As Josiah stepped to his pulpit, he knew this was an “unnatural and distressing war,” to pit them against their own brethren.1 No wonder the public authorities had called now for a public day of fasting. A quarter-century ago, when Josiah graduated Harvard as a young man, he'd never dreamt that relations between the colonies and the Crown would grow so sour; but sour they did. Josiah watched as his adopted New-Hampshire raided forts for gunpowder and cannons, founded a constitutional republic, then joined the common declaration of thirteen united states. That was almost seven months ago; Josiah's father had just barely lived to see it.
News now rolled in of General Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton. But the people were troubled. Josiah could feel it. Why should there have had to be such war and strife at all? Were we not all once “friends and brethren,” a single people?2 Why had brothers become enemies in war? Even here, neighbors might find themselves on opposite sides, some retaining a quiet loyalty to their erstwhile king, others fiercely committed to the fight for liberty, and yet others deeming a war against brothers to be a moral absurdity, whatever the cause. No one could be so “strangely and criminally inattentive” as not see the tension, the discontent, the social costs.3
For a fast day in troubled times, Josiah knew he had a responsibility to bring a message from the Scriptures, and so he turned his town's attention to the closing chapters of the Book of the Judges. These were the worst of ugly times, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The town of Gibeah, of the tribe of Benjamin, had descended into depravity worthy of Sodom (Judges 19:22-30). When news got out, the congregation had assembled at Mizpah, listened to the story, and demanded Benjamin surrender the criminals for punishment; but Benjamin not only refused, but mustered an army to fight against Israel (Judges 20:1-16).
The stage was set for civil war within God's not-so-holy nation. The people of Israel traveled from Mizpah to Bethel to consult God at his shrine as to how to go about this war; they were told that Judah should lead the way (Judges 20:17-18). And so in the morning, the battle was joined, believing that with God's command behind them, they'd prevail. But they didn't. Benjamin won an astonishing underdog victory, killing over twenty thousand of their brothers (Judges 20:19-21). In confusion and doubt, Israel consulted God in tears: “Shall we again draw near to fight against our brothers?” (Judges 20:23). And God told them that they must continue on.
“So the people of Israel came near against the people of Benjamin the second day, and Benjamin went against them out of Gibeah the second day and destroyed eighteen thousand men of the people of Israel” (Judges 20:24-25). It was another devastating loss for Israel. Now a tenth of Israel's army had shed their blood in battle at the hands of their brothers. What had gone wrong? As our friend Josiah preached the story, he believed “it pleased God to permit Benjamin to prevail against them in a first and second engagement because there were with them, even with them, great and grievous sins against the Lord their God, for which he would punish them in this awful way.”4 That fits with everything else the Book of the Judges tells us. Benjamin might be clearly in the wrong here, they might be in opposition to God's justice in this instance, but don't think for a moment that Israel as a whole is thereby innocent. The very fact that it's come to a civil war is itself evidence that sin has run rampant, that the spiritual state of society had come undone, that the social fabric was in tatters.
Pastor Josiah believed the same was true in his day.5 He had “no doubt but that America has been faulty in many things,”6 not to mention “the outward, gross, abominable sins that are so rife among us: extravagance, oppression, extortion, profaneness, intemperance, uncleanness, and the like.”7 “It is surprising to think how stupid, careless, and secure we in general are, under the very awful hand of God upon us. But truly, sirs, this will never do, to sleep on thus. If we do, I am afraid that God will presently rout us with a dreadful vengeance, for it is an awful thing – a matter of highest insult and provocation to Heaven – for a people thus to trifle and play with the dreadful shaking of the rod of God over them and the brandishing of his glittering spear about them. By and by, if thus we go on, and perhaps sooner than we are aware, God will make us to know our cost.”8
But back to Israel. In the wake of their second punishing defeat, the entire Israelite army heads to Bethel with broken hearts. There they “wept, and sat there before the LORD and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD; and the people of Israel inquired of the LORD – (for the Ark of the Covenant was there in those days, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, ministered before it in those days) – saying: 'Shall we go out once more to battle against our brothers, the people of Benjamin? Or shall we cease?'” (Judges 20:26-28). The solution, in such times of sorrowful strife and national perplexity, is only found at the altar of God. There, over the altar, Israel sheds their burning tears. There, in front of the altar, Israel hungers and fasts. There, from the altar, Israel burns some offerings and then takes others as shared meals of fellowship with God. And so there, in the days of war, Israel tastes a share of God's peace.
What, though, does all this have to do with us? This story in Judges was over three thousand years ago. Josiah preached his sermon 247 years ago. But ask yourself, does our society today feel much more united than theirs? As you witness what this country is choosing for these and the coming years... do you feel terribly inspired? Or, like Israel of old, does it maybe make you want to weep bitterly? Are we not “full of envy..., strife, deceit, maliciousness..., gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil” (Romans 1:29-31)? I don't think many with their wits still about them would consider these to be our shining-city-on-a-hill days. Pastor Josiah pictured us pretty well in advance as a nation “zealously engaged, some on one side and some on the other, while they neither know nor seriously concern themselves to know with any clear, distinct knowledge,” cherishing whatever's right in our own eyes.9 Where can we turn when brothers are at odds, when the social tapestry is frayed and mottled, when calamity and calumny are the theme of the day?
Nowhere else but the altar of God. For the altar built by Israel in the days of Phinehas was a sign, an advance notice, of the sacred table set before us. Phinehas ministered in zeal before the Ark of the Covenant, but Jesus ministers in loving knowledge before his Father's face. “Only the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from sin, all sin. O come let us then, a polluted, guilty generation..., immediately lay hold on the hope set before us, embracing this great propitiation...”10 Here, we trade the bread of tears for the Bread of Life; we trade the wine of wrath for the Wine of Joy. Here at the altar, we grieve our shortfalls and look ahead to the promises in Christ. Here we taste the peace of which this world tries so hard to deprive us. So let us here offer our prayers and tears at the altar of God, not as “mere matters of form without heart,”11 but as sincere cries for the fellowship with the God who desires “that there may be no division in the body” (1 Corinthians 12:25). And “may the Lord of Peace himself give you peace at all times in every way” (2 Thessalonians 3:16). Amen.
1 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), title page.
2 Second Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776.
3 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 11.
4 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 5.
5 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 18.
6 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 24.
7 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 4.
8 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 33.
9 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 26.
10 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 36.
11 Josiah Stearns, Two Sermons, Preached at Epping, in the State of New-Hampshire, January 29th, 1777, on a Public Fast, Appointed by Authority, on Account of the Unnatural and Distressing War with Great-Britain, in Defence of Liberty (Newburyport: John Mycall, 1777), 25.
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