Swords Into Plowshares Is Christian War! The Early Christian Beliefs!

Grace and works are not in opposition.

Faith and works are not in opposition with one another. It's not either/or; it's both/and. Satan's greatest weapons, tactics, and lies—a lot of people may argue and say this is number one. I'm not going to argue; I really don't know. This is just the order I put them in. But number three, Satan wants people to believe that Scripture can be in opposition with one another when they are not. You can't separate faith from works and grace. They are together. They're inseparable. Everybody knows this very important Scripture: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, and that we should walk in them."

And a lot of people would like to pin this verse against James and say, "James and Peter and John and Paul and Jesus, they all disagree, and it's either this or that, but it's both/an." James says that we're justified by works and not by faith alone.

For example, if you give all your money to the poor, you spend all your time with prisoners and widows and orphans, and you hate God, and you want nothing to do with Him, and you want to prove to every Christian that you can be just as good or better than Christians in your works, will those works do anything for you in the end?

No. And the equal and opposite is also true. What if you have faith that Jesus died for your sins, all of your sins, and you believe this wholeheartedly, 100%, and you live in your sin, and you're a heroin addict and a prostitute, a murderer, and a thief, and you have no repentance?

Your faith is worse than the demon's faith because they actually tremble and shudder.

So faith—that kind of faith cannot save anyone. There's two things. By the way, He did not die for your sins. Jesus did not die for your sins. And Jesus's blood does not cover your sins. It doesn't. He died for you to set you free from sin. He didn't die for your sin. He died so that you will no longer be slaves to sin and death, but you can be slaves to righteousness with God. Did he really just say that Jesus didn't die for your sins? He didn't die for your sins. Not like the world teaches about that today. Yes, He died for our sins the way Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:3. The world wants you to believe that you can cling to your sins because Jesus paid for them, and it goes along with the blood of Christ covering your sins.

Instead of saying cleansing like the Bible, they use covering your sins. And they talk about when you're clothed with Christ, Christ's blood covers you. And when God looks down, He sees His Son and His perfection of His Son's righteousness, no matter what you look like underneath there, no matter how you're living under there. If you believe and you put your faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, you can remain how you are, although it's not recommended, is what people would say. But when God looks at you, you're forgiven, and you're going to heaven, and there's nothing you can do. And if you start to do anything—be careful—if you start to do anything, you're going to go to hell.

You can't lose your salvation unless you think you can earn it. It's absurd. They talk about that because He paid for those sins, we can do them, and there's no consequence, that we can still be saved and be in adultery. Listen to this quote from Martin Luther. He said, "No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins?" I wanted to shock you, and I even felt weird saying He didn't die for your sins because I've heard it my whole life. But the way I hear it when people talk about it, when I talk about living for God and pursuing God with your all in reckless abandonment, people will say, "Well, He died for our sins, so we don't have to do anything."

It's not about having to do anything. It's about loving our King and being a part of the kingdom now. He says when He comes back, He's going to come gather the kingdom, the people He rules over now. And if He's not ruling over your life, He's not your head.

But we're cleansed from all sin so that we don't live in it any longer. So number three, I put first because number three contributes to number one. And a lot of people will think number two is number one, but I'll explain why. I think it's this order.

Satan's greatest weapons or tricks or lies is to make people think they are right with God when they're slaves and enemies of God. They're slaves to sin and enemies of God. And the reason this is above this one, Satan wants to help people know they're enemies of God and be okay with it.

Because when you know you're an enemy of God and you're a Satan worshiper or an atheist who hates God, and even if God were true, you wouldn't want anything to do with Him, the reason this is number two is once you get sick of Satan's lies and the turmoil that he puts you through through sin, the things that give you momentary pleasure but then end up in divorce and prison and remarriage, these things, once you get sick of the lies, if you're in group number two, you know you need to change allegiance.

But if you're in group number one and you're in your sins, you don't know you need to change allegiance. And number four, and this is just what came to my head, so Satan wants the righteous to remain silent about the headless church.

Satan wants the righteous to remain silent about the headless church so people who call themselves Christians never completely submit themselves to Christ and His teachings and actually become Christians. What I mean by the headless church is we are the body of Christ. And Christ is our head. He's our leader. He's our ruler. And He's our King. And we're willing to do whatever it takes, whatever He wants us to do, even when it makes zero sense. That's what we're willing to do if we really are Christians. The radical Christians in the early Christianity we call radical Christians. And radical Christians of today were not or were barely even considered Christians by the early Christians. When you read their writings and how much more they were uncompromising about anything, and they wanted to give everything to our Lord in Christ.

And that's what we should be doing. By the headless church, I mean that Christians are the body, and Jesus is our head. He's our leader. But people who don't follow all the teachings of Jesus are their own heads. He is not leading them. And they're essentially headless. For example, if your finger were to get cut off and you didn't go to the hospital and get it put on really quickly, it would rot and die. And if it started to rot and then you put it on, it would start to kill the body. If life didn't get back into it, it would start to rot away the body. And same is with the headless church, but even worse.

I mean, but thankfully, when a head is severed, there is no putting it back on, at least today. And you are dead. And there's lots of churches that are headless. They do not follow the teachings of Christ. And we cannot be one of those churches. We must strive to not be one of those churches.

Who am I talking to? I'm talking to my old self three and four years ago, the message I need to hear because I'm confused. I'm getting all these mixed messages. "Oh, you think you can please God? So you're saved once you believe, and you can never lose your salvation, and you have eternal security unless you think you can please God and do some kind of work that makes our Father happy." There's this false dichotomy that Bill mentioned today that we must get rid of. It's both/and. It's not either/or.

That our righteousness comes from Christ and our obedience to Christ. And it's not our own because we follow Him. If we were to try to do things good on our own and not follow Jesus, it probably wouldn't end up in righteousness, in His righteousness. So who I'm talking to is my old self, and I'm talking to everyone who is a person who calls themself a Christian.

And I'm talking to every group who calls itself a church. And I want to call everybody back. I don't want to call anybody to this church necessarily or to this kind of group of people, but everybody to come back to the teachings of Jesus, to follow His teachings with reckless abandonment, without compromise, no matter what, especially when it's countercultural. If the culture says to do something and your church looks like that culture and it doesn't look like the teachings of Christ, change. If you're a leader in a church, change. Get fired and have some people follow you and start a new church. God wants to gather a righteous race of men, not self-righteous, a righteous race of men because they follow Christ, to change this world.

Imagine if everybody in the—anyway, I'll get there in a little bit. So I'm going to start with origin. The reason I'm saying this, this quote sparked some of this in me. "Love must be without deception. I think that all love that is not according to God is with pretense and not genuine. For God, the soul's creator, has implanted the disposition of love into the soul together with other virtues so that the soul might love God and the things that God wills.

Because He has put this work of love into the soul, when anyone loves anything besides God and the things that please God, the love in him must be called false and with deceit. Moreover, if anyone loves his neighbor and fails to warn him and correct him when he sees him go astray, that love must be called fraud. Therefore, love ought to have no flattery and nothing counterfeit. As the same apostle also says in another passage, 'Let love come from a pure heart and from a good conscience and from faith that is without falsehood.'" So I started to think I don't often teach anything.

I feel like I don't teach difficult teachings for people to swallow, and it's not loving them that we need to teach everything, that all the apostles and everything Jesus taught is for today, for now, and they're not in opposition with one another. And Satan wants you to believe that they are so that you're in his kingdom. Titus. "Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works, they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work."

Let me read that again. "They profess to know God, but in their works, they deny Him." That seems like a big deal. We'll see what Jesus has to say about it. "Whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.

If your works deny him, if you deny him by your works, he will deny you and me." Just a martyr. "And let those who are not found living as He taught, Jesus, be understood to be no Christian, even though they profess with their lip the precepts of Christ. For not those who make profession, but those who do the works shall be saved according to His word.

For whoever hears me and does my sayings, here's him that sent me. And many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, have we not eaten and drank in Your name and done wonders?' And then I will say to them, 'Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.' Then there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth when the righteous shall shine as the sun and the wicked shall be sent into everlasting fire.

For many shall come in my name clothed outwardly in sheep's clothing, but inwardly being ravenous wolves. By their works, you will know them. And every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine, the teachings of Christ, and does not have God. So if you do not follow the teachings of Christ, you do not have God.

He who abides in the teachings of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him. For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds."

Polycarp. "But He who raised him up from the dead will raise you up also if we do His will and walk in His commandments and love what He loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness, covetousness, love of money, evil speaking, false witness." Listen to this. "Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, or blow for blow, or cursing for cursing, being mindful of what the Lord said in His teachings." When they were talking about the Lord's teachings, they were often talking about this, the Sermon on the Mount. Blow for blow, not rendering evil for evil.

If we do His will, He will raise us up from the dead.

Cyprian. "He follows Christ who stands in His commandments, who walks in the way of His teaching, who follows His footsteps and His ways, who imitates that which Christ both did and taught. To put on the name of Christ and yet not go into the way of Christ, what else is this but a mockery of the divine name? It is a desertion of the way of salvation. For He Himself teaches and says that the person who keeps His commands will come into life."

So I'm going to go over two prophecies that are often missed by us, today's church. And the early Christians all saw them. The first one, I'm not going to go into much. It's something that Chuck Pike does really good in showing how Jesus and Moses, how similar they were. You should go look that up. But I'm going to go over that prophecy because after I heard it from him, I started realizing all the early Christians mentioning this. And somehow it's missed today. So I'm bringing it back. "And the Lord said to me, 'What they have spoken is good. I will raise up from them a prophet like you from among their brethren.'" You as in Moses.

He's talking to Moses. "And will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command. And it shall be that whoever will not hear his words, my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require of him." And then Peter mentions that this is Jesus in Acts 3:17. "Jesus Christ who has preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you.'

And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet, Jesus, shall be utterly destroyed from among the people." We have to listen to all of the words of Jesus and all of His apostles. The second prophecy, this is the more important prophecy.

And not more important. This is the prophecy that I'm going to focus on today. Isaiah 2:2 through 5 and Micah 4:1 through 5. But before I explain these prophecies and go through what the early Christians thought about them, I was trying to connect these thoughts together. And I woke up in the middle of the night, I think around 2 o'clock, and it just came to me. And then I started to go back to sleep. And I've done that many times and just fall asleep and wake up and don't remember it. So then I decided I got to get up and I got to write this down. And this is what came to me in the middle of the night.

The gospel as a whole hinges on non-resistance and enemy love. It really does. The gospel as a whole hinges on non-resistance and enemy love. We are to be imitators of our head. What did Jesus do when we were still His enemies? He willingly laid down His life for us. Even the Jews who were unmercifully looking at an almost dead Jesus, unrecognizable, bleeding from everywhere, shouting, 'Crucify Him.' He died for them, and He died for us and you and me.

And what was more agonizing than just death was the fact that He knew all those people. He created all those people. He gave them their fingerprints and their DNA. He saw them as toddlers. He wants them to succeed. He wants to know them. He mourned when they mourned and laughed when they laughed. And He's given them the Son and everything they need. And they are looking at their Creator and shouting, 'Crucify Him.' Think about how agonizing it must have been for Him. Not merely the way He died, but the fact that He could see these people for who they were. The big part is He also could see what they would be like if they were to be purchased out of their slavery to sin and be forgiven.

What it would look like if they would live out the way God made them to be worthy of the gospel of Christ. His heart longed to die for them and us. Oh, how painful it would be to have memories of how lovely they were and all their innocence as children. And now shouting before their very Creator and standing before Him to be killed.

Imagine if one of your children grew up and tortured you to death and hate you and spit on you and pulled out your beard and mocked you and said you're not their father. The very children that you ran around tickling and playing tag with and reading books to and making countless meals for and laughed with and cried with. How much worse must it have been for Him who has mourned with you and cried with you and has taken care of every need you've had since you have been born. He even knew that most of us, most of them, not us, would not even love Him and turn back to Him. But He just longed so much to have them back.

It did not matter that He was going to die, even for the ones that would never know Him. So as His creation was killing Him, He was in agony that His little children were against Him. And He just wanted to buy them back out of sin and slavery, even knowing many after being purchased wished to remain slaves. That is what this all hinges on.

He expects us to lay down our lives, even for our enemies, so that one day they too may be bought out of sin and death into life everlasting. This is why this prophecy can't be missed, can't be lost. If Jesus did not have non-resistance and enemy love, He would not have died for us who formerly were His enemies, and even those who are still now His enemies. If enemy love and non-resistance were out of the picture, Jesus would have called down His angels and wiped us all out, and there would be no good news.

That is why we must live and do as our leader does, being willing to die to ourselves and for others that others may live. So this is the prophecy. I'm not going to actually read it from the Bible. I'm going to read it straight from the quotes of all the early Christians because you'll get it enough. "I cannot understand how with all your exercise in investigating and meditating on the scriptures, you have not noticed that the prophets continually quote each other, almost word for word. For who of all believers does not know the words of Isaiah?" The words that he's mentioning, these words in Isaiah, he's talking all believers knew this.

I don't think many believers would know this. And if they do, they say it's for a future time. But the early Christians all think it's for now. "And in the last days, the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest and the house of the Lord on the top of the mountains. And it shall be exalted above all the hills, and all the nations shall come to it. And many people shall go and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.' And He will teach us His way, and we will walk in it. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords in the plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." But in Micah, we find a parallel passage, which is almost word for word. Pay attention to the differences. This is the origin. "And in the last days, the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, established on top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall hasten to it. And many nations shall come to it and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob.

And they will teach us His way, and we will walk in His paths. For our law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations, and they shall beat their swords in the plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."

In a little bit at the very end, which is not too far from now, origin will tell us what he thinks.

But first, we're going to go to just the martyr. "And then the spirit of the prophecy speaking as predicting things that are to come to pass, he speaks in this way. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people. And they shall beat their swords in the plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. And that it did so come to pass. We can convince you.

For from Jerusalem, there went out to the world men, 12 in number, and these illiterate, of no nobility and speaking. But by the power of God, they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach all the word of God.

And we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ. But if the soldiers enrolled by you who have taken the military oath prefer their allegiance to their own life and to their parents and to their country and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we who earnestly long for incorruption should not endure all things in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it." How did just the martyr say this prophecy was fulfilled?

"The word of the Lord went out of Zion with the 12 apostles. We no longer make war with our enemies, but we love them. We willingly die. We don't deceive our examiners. And our allegiance should be to Christ alone." I do like Christ alone here. "Christ alone and not our own life or our parents, our country, our kindred. So our alliances should be to Christ and not to our parents or country or kindred who cannot offer them anything incorruptible. But we should endure all things for Him who can grant us the incorruptible."

Irenaeus. "The new covenant which brings back peace, the new covenant which brings back peace and the law which gives life has gone forth over the whole earth, as the prophet said." So he's saying this happened. "For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall rebuke many people. And they shall break down their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And they shall no longer learn to fight if therefore another law and word going forth from Jerusalem brought in such a rain of peace among the Gentiles which received the word and convinced them through them many a nation of its folly, then only it appears that the prophet spoke of some other person.

The law of liberty, that is, the word of God preached by the apostles who went forth from Jerusalem throughout all the earth," he's saying the same thing, "caused such a change in the state of things that these nations did form the swords and war lances into plowshares and change them into pruning hooks. For reaping the corn, that is, instruments used for peaceful purposes, and that they are now unaccustomed to fighting. But when smitten, they offer the other cheek.

This person is the Lord. And in him is that declaration borne out, since it is he himself who has made the plow and introduced the pruning hook. He figured forth the pruning hook by the means of Abel, pointing out that there should be a gathering in of a righteous race of men, the body following the example of the head." That's where I got that. We should be gathering together as a righteous race of men. And I know a lot of people will probably say the self-righteous, but it's not. People who follow the head, their example.

So he also said that it is for us. Tertullian. So we're going all the way from disciples of the apostles to Tertullian and origin. For the 300 years, not a one of them didn't think this was for today that I know of, that I could find. Isaiah says, "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord, that is, God's eminence, His fame, and the house of God, that is, Christ, the worldwide temple of God, and which God is worshiped, shall be established upon the mountains." And he's talking about the church. And we'll see here in a little bit why I know that. "Over the reputations of virtues and powers and all nations shall come to it.

And many people shall go and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us His ways, and we will walk in it. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. The gospel will be this way, this way, the way to go. The gospel will be that. And of the new law and the new word in Christ, no longer in Moses.

And he shall judge among the nations, even concerning their error. And these shall rebuke a large nation, that of the Jews." So he's talking about when he was rebuking, you see Jesus going around rebuking all the Jews. And it fits right into the prophecy. "That the Jews themselves and their proselytes, and they shall beat their swords in the plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. In other words, they shall change into pursuits of moderation and peace, the dispositions of injurious minds and hostile tongues and all kinds of evil and blasphemy. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Shall not stir up discord. So the gospel is the way. Neither shall they learn war anymore, that is, the provocation of hostilities, so that you here learn that Christ is promised not as powerful in war, but pursuing peace.

We are to be pursuing peace like our head. Now you must deny either that these things were predicted, although they are plainly seen, or that they have been accomplished, although you read of them." Again, Tertullian. "The coming procession of the new law out of the house of God of Jacob. Isaiah in the ensuing words announces, saying, 'From out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem and shall judge among the nations.'" That is, among us who have been called out of the nations. We have been called out of the nations into a new nation.

We are no longer foreigners and sojourners to God. We are His people. And now we are sojourners and foreigners to this land. "And they shall join and beat their swords in the plowshares and their spears into sickles. And nations shall not take up sword against nation. And they shall no more learn to fight. Who else, therefore, are understood but we who fully taught by the new law observe these practices, the old law being obliterated, the action of beating swords into plowshares demonstrates the coming of its closure.

For the custom of the old law was to avenge itself by vengeance of the sword and to pluck out eye for eye and to inflict retaliatory revenge for injury. But the new law's custom was to point to mercy and to convert to peacefulness the original cruelty of swords and lances and to remodel the primeval execution of war upon the enemies and foes of the law into the peaceful actions of plowing and tilling the land." So it's clear so far that they all saw this prophecy and that it's and they would even say that you're not Christian if you're warlike. If you're not people of peace, that means you're not following the head. "Therefore, as we have shown above that the coming termination of the old law and of the carnal circumcision was declared, so too the observance of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has shown out into the voluntary obedience of peace."

So our new circumcision of the heart is shown through peace, our obedience of peace, even unto death. Origin. This is what he thinks about it. I think it's pretty good. "Each one of us then is come in the last days when one Jesus has visited us to the visible mountain of the Lord, the word that is above every word and to the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth." And that's from Timothy, that verse.

He's quoting. "And we notice how it is built upon the tops of the mountains, i.e., the predictions of the prophets, which are its foundations. And this house is exalted above the hills, i.e., the individuals among men who make a profession of superior attainments and wisdom and truth. And all the nations come to it. And many nations go forth and they say to one another, turning to the religion which is in the last days, has shown forth through Jesus Christ. Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, the house of the God of Jacob. Let's go to church. And he will teach us," and you know in Micah, they will teach us his ways.

And they say that as well. "And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in them. For the law came forth from the dwellers in Zion and settled among us as a spiritual law. Moreover, the word of the Lord came forth that very Jerusalem that it might be disseminated through all places." This is the great part. "And might judge in the midst of the heathen, selecting those whom it sees to be submissive and rejecting the disobedient, who are many a number." Let me read that again. "The word of the Lord came forth from that very Jerusalem that it might be dispersed through all places and might judge in the midst of the heathen, selecting those who is submissive and rejecting the disobedient, who are many a number.

And to those who inquire of us from where we come or who is our founder, we reply that we are come agreeably to the counsels of Jesus to cut down our hostile and insolent wordy swords into plowshares and to convert them into pruning hooks, the spears formerly implored in war.

For we no longer take up sword against nation, nor do we learn war anymore, having become children of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader. Instead of those whom our fathers followed, among whom we are strangers to the covenant, and having received a law for which we give thanks to him that rescued us from the error of our ways, saying, 'Our fathers honored lying idols, and there is not among them one that causes it to rain.'" So we are that on that hill. We're the place that all the nations go to. And we fight no more. And we learn the nations come together. We are called out of a nation.

We are called out of all the nations we are born into into a new nation. And we don't fight each other. And we shouldn't make war against each other. And here's some closing scriptures that I want to share with you. And we'll go over some of the other things. "You also, as living stones, are being built upon a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?" And when you read the early Christians, they often say, "In his gospel, Jesus' gospel." And then it'll quote the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plains or something he said somewhere.

And so the gospel is not just this three, four sentence thing that you can spit out. It also includes all the words of Jesus. And so anyway. "But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth.

Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. And therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." The Bible does something very interesting. We were first strangers with God and we're friends with the world. And then when we leave that world and that kingdom and become a part of this kingdom, it says that we're to live as sojourners and foreigners in the land.

And then it says that we're no longer strangers or foreigners, but we're fellow citizens and the members of the household of God. And so I hope that this I hope I made the connection here. I'm not sure if I did. But the whole gospel hinges on this. And I don't want this prophecy lost. I think this prophecy was probably spoke about all the time until Constantine, until the church merged with the state and the state and the church fought.

And if you call yourself a Christian and you're okay with war and fighting and killing and not being a person of peace, then I'm calling you back. Actually follow Christ and his teachings. Actually be a person of peace.

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside. I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside. I'm gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more.