These past couple weeks have been a very dark time for our country and especially for our soldiers. The war against terrorism in Afghanistan has raged on for 20 years and will come to a close in three days. For those of us who have served and lost someone there this is a very hard time but not as hard as it is for the people over there who are in the face of extreme evil and danger.
To summarize the situation bluntly, our president has ordered the military to abandon Afghanistan by August 31st. By doing this he took a force of 2,500 troops plus contractors holding three airfields and numerous outposts across the country out and even left multiple aircraft, up armored vehicles, small arms weaponry, night vision, and even drones. Needless to say, I would hate to be a hand recipe holder of any of that.
The purpose of this was to stop the loss of life for our troops. But as we pulled out and the Taliban has taken more and more of Afghanistan and in a manner of weeks had complete control of the country. As we evacuated our embassy a United States Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit had to come in and secure HKIA to evacuate our people.
In the aftermath of this decision by our president, we have left up to 15,000 American citizens in Kabul. The number of American citizens across the nation is unknown. In an attempt to cover their own behinds, the administration not only has been blaming the Trump administration for this, when according to all reports this was not his plan but is shifting the rhetoric about the people stuck there. They continue to say, “The people who want to get out” as if there are American citizens who want to stay to live under the tyranny of the Taliban and all the other terror networks that will be allowed to operate in that country.
This is not to mention all the Afghan citizens like some of my friends that are stuck there who helped us fight terror and will now be hunted down because the Biden administration has given a list to the Taliban of those who helped. I have been working with my governing officials on the federal level in both Congresswomen Elise Stefanick and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand’s offices to get him out and now there is a chance that since they were working with that state department, that his paperwork to freedom could become his own death warrant.
The way that this situation was handled is both sickening and immoral. President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and all the heads of our foreign policy hold responsibility. Under the stewardship of Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Miley our military has been forced to focus on and undergo woke indoctrination while the Taliban ceased the opportunity to win this war. Though from what I hear the heads of the military advised Biden against this plan, they hold some responsibility for blindly following orders on other silly ventures.
All of this has led to 13 service members (12 marines and one Navy Corpsmen) and 18 wounded as they bravely followed orders and did their duty. The marines, soldiers, airmen, and sailors that are still over there remain to do their job. Their brothers and sisters, moms and dads don’t care about the politics of this all. They feel the pain and our prayers should every be with them. They have a right to be angry at the Biden administration for the direct correlation between his handling of this and the death of their loved ones.
So, where do we go from here? As Christians we need to see this situation not through the lens of our politic, but through the lens of God’s word. How are we to understand what has happened and what will continue to happen and be as faithful to our faith as we can. The Bible speaks to all issues, and for that we will go to His word.
First off, I want to say that what those of us who went over there what we did mattered. James 4:17 says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin”. We signed up to go defend our country from terrorism and to keep it at bay in Afghanistan. A by product of that was that the people of Afghanistan, those innocent civilians had a better life. They were able to have businesses, go to school, and enjoy some freedom like that which we enjoy here. We were there not only to hunt terrorist, but to keep the peace there. Jesus says in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Sometimes keeping peace is done with a gun.
Joe Biden will be in judgement to God for the decision he made. “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,” Hebrews 9:27 If he made a mistake, so be it but from all the evidence we see, he is knowingly willing to leave thousands of American citizens behind in Afghanistan while he pulls out the military. As a leader you own everything that happens, and all this is a direct outflow of your choice and policy.
President Biden is the leader and head of our federal government. He is responsible to God to carry out the role He has ordained for government in His word. What is that role? We first see God’s ordinance of Government in Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image”. Though I am sure there was some sort of government before seeing that a lot of people were living in the time of Noah. This is a governmental command given by God.
We see a better description of this in Romans 13:1-4, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but too bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.”
Those ministers of the sword as I like to call them are the police, border guards, and military. The ones who dictate the way these swords are wielded are the political leaders. They are the arms that swing the sword in the directions that they should go. They are the ones responsible for defending people and crushing evil while the sword (military, police, and border guards) is responsible to do the cutting. They follow orders.
President Biden has a duty appointed by God to protect the people who are American citizens here and over in Afghanistan. By pulling our troop presence out like he did, he is putting thousands of American citizens lives in jeopardy. His job is to punish evil and protect those under his care. He is failing to do that.
We can learn lessons about leadership from this as well. Ezekiel 33:6, “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.” Everyone saw this disaster coming and multiple people warned it both in the military and political leadership. Joe Biden is the watchman and he had seen this coming. He needs to bare the responsibility for what has happened and the cost to American lives.
There is also a lesson from his failure to listen to sound advice. In 1 Kings 12 we see the story of Rehoboam. When he took over as king, he was asked to lighten some of the burdens that were on the people. 1 Kings 12:6-8, “Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” And they said to him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him.”
He abandons the sound counsel of the people who were “in the know” and listened to his friends. President Biden was advised by the military leadership many of whom have been in the entire time the war in Afghanistan has been taking place, not to go along with this plan. President Biden did not and continues not to take that advise and is rather either doing his own thing or listening to whoever is his handler at this point.
Luke 14:31, “Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?” Before you make decisions, you need to go through the plan and seek advice on what the most likely and most probable outcomes are. When everyone is telling you it’s a bad idea, instead of seeking the advice you want to hear, count the cost.
The last thing lesson I think we can learn from this failure is a basic biblical principle for all of life. Matthew 5:33-37, “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”
Joe Biden promised to get our citizens out before the Taliban took over. He promised all those who helped us in our fight against terror that they would be able to flee the evils of the Taliban before our troops left. He also promised that the Taliban had no ability to take over Afghanistan and that we would support the Afghan military. All of this turned out to be a lie, and a false oath. His false confidence and rhetoric lead to thousands delaying their chance to flee before we pulled out and they are now all in danger.
More than just our nation’s actions we must look at the Taliban. They are evil people who harbor terrorists and seek to put their own people and others under the boot of a false religion. They follow the tactics of the father of Islam, the false prophet Muhamad. They are evil and servants of their god, Satan.
They will rape the women and young boys and girls into submission. They will hunt Christians and kill them for not being Muslim. They will find all those who helped us, like my friend and behead them and burn their families alive. They will give safe haven to those who want to plan terror attacks abroad like they were allowed to do during the Clinton administration with Al-Qaeda that led to the awful terror attacks on September 11th, 2001. Let us never forget who these people are.
But the Lord commands us to pray for these people. Matthew 5:43-44, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. What this does not mean is praying for the well being and success of the Taliban and ISIS fighters. I believe that we pray for the Taliban in two ways.
First and foremost, we pray for their salvation. Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” We pray that the Gospel be proclaimed to them and that they would turn away from their sins. We pray that the underground church that has more than tripled in size since this persecution would take the same spirit of our fathers in the faith and share the Gospel while being persecuted. That like in 1 Peter 3:13-16, “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”
I believe that the second prayers that we should be praying for the Taliban can be found in the Psalms. When all this craziness really started to go down in Afghanistan and our embassy was being evacuated, I linked in with my brother Alex at Men’s Muster in Chicago and Jesse and Justin of at Carpe Fide Podcast in South Jersey to try to encourage people to pray for the situation. On my Instagram page for our ministry the Godly Grunts I was sharing imprecatory prayers from the psalms and also one from Nehemiah.
Psalm 109:16-17, “For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted, to put them to death. He loved to curse; let curses come upon him! He did not delight in blessing; may it be far from him!”
Secondly a prayer from Nehemiah when he was under threat of attack while rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, “Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.” Nehemiah 4:4-5
The last thing I want to focus on is this. When you are talking to people about the situation in Afghanistan which you likely will, turn this tragedy into an opportunity to share the Gospel with others. 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” It is only by God’s grace that we are not as wretched as the Taliban. Do we believe that? Do we believe that we deserve the same judgement as men who would sell little boys and girls into sex slavery? Because we do. We deserve the same damnation as they do. But God in His loving and undeserving grace saved us that we may live for him and spread His good news to the world. What an amazing truth. James 4:10-11, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
We are just as guilty as the Taliban. It is by grace that we are saved through faith. Not of works so that none of us here in America can boast about it. Wow, what a truth. Brother and sisters this is a chance for us to share the news about this grace, grace, God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all our sins.
Use this in conversations. When discussing this situation speak this truth. It will shock people when you say it, but God’s word does not return to Him void. Explain to people that they are sinners too and that the judgement they feel that the Taliban should have, God has for them too. But by His loving kindness and undeserved mercy, He sent His only begotten son, the Christ to fie on a tree for our transgressions. This is a perfect opportunity for this conversation.
Continue to pray for those in Afghanistan. For if we pray to God, we need to have faith that He will hear us. Pray for the troops still over there that they may execute their duties safely and without fear. Pray for the American citizens still there trying to get out. Pray for the Afghans with Special Visas that are still trying to flee the country. Pray for the church in Afghanistan as they are about to face even more persecution than they were before. Pray that they grow and in their suffering that they will be able to lead other to Christ. Pray for the Taliban that they would repent and change their hearts by the Gospel. Also pray that if they do not, God would use any means He pleases to bring them to justice in this life or the next. And lastly pray for our leaders especially Joe Biden to repent of the way he has handled this situation.
“Lord we know that all things are under your control and are done to serve your purposes. We know that like it says in Proverbs 16:4, “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of destruction.” Help us to see as you see Father. Help us to realize that all things happen to your will and that we are so blessed in this country to not have to deal with these troubles. Let us as the church do everything, we can to help those in need in Afghanistan. Lord raise up people who will go to Afghanistan to spread your Gospel.”
By, John Cooper
Godly Grunt 6
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