Jesus taught that a king who was vastly outnumbered in an impending war, if he was wise, would make peace with the enemy. We will see the meaning that Jesus was coming to in this parable here. Luke 14: 31-33.
31 Or what king, going to wage war against another king, does not first sit down to consider whether he can meet with ten thousand the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still very far away, send a delegation and ask for conditions of peace. 33 Even so, he who among you does not abandon all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Ok, let’s see this. First of all, I want to share with you something that the Christian life is a battle. We are in war. Now if you don’t have much opposition in this war, it is because you are probably floating in the same way as Satan himself. I heard Andrew Wommack use that statement. I thought it was pretty funny. He said that even a dead fish can float down the river. I thought it was funny.
The Christian life is destined to swim against the current. You know, a salmon when they go to give birth, their roe, their eggs and the eggs turn into little fish, they swim upstream. All female salmon find the river in which they were born. You know, that could be thousands of miles away and the GPS in their head tracks them down to the mouth of the river where they came from as babies. And they jump all the way down that stream. Straight to the top of the stream and it lays eggs and then the mother dies.
Now salmon would just not be created, no new salmon would be created unless a mother did that. Babies need a place to mature safely where there are no predators and that is just 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.
A survey was conducted in the United States and I cannot name what year, but it was conducted by Barna Research. And they found that the only discernible difference between Christian and non-Christian TV habits, shopping habits for all purchases made, wages, and jobs was that Christians went to church on Sundays. That is 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 are Christians, the body of Christ. All others are yours. He does not go to war with others. And don’t go too much at war with a Christian who is doing nothing for the Kingdom. But as soon as you start living the life of Christ, as soon as you start to have compassion on your fellow man 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 get out there and start being different and start swimming against the current, a massive campaign will be launched against you, to stop you.
Now a lot of people go through these campaigns and they just go back and stop everything they do, they just get discouraged. But Jesus promises that in James, if we go through these tribulations, he will strengthen our faith. Tribulations do not come from God. They come from Satan. But it teaches us to endure and be patient and the more tribulations we go through, the stronger our faith and the more things we can do.
Okay, so let’s establish that we have an enemy and move on to this parable. If a king, if it is the United States, let’s talk only 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 launches a nuclear device and they know that Korea has missile guidance systems that can launch nuclear devices on the United States and they can send them 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 pass and for 400 kilometers or whatever it is 600 kilometers around where that nuclear device was fired, they would all be dead.
Now, Korea launched nuclear devices. Right in the middle of the war on terror, we invaded Iraq, pursuing weapons of mass destruction. We went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan looking for these weapons of mass destruction and then Korea unleashes 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 sent a peace delegation to Korea. They said, “Please don’t do it again.”
Now this is an illustration of this parable. If the United States had to confront Korea with all its might, the American people could have suffered hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths. So they went with a peace delegation. They went with a nice chat and tried to convince them not to. No ships sailed there and began attacking in Korea like they attacked Iraq.
So, Jesus says, to understand this context, Jesus says that anyone who wants to build a tower, if they don’t first sit down and calculate the cost, if they have enough to finish it, it’s silly. It is not after having laid the foundation and you cannot finish it. Everyone who sees it will start making fun of you. Nobody who builds a tower or a house sits down and starts building the house without knowing that they have enough money to finish the house or that they are going to have a half-built house and people are going to think that they are stupid saying, ‘This man begins to build. ‘ and couldn’t finish ‘? or Jesus continues “or what king would make war against another king, do not first sit down to consider whether he can face 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 missile to go through it would be a great loss to the American people, so they sent a peace delegation.
Jesus continues: “Likewise, the one who among you does not abandon all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
There is a reason why a king goes to war against another king. A king goes to war against another king because he wants what the other has. He wants the resources of that other king’s country. Okay, so 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 the prices of the wheat and I will stop selling my cattle cheaply in Asian markets. Don’t fight me. Okay? We lose. We will take a 30% cut in our foreign exports and we will suffer and our people will. poor, but please don’t fight for this. You win. ” Right? “
What Jesus is saying, if you don’t give up everything, you can’t be his disciple. He is saying that following him will be a sacrifice. You are in a real war, you are in a real war with Satan. It’s easy to float down the river with the rest of the people. It is much more difficult to give of your finances and your time and your resources to do the things of God.
Now the last thing I want it to sound like is another legalistic speech about something that Jesus has said. Jesus’ death on the cross was a sufficient payment for all of us to enter the Kingdom. But this parable was shared with the people about the cost it would cost 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 fit enough to compete with the best in the world. People who really want to become the best in the world in their sport, endure all the pain and all the years of practice in order to have the opportunity to compete that 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 I was once helping a friend of mine to speak in prophecy (that is, to speak a message directly from God to another person). For my friend to practice, I asked him to ask Jesus for a message for me. He said he was going through a refinery fire. This meant that I was going to go through difficult times that were going to improve my Christian character.
Well, within a year he was having a really bad time. I was so happy while going through a few years of Satan’s attack that I had been warned 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 move on, there won’t be too much war for you.
