Jesus taught that a king who was outnumbered in an impending war, if wise, would make peace with the enemy. We will see the meaning that Jesus was getting at in this parable here. Luke 14:31-33.
31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not first sit down and consider whether he can meet with ten thousand the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or, while the other is still a long way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So too, any of you who does not leave all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Okay, let’s see this. First of all, I want to share with you something that the Christian life is a battle. We are in a war. Now, if you don’t have much opposition in this war, it’s probably because you’re floating down the river in the same way as Satan himself. I heard Andrew Wommack use that statement. I thought that was pretty funny. He said that even a dead fish can float down the river. I thought it was fun.
The Christian life is meant to be swimming against the current. You know, when a salmon is going to give birth, its roe, its eggs and the eggs turn into little fish, they swim against the current. Each female salmon finds the river in which she was born. You know, that could be thousands of miles away and the GPS in her head tracks them back to the mouth of the river they came out of as babies. And they jump all the way up the river. Right at the top of the stream and lays eggs and then the mother dies.
Now the salmon just wouldn’t be created, a new salmon wouldn’t be created unless a mother did that. Babies need a place to mature in a safe place where there are no predators and that is part of nature. Thus, the Christian life is swimming against the current. Many people in the Christian world live like the people of the world.
There was a survey done in the US and I can’t say what year, but it was done by Barna Research. And they found that the only discernible difference between Christian and non-Christian TV clothing, clothing purchases, all purchases, wages, and jobs was that Christians went to church on Sundays. That’s the only difference they could find.
Do you know that Satan is at war with the Christian church and the body of Christ? The only enemy Satan has is Christians, the body of Christ. All the others are yours. He does not go to war with others. And he doesn’t get too much into war with a Christian who isn’t doing anything for the Kingdom. But as soon as you start living the life of Christ, as soon as you start having compassion for your neighbor and start using your money and resources to promote the kingdom of God on earth and make a difference in injustice, poverty. and the brokenhearted in this world; As soon as you go out and start to be different and start swimming against the current, a massive campaign is launched against you, to stop you.
Now a lot of people go through these campaigns and they just go back and drop everything they do, they’re just bummed out. But Jesus promises that in James, if we go through these tribulations, it will strengthen our faith. Tribulations do not come from God. They come from Satan. But he teaches us to endure and be patient and the more tribulations we go through, the stronger our faith and the greater things we can do.
Okay, let’s establish that we have an enemy and move on to this parable. If it’s a king, if it’s the United States, let’s talk about the United States, you know that a good 50% of the people who watch YouTube are from the United States and 70% of the people who read my articles are from the United States. Well, let’s talk about the United States. Let’s say Korea drops a nuclear device and you know that Korea has missile guidance systems that can launch nuclear devices in the United States and that they can send to so many American cities. American cities don’t have the defense mechanisms to stop all those missiles. If they send a hundred at a time, only one of them has to get through and for 400 kilometers or 600 kilometers around where that nuclear device went off, they’d all be dead.
Now, Korea releases nuclear devices. Right in the middle of the war on terror, we invaded Iraq, going after weapons of mass destruction. We went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan looking for these weapons of mass destruction and then Korea drops one of these weapons of mass destruction. The ones from Iraq were never found, they were never shown to be there and they were never found and they were complying, we still went to invade them, but in Korea, Korea launched a nuclear weapon and the United States did not go to war with them. The United States seats a peace delegation in Korea. They said, “Please don’t do it again.”
Now this is an illustration of this parable. If the United States were to confront Korea with all its might, the American people could have suffered millions of thousands or even millions of deaths. So they left with a peace delegation. They went with a good talk and tried to talk them out of it. They didn’t sail ships out there and start attacking Korea like they attacked Iraq.
So, Jesus says, to understand the context, Jesus says that anyone who wants to build a tower, if he doesn’t sit down first to calculate the cost, if he has enough to finish it, he’s a fool. lest, having laid the foundation, you may not be able to finish it. All those who see it would start making fun of you. Nobody who builds a tower or a house sits down and starts building the house without knowing that he has enough money to finish the house or he is going to have a half-built house and people are going to think he is a fool saying, ‘This man begins to build and could not finish’? o Jesus continues “or what king makes war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he can meet with ten thousand men the one who comes against him with twenty thousand men.” The United States cannot win a nuclear war with Korea because even a single missile getting through would be a huge loss for the American people, so they sent a peace delegation.
Jesus continues: “Even so, any of you who does not leave all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
There is a reason a king goes to war against another king. A king goes to war against another king because he wants what that other has. He wants the resources of that other king’s country. Okay, if he can’t win a war with that king, if a king comes against you with twenty thousand men and you only have ten thousand. Instead of going to war with that king and losing and losing your whole country, you have to make a sacrifice and a trade and go to that king and say, “Okay, okay, I’ll stop undercutting you on wheat prices and I will stop selling my cattle cheaply in Asian markets. Don’t fight me. Okay? We will lose. We will take a 30% cut in our foreign exports and we will suffer and our people will be poor, but please don’t fight over this . You win”. Right?”
What Jesus is saying, if you don’t give up everything, you can’t be his disciple. He is saying, to follow him, it is going to be a sacrifice. You are in a real war, you are in a real war with Satan. It’s easy to just float down the river with the rest of the people. It is much more difficult to give of your finances and give of your time and give of your resources to do the things of God.
Now, the last thing I want to hear is another legalistic speech about something that Jesus has said. Jesus’ death on the cross was payment enough for all of us to enter the Kingdom. But this parable was shared with people about the cost it would take to be a successful follower of Jesus.
Anyone who wants to compete in the Olympics one day knows that years and years of hard practice come first. Day after day, year after year, they have to commit to racing and get in shape to compete with the best in the world. People who really want to become the best in the world at their sport, put up with all the pain and all the years of practice in order to have a chance to compete on the day for their country. But people in the Christian world somehow don’t approach their Christian faith with the same dedication.
I know that having a warning is always a good thing. I remember once I was helping a friend of mine speak in prophecy (that is, speaking a message directly from God to another person). For my friend to practice, I asked Jesus to give me a message. He said that I was going to pass through a refining fire. This meant that I was going to go through difficult times that would improve my Christian character.
Well, within a year I was going through a very difficult time. I was so happy as I was going through some years of attack from Satan that I had been warned about previously.
If you are a Christian, Jesus was warning you with this parable. If you want to do great things for God and make a lasting difference in this world, it will come at a very real cost. If you’re happy to just get on with it, there won’t be too much war for you.