives us that choice.

0:07:14    He’s not controlling us. It wouldn’t work to be controlled because that’s not honorable and glorious. You know, we’re supposed to give God glory and. And treat him with honor. But if it’s already fixed and you have no choice, then that’s not honorable. I mean, he can’t be God and say, look at these people. They have chosen to serve me. They’ve chosen to honor me. They could choose darkness, but they chose light.

0:07:42    They could choose to be angry. They could choose to go to war. They could choose to argue. They could choose to want their own way. But you know what? They didn’t. They chose me. They chose to lay down their life. They chose to attempt, at least to be loving in all circumstances. They chose to try at least not to be self-centered and selfish. They’ve chosen to walk the walk of the spirit. Choice. Choice is what glorifies God, right?

0:08:11    Choice is what honors God is we who have a choice have chosen him. And then the downside of it is when God gives people choices, some make bad choices. In fact, I have said many times, and it needs to be said many times, most all of the problems that I have dealt with with other people, some not, some have had an exceptionally bad thing happen. Some have had exceptional difficulties happen in their lives, and it affected them, okay?

0:08:40    But 90%, 95%, whatever percent you want to put on that, of people that are going through difficult times, it’s self-inflicted wounds, self-inflicted. And today we are full of people wanting to blame other people. Right? Everybody’s a victim of everybody. Everybody wants to be able to say, it’s not my fault. I am the way I am because of the way I was treated, the way I was raised, the way the pastor talked to me or my Sunday school teacher or whatever, and it’s now I’m a mess, or now I’m hurting and now I’m wounded.

0:09:13    No, sir. Listen, you can’t be. What the. You can’t follow the Bible. You got to drop out of the Bible if you’re going to think that because the Bible says we’re more than conquerors and we are not victims, we have victory and we live a triumphant life. Yeah, there’s hard times, but we’re not going to get wounded and back down and live as victims like everybody else. Okay? But we do have the choice to do that. You got the choice to be a victim if you want to, but you also have the choice not to be.

0:09:42    And so Adam and Eve made a bad choice, two bad choices, and now we are reaping wars and death. But Jesus made the better choice, right? He became the sacrifice because the Bible teaches us you can’t. Without the shedding of blood, there’s no forgiveness of sins, in other words. And that’s hard for people to get. But if you, in the wages of sin is what? Do you know that scripture? It’s what death. So you can’t have sin, have sinned and says everybody has, and then want the wages to be just forgiveness.

0:10:21    Somebody has, somebody has to die. That’s the wages of sin. But Jesus said, I’ll pay. I’ll take, I’ll step in for you and I’ll pay. So somebody did die. Jesus did die, did shed his blood so he could be forgiven and we could go on. And us who are guilty of sin get to go free. Okay, so there is that. He made that choice. He wasn’t forced to do it. You know, when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, what was his choice?

0:10:50    He said, if I don’t have to do this, you know, the Bible says, let this cup pass from me because it’s like he’s going to drink the cup of crucifixion and death. Let this cup pass. But basically we can just say, he’s saying, is there any other choice? And he said, nevertheless, he figured it out. He made the choice and not my will. Not my will. That’s a choice whose will you’re going to do. And so today we have such conflict, we have such stress, we have such anger, and everybody blames everybody. But, you know, those are all choices.

0:11:25    Those are all choices. And you can choose right choices, you can make good choices. And if you’ll start making good choices, and sometimes we might say godly choices, you can change your whole life. You can change the atmosphere of your whole house. You know, the Bible teaches. A quick little phrase that I like is, you will reap what you sow. I’ll tell you a story. When Kathy and I were married, we were married about ten years, I’m going to guess maybe she sat me down one day, said, we need to talk.

0:12:03    Now, I’ll be honest with you. It wouldn’t happen that way today. But back then when she said, we need to talk, it means you need to listen. She wanted to talk, okay? So I did. It’s funny, we laugh and laugh at this now, but we were only married ten years. And, you know, a new ten-year bride thinks differently sometimes. So she says, she sits me down and she says, you know what? I’m. I think the romance has gone out of our marriage. I laugh at it now.

0:12:31    There’s not enough romance. Where’s the romance after ten years? And that happens. You know, I’ve heard other people say it. I listened and listened and listened, and then I responded in the way that a preacher would respond. But I’m not sure it was the way she wanted her husband to respond. But here’s what I said. Let me. So I turned it into a mini sermon, which I don’t think she was expecting. But I said this, I said, listen, the Bible says, you reap what you sow, what you plant.

0:13:00    I said, Kathy, if you want more romance, don’t beg for it, don’t plead for it, don’t critique for it, sow for it. Be more romantic. Start it and you’ll reap it. It’ll go reap what you sow. Not what she wanted to hear, but she understood. She said, okay, if you say, I don’t feel loved, nobody loves me, and I don’t feel loved, you know what you do? Go love somebody. Start loving, loving, loving somebody.

0:13:30    Start the ball rolling. You will reap what you sow. You start sowing love. If people are not generous to you, what do you do? Nobody gives me anything. Nobody ever gives me a present. Nobody helps me when I get into trouble. Go help somebody. Go be generous. Do you know? Go be generous to somebody and you’ll start finding people will be generous back to you. Volunteer to help, go be generous. In our case, I like to see people go work at the church. Be generous with your time because people work hard. I know, and they work long.

0:14:02    But you’ve got time to go out to eat, you’ve got time to watch movies, you’ve got time to be on your phone. Take that time and go do something for God, do something for the church, do something for the kingdom of God, do something for somebody else. And if you’ll do that, you will reap what you sow and people will start doing things for you. When there’s something, something they say, I have this, like I need to declutter is a word that everybody talks about today.

0:14:27    I got too much stuff, and so I’m going to give it away to somebody. But, you know, it’ll come to my mind, who’s a generous person, who’s been good, who’s been faithful, and then people give stuff to them, but right now were motivated by our selfish feelings. And the other, what’s the other one? Money. Money in the book. Hang on, I’m going to grab in the book. If You Only Knew. Can you see that? Yeah, you can still get it free, a free download. But if you want to buy it and have it in your hand like this, it’s small, it’s quick. Read a guide to the clueless generation.

0:15:04    I try to explain that to people. Whole idea of the deception that’s happening in America today. It feels like rich people and billionaires and influencers, they’re all concerned about us supporting alternate lifestyles. Right. They’re all concerned about changing the way we teach our kids and the way teachers teach, teach ethics and morals and genders and these kind of things, instead of what we used to say, reading, writing, arithmetic.

0:15:38    And it looks like, well, these are people that just care about alternate lifestyles. They care about people who want to, who are concerned about their gender or that they care. So they’re trying to do it and care about people. Are you kidding me? Are you really? Are you kidding me? Yeah, it appears that way. Listen, pull back the curtain. There’s always money behind it. They don’t care. And after a while, a few years will pass, and that will pass.

0:16:06    And all the concern that everybody has for certain kinds of people will pass. I’m not judging it one way or the other. I don’t critique them. I’m not judging anybody’s lifestyle because they haven’t asked my opinion. It’s kind of funny, you know, I need to teach the Bible to people. I need to preach the gospel. Teach the Bible, teach, you know, what’s the mind of God? What’s God thinking on this and that?

0:16:28    But when it comes to lifestyles and what everybody’s doing, if they don’t ask me, I’m not going to make my turn myself into a preacher that just constantly preaches about, they’re living the devil’s lifestyle or whatever, you know, why would it. They’re not listening. They’re not going to pay attention to me. It’s a waste of time. If they ask my opinion, I would like to tell them what I think. But instead I want to preach the presence of God, right?

0:16:52    Not the rules and regulations. But if you, they, each one of us listening one moment in the real, actual presence of goddess will change you forever, and it’ll change your opinion, it’ll change the way you live. And they’ll be able to make up their own mind. If you give them a dead church where they just sing songs, kind of mumble their songs, pray in Elizabethan English and have an hour service, and it looks like people don’t even want to be there for an hour.

0:17:24    And there’s fighting and bickering going on inside the church, which a lot of times there is in some churches. You’re not giving them anything. They’re not getting the alternative. But if they could find a church that God attends and the power of God is there, and the presence of God is there during the worship. And that’s our goal at Revive Church. If you’re from somewhere else, you should watch it online or come visit us and watch the children, watch the teenagers, see how engulfed everybody is in glorifying the Lord and worshiping him.

0:17:56    And so those are the things. Then you take somebody that’s confused or somebody that’s considering this lifestyle, that lifestyle, and get them in that presence, they’ll get a. It may take a few services. Their mind will start clearing up. And the anger, the way they’re warring against somebody to. They’re angry at people because people won’t recognize them as making the right decision. Some people think I made the wrong decision.

0:18:24    Whatever. People criticize me, people judge me. We want to help you decide what’s right through the spirit of God. And so anyway, all this that we think is people being so caring and loving for all these different groups of people, whatever it is, that’ll change and it’ll be different groups later, but behind it all is money. So follow the money and you’ll find. And you’ll find the money tree and you’ll find out it’s not genuine compassion for alternate lifestyles. I just say it that way.

0:18:57    No, it is a money trail, and that is a front to distract us and to make these people look, being people who they’re not really who they say they are. So anyway, what we need, of course, is what I’m already saying, boy, we got to have some sermons and some preaching that are not about our feelings. They got to be about God’s feelings. They can’t be about what I think is truth. They have to be what God says is truth.

0:19:26    And if you want to know what truth is, you know, Pilate in the Bible said, well, what is truth? Well, you know, what truth is not a. What truth is a person, right. Jesus is the way and the truth. Well, if people know Jesus, they say they do. I have Jesus in my heart. Right? Wouldn’t you think if Jesus was really in their heart that they wouldn’t be so confused, they wouldn’t be so angry, they wouldn’t be so upset, they wouldn’t be living this way, that way. Right?

0:19:54    You’re telling me the savior of the world lives inside of you and you have no idea what’s going on, and you’ve never heard from God and you can’t hear God and you don’t want to go to church? Come on. I think maybe you’re lying to yourself. We need a spiritual revival of spiritual things where people don’t make fun of Christians or God or the Bible. The preachers on tv are not always crooks or pedophiles.

0:20:21    Right? Right. Abusers of children how many of that? They have a preacher, and he’s preaching da da da da. And then, of course, he’s. We find out he abuses children or his own children on the side. Come on. Yeah, there’s a few bad preachers around, but there’s a ton of ones that love God. And we need a revival of. Change our mind about God. You need to change your mind. You need a revival of change to be transformed.

0:20:46    Right. And so end the war that’s in you. End the war that’s in your marriage. End the war that’s in your relationships. End the war that’s in your finances, even. And get God’s opinion and God’s ways, and the war will end. What causes wars and fighting’s among you is because you want something you don’t have. Well, the Bible says every good gift is coming down from heaven. The Bible says you have not because you don’t ask for it.

0:21:15    Right. And we can sow for it. We can give. There’s so many things if you don’t have. And one last scripture. The Bible says, seek first the kingdom of God. Not seek the kingdom of God. Not be a church attender. Seek first the kingdom of God and all of these things. Things. And when he names it clothing, it means clothing. Money, jobs, just daily stuff will be given to you, will be added to you. So you won’t. You won’t say, I’m angry because I don’t have this. I’m angry because I don’t have that.

0:21:50    Seek first the kingdom of God, and you can end the inner war in you, and you can be a good witness to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we have nations that aren’t going to listen to me or you or the Bible who want what America has. And I think wars are in the planning stage. Whether they’ll happen soon or later, it depends. But we need to be prepared and get our faith in God, true faith in God. So what anybody else does, we are standing on the solid rock of Jesus Christ without fear, and we have no war on the inside of us. Got it? Well, now you know the question. Why are there wars? Because people choose them. God gave us choice.

0:22:32    There are bad choices, but he does nothing divinely choose a war. It’s people choosing to fight among themselves. And we want to end that by walking by the spirit and having the peace of God in our lives. Right. Be sure and check out More Faith, More Life, and download the book or buy it. They’ll have a study guide from today — The Cause of War. All these kinds of things. Go to the website. Maybe you want to start giving.

0:22:57    Like I said, if you’re having financial troubles, don’t whine for it, don’t beg for it, and don’t look upon a star for it. Don’t wish upon a star, give so forth. Say, I would like a financial breakthrough. Well, what are you going to do? Sow some money? That’s God’s way of doing some things, so you might want to consider that. All right. So I hope this helped you today. And you now know the answer, age old question for thousands of years about what? If God’s a good God, why are there wars? Till next time. Bye.