The LORD... Trains My Hands for War
He learned to sing it as a little boy. He had a Psalter with his name written in large letters in the front and it was diligently carried to church and open in family worship. So many memories of him as a boy are in an LA Dodgers hat with his crooked teeth and his bright blond hair. I can see him singing it now:
O may our sons like plants
Grow sturdy in their youth;
And may our daughters be
Like palace cornerstones.
May gathered crops fill up our barns,
And all our flocks be multiplied
By thousands and ten thousands more.
O may our herds increase
Without distress or loss;
And may our streets be free
Of outcry and of strife.
Behold how blessed such people are!
O happy people who can say
They have the LORD to be their God!
These familiar words from the Book of Psalms for Worship are perennial favorites among the boys and girls of Psalm singing families. Yesterday I read this Psalm for family worship as my middle son prepared his Pennsylvania National Guard backpack to head off to Fort Jackson as PV2 Eshelman, serving the Pennsylvania National Guard in military intelligence (35F). He should land in South Carolina in a couple of hours. While serving, he will continue his studies as a political science major at Geneva College.
Psalm 144 ends with a celebration of the promises of God upon his people—a celebration of the covenant blessings that God promises at the end of the book of Deuteronomy.
Sons and daughters that grow strong.
Barns and crops overflowing.
Cattle fat with pregnancies.
Safe streets and happy citizens.
But this happy citizenship does not merely happen. We are not blessed because we are blessed. Psalm 144 paints the image of those who fight for the blessings of God in their nation and land as well as the blessings of his sovereign care. Both are present in the Psalm: men of God serving in armed forces, as well as a God of sovereign grace.
“Blessed be the Lord my Rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle.“
“Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down;
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
Shoot out Your arrows and destroy them.”
“Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners,
Whose mouth speaks lying words,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.”
David balances personal responsibility and divine sovereignty in this Psalm; acknowledging both the value of a trained warrior-class as well as the kind hand of God in protecting a people from foreign invaders.
A Lawful Calling
The call to serve Pro Christo et Patria is great Christian virtue. Godly young men who will protect our nation are a blessing; on one hand, they provide the blessings that my little man in the Dodgers hat with the crooked teeth sang about those many years ago. The training of hands for war and fingers for battle ought to come through those that love the Lord Jesus and are willing to serve under the “Christ and country” banner. It has always been that way for Christians. John the Baptist was asked an ethics question concerning those who serve as soldiers in the Roman Empire. He did not call them away from service (even in a wicked Empire), but called them to contentment in service:
“Likewise the soldiers asked [John the Baptist], saying, “And what shall we do?” So he said to them, “Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.” Luke 3:14
These men were not told to leave the military, they were told to be men of superior ethics. The Christian church, with very few exceptions (I am looking at you Anabaptists), has promoted military service among her sons. The nations who stand within a Christian heritage are worth fighting for. The West is worth fighting for. Deus Vult, some will say.
The Vocation of the Sword
Following the Peasants’ War in Southern Germany (1524-1525), Martin Luther was asked about the ethics of being a soldier as a Christian. Luther wrote a tract called, “Whether Soldiers Too Can Be Saved.” (He believed they could be, by the way.)
Luther put the soldier under “the vocation of the sword” and called for Christian men to fight with a good conscience before God. Close to the end of that tract, he called men to pray:
“Heavenly Father,
here I am, according to Thy divine will, in the external work and service of my lord, which I owe first to Thee and then to my lord for Thy sake. I thank Thy grace and mercy that Thou hast put me into a work of which I am sure that it is not sin, but right and pleasing obedience to Thy will. But because I know and have learned from Thy gracious Word that none of our good works can help us and no one is saved as a soldier but only as a Christian, therefore, I will rely not at all on this obedience and work of mine, but put myself freely at the service of Thy will and believe from the heart that only the innocent blood of Thy dear Son, my Lord Jesus Christ, redeems and saves me, and this He has shed for me in obedience to Thy holy will. On this I stay; on this I live and die; on this I fight and do all. Dear Lord God the Father, preserve and strengthen this faith in me by Thy Spirit.
Amen.”
The Christian Soldier
The Christian soldier must rely upon God as his help. As Psalm 144 calls for hands trained for war, and fingers for battle—it is the Rock that steadies and trains. Years after Luther’s tract was written, during the American Civil War, the Christian Soldier’s Penny Bible was published for distribution to the Northern troops. The “Penny Bible” was based on The Souldiers <sic> Pocket Bible that Oliver Cromwell had published for his own English Civil War in the seventeenth century. Cromwell made sure that all his troops had access to God’s Word and relied upon his grace and mercy as they fought. (Side note: Covenanters were not friends of Cromwell.)
The Soldier’s Penny Bible has twenty principles to meditate on for the Christian soldier. Principle VI underscores Luther’s prayer of reliance upon God: “The Christian Soldier should not depend on his own Wisdom or Strength, or Preparation for War.” The Scriptures referenced for the soldier’s meditation include:
*By strength shall no man prevail. 1 Sam. 2.9–10.
*I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. Ps. 44.6.
*There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. Ps. 33.16–17.
*An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Ps. 33.17.
*There is no man that hath power over the spirit, to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death; and there is no discharge (or casting off weapons) in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it. Eccl. 8.8.
*O our God! wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us: neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. 2 Chron. 20.12.
Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. The Christian soldier must rest in this fact.
Preparation for Service
Surely military service is not a lesser or easier route for direction in our sons’ lives. Families, nevertheless, must wrestle through the implications of service. Richard Baxter, in his Directions for Soldiers, says that the first consideration for military service is that one must be prepared to die—and that one must be right with God to be prepared to die.
This is heavy, but true.
Baxter also calls on Christian soldiers to make the best use of their time for spiritual exercises due to disruptions on the Lord’s Day. He says, “If necessity deprive you of the benefits of God’s public or stated worship, see that you labor to repair that loss, by double diligence in those spiritual duties which yet you have opportunity for. If you must march or watch on the Lord’s Day, redeem your other time the more. If you cannot hear sermons, be not without some profitable book, and often read it; and let your meditations be holy, and your discourses edifying. For these you have opportunities, if you have hearts.” Baxter, Directory, Directions for Soldiers, 777.
Young men who are entering military service ought to be men of prayer and men in the Word of God and men bathed in corporate worship and public prayers. They ought to be men who read good books and fill their minds with eternity, even as they fight for and defend our land.
I won’t share all the conversations that led to my son seeking to serve his nation, but I am grateful for him and I do believe that the West, the former nations of Christendom, and our own nation are worth defending. Pro Christo et Patria.
O rescue me and save;
Grant me deliverance
From out of alien hands,
The grip of foreign pow'rs,
The ones whose mouth speaks what is false,
The ones whose right hand is the same,
A right hand of deceitfulness.
O may our sons like plants
Grow sturdy in their youth;
And may our daughters be
Like palace cornerstones.
May gathered crops fill up our barns,
And all our flocks be multiplied
By thousands and ten thousands more.
O may our herds increase
Without distress or loss;
And may our streets be free
Of outcry and of strife.
Behold how blessed such people are!
O happy people who can say
They have the LORD to be their God!
