Veterans and God’s Word (253)

0:00 I want to welcome you to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. Because we are nearing the Veterans Appreciation Day here in America, I have dedicated a couple of podcasts to address the issues facing our veterans in America and throughout the world. Today's topic is entitled Veterans and God's Word. We must look at what veterans have accomplished throughout this entire world. How have the Church and the military worked together? And where does God's Word say it's okay, or it's good to serve in the military? And we're also going to address what have our veterans protected across this world.

0:41 Before we get into that, though, we need to pray and ask for the Holy Spirit's guidance. Heavenly Father, I thank you for those who have served their countries. I pray that you would bless this podcast today, that you would anoint it, and that the Holy Spirit would come in and take complete control. I yield and submit all that I've done to you. Holy Spirit, take us where you want us to go. And I pray for those who are listening in who are veterans, or they are the relatives, children, or husbands, or wives of veterans. I pray you would bless them and help them. And may our hearts go out to those who serve their countries. And I thank you for what you've done through them. And I pray that you will bless this podcast, that you would anoint it and touch it so that people's lives would be changed. And I'll be careful to give you the praise and glory for it.

1:22 In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You know, I want to start with reading a scripture found in John chapter 15 and verse 13. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. What a powerful scripture that is, and it applies to Jesus, and it also applies to our veterans across the world. This passage of scripture shows us what Jesus and our veterans share. As a matter of fact, I wrote an article entitled that, what basically do Jesus and our veterans have in common, and I wrote it and it's been placed in the Charisma Media online. And you could look it up if you'd like. It's one that the Lord put upon my heart to write and Charisma was happy to publish it. Now Jesus gave his life to save us from death and set us free.

2:06 Our veterans are willing to give up their life for life and freedom of others. Because we owe Jesus for this debt that he paid for us. You know, he died on the cross. He paid the price of our sin. He paid the debt that we had, and he forgave us and took on the sins of the world. Because he did that, and he took care of the debt that we had. We must honor our veterans for the service that they have given their country. So let me show you a list of the sacrifices that veterans have made. You know, I can talk a lot about American veterans, but I don't want to limit to that because there's so many veterans across this world who have done wonderful things to rescue people, bless them, and protect them.

2:47 I believe that veterans have a legacy, and we need to remember the legacy that they've left. Let me give you a list of those things that they've done for us, for their countries, and for America. They set America free from the tyranny of the British King, and they paid the price with 25,000 casualties in the Revolutionary War here in America. American and other countries, veterans helped people in Europe in World War I, where 116,560 American veterans were killed. Veterans set free the people of Europe again in World War II, not only the American veterans, but other veterans from other countries.

3:27 And the people of the South Pacific were set free also. And during World War II, just America's numbers, over 405,000 American veterans gave their life to help others be set free. Our veterans went to Vietnam. I was one of them. Veterans set free the people of South Vietnam, and over 58,000 casualties we've had. Our veterans set free the people of South Korea, with over 36,000 individuals died. They set free those in Afghanistan, and Iran, and Iraq, and the Middle East, with about 8,000 casualties. Now, I'm using numbers for American veterans, because I don't have the numbers available to me as to what other nations lost, but I don't want you to forget that other great nations sent their veterans to fight these wars, and they lost thousands and even tens of thousands of their men and women.

4:17 Our veterans have fought to keep Israel free, and today, there's 170,000 troops, American troops, in 159 countries around the world. And we have been blessed to have great veterans, not only in America, but in other great countries. Just one statistic I'll leave you with, when you want to know what have our veterans done, just in America, because I want to give you that stat right now. One million, 264,000 American soldiers have given their life in battle, in the 35 wars and rebellions and conflicts around the world. And I'm sure other countries would have numbers, huge numbers, of sacrificing their men and women in the fight for freedom.

4:57 Now, I don't want to get you down because of the number of people that I've talked about who lost their lives, but I want you to realize how important it is that we support our veterans. I would encourage all of you who are listening in today to call your congressmen and women to let them know in the Senate. Let them know in your state level offices, our veterans need help. They need to be blessed, they need to be protected. For my own studies and writing the two books that I have for veterans, both based upon Vietnam issues since I did in the military and went to Vietnam, I discovered that today in America there are about 800,000 veterans from Vietnam living today who were exposed to Agent Orange, which was a horrendous toxic poison that was being sprayed in the air to kill the plants over there and kill the vegetation.

5:42 And when that was being done, our troops who were in that same area were being sprayed. I was one of them. And from that spring, I wound up nearly 50 years later being diagnosed with multiple myeloma bone marrow cancer. When that happened, it made my eyes open up and my heart just weep for those people who are walking around today and not even aware of the problems they have. Our country needs to bless its veterans. We need to reach out and help them and expand our service to them. So with that, I just pray that we would all take action to help our veterans. You know, this nation was ordained by God to protect our freedom of religion. Our founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence as they were anointed by the Holy Spirit.

6:24 And here are some of the words we must protect. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. By the way, those rights came from God, not man. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now those words today are being abused. Those words are being talked about as being self-satisfying and self-protective. But in reality, when our founding fathers couldn't get the Constitution going, they couldn't write the Declaration of Independence, when they were struggling with it, they would break and go to prayer meetings and pray for the Holy Spirit to help them, to direct them in their endeavors to write these great documents that have so blessed and laid a foundation for our country.

7:09 And they were saying that it needs to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Well, I believe that. I believe that every part of me and that they're endowed, it says. They're created by God with rights, unalienable rights, rights that man can't take from them. And it is so important that we stress the importance of these rights. And our veterans have fought for these two centuries, nearly two and a half centuries now, have fought for the right to people, to have freedom and to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And it's under attack right now in our country. We need to call our schools and tell them to put the Constitution back up on the walls and the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. And those things need to be posted so our young people can see it and our young people will be able to understand that these veterans, our veterans fought for us to have those rights.

7:58 Now, our founding fathers knew they would be required to give up their religious liberties if they did not fight for them. They couldn't just lay down and say, well, we're just hiding our houses. No, they had to fight for them. They needed to form a military presence to protect our freedoms. Now, before we could be free, we needed to establish a military presence. We need to have a military so the rest of the world would say, ha, there they are. They've got something. They're building something that we don't want to go up against. So in June 14th, 1775, the United States Army was born. In October 13th of 1775, the Navy was birthed. And in November the 10th, 1775, the Marines were established.

8:39 So the three, and I know there's lots of other military branches that were formed after that. Obviously, you couldn't have an air force because there were no planes. So bottom line, we formed a military to fight for the rights of our people. Now how could they get volunteers? How could back then they get volunteers for the Navy, the Army and the Marines? And where would they go? They couldn't advertise across the country because there wasn't any way to do that. And across the colonies, I should say, it could take months, maybe even years to round up a military. So they had to go to where to get help. You may not believe this. I hope that you do. They went to the church for help. Here is what helped them obtain the military that they built.

9:21 Pastors around the 13 colonies would speak to their congregations about the upcoming war with the British. They preached the word of God and they recruited soldiers from the pulpit. Literally, would ask people to sign up and join from the pulpit. One such preacher. Many of them did similar type things, but there was one particular preacher in 1775. He was a Lutheran pastor and he preached a sermon from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3 and verse 1. And here's what was preached, just the word of God. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die. He then moved on to verse number 8 and he read this, a time to love and a time to hate.

10:07 Now that word hate doesn't mean the way we can hate people today. What it means is to hate the evil that's in a person, not the people. A time for war and a time for peace. Did you hear what I just said? In the word of God it says in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 1, there's a time for war and a time for peace. That's why I say that God's word does endorse and approve that we need a military and we will need our veterans. Now supposedly that preacher said this, right after he preached that message, he said, and there's also a time to preach and there's a time to fight. And this particular preacher, and he said supposedly these words, now is the time to fight. He threw off his clerical robes to reveal the uniform of a revolutionary army officer.

10:53 That afternoon he led 300 men to join General Washington's troops. That preacher became a colonel of the 8th Virginia regiment. He was a veteran and became one of the great veterans in our country. Now I use that example because today I hear so much talk about, you can't talk about things from the pulpit. You're not allowed to talk about politics, politicians and all that kind of stuff. Well we don't need to talk about politicians, but we need to talk about the moral issues that are facing this country today. We're in moral decay in this country and we need Christian veterans to stand up. A Christian veteran is someone who's received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and is now serving in God's army. An army that fights and is opposed to immorality.

11:36 An army that's opposed to people doing things that are blatantly against God's word. The word of God very clearly tells us that man should marry a woman, not two men marrying each other and two women marrying each other. It's a violation of God's word. Oh we can pass laws and say it's okay because we have a free country and they have a right to do that. But bottom line, it's a violation of God's word. And I believe in America we need to stand up for our veterans. We need to stand up for God's word. We must stand up for the things that are proper and morally proper in this country. Let me go back a second to what the pastors did back in, in and before the Revolutionary War.

12:16 Pastors turned the colonial resistance into a righteous cause. The resistance was simply the underground army that we were building and the military that we were building back then, but he turned them into a righteous cause. These veterans served as chaplains and legislators and infantry officers and enlisted men who took up arms for their country and wanted to protect the rights of others. Now these preachers, these veterans became known as the Black Robe Regiment. Now you may have heard about that and you may not have heard about it, but it was an amazing event that took place in the American colonies. They did not fight in black robes, so don't think it's that way.

12:57 But they removed their black clerical robes to put on a military uniform. The British hated the Black Robe Regiment so much that they made a special effort to have them all killed because they know that these pastors were recruiting men to help this country and recruiting women to help and support their husbands who were going off to war and their sons who were going off to war. And back then women didn't serve in the military on the fighting lines, but they did serve behind and they served as nurses and caring people and providing food and comfort and care to the military. So these Black Robe preachers, regimen as you call them, were building a great army in America and we need to have that happen today in our churches.

13:41 We need to build a great army of Christians. I'm not saying an army that goes out in the streets and fights. I'm talking about an army that stands firm and helps this country get back to what the Word of God says which is correct and to follow the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and follow the teachings found in the Word of God. So I thank God for our veterans who have served this nation and I thank God for the veterans who served their nations throughout the world. We must care for our veterans. We must help them. We must reach out to them. Sometimes just the easiest thing to do with a veteran, in America there's something very common happening. I'm not sure if it's that way in other nations, it probably is.

14:22 But in American veterans, we'll go around with baseball caps on with maybe something that says I'm a veteran or it says veteran World War I, I mean not anymore I, but World War II or Korean War or the Vietnam War or just simply a veteran, United States Army veteran, whether it be United States Marines veteran or Navy veteran or Air Force veteran or Coast Guard veteran, whatever it might be, people are going around wearing these caps and when they do in t-shirts and all that stuff. I think it's great. I think it's wonderful. Whenever I see that, I like to just walk by the person, just simply say thank you for your service. Now I said something like this in my first podcast on veterans in this particular cycle, but I wanted to say that again and remind you that one of the ways we can help our veterans is let them know how much we appreciate them.

15:07 Just smile at them. If you see that hat or you see that t-shirt, you know, sometimes they'll stop and say, well, I didn't serve in the military, but my dad was a veteran. I'm wearing it for him. I said, well, that's awesome. I want to thank you for doing that. Let me just say a little extra on that. Our country needs to bless our veterans. We need to reach out and comfort them and bless them and encourage them and love on them. Churches should have veterans ministries. I know I started up a small ministry in our church for veterans called vets helping vets and it's starting to grow and starting to increase and I'm finding out that veterans don't know where to go to get help. They're not aware of the fact that there is some help. There's been a lot of things approved by our government to help our veterans and I find out that people are suffering with diseases like diabetes or cancer or lung issues or whatever it might be or injuries that they receive while they're in service and they don't think enough to go and seek help from the veterans administration.

15:59 So I encourage you to go to the veterans administration, call them up, just get online and find out what is available for you. I had one guy that I helped out and he was paying incredible amounts of money for his medication, $20,000, $30,000 a year just out of his own pocket and he applied to the veterans administration and they picked up the cost and paid for his things that he needed. I'm not talking about bad drugs, his prescription drugs that he needed in order to be able to recover from the injuries that he had during his service. So with that, I would encourage you to reach out and help our veterans. You know, I don't want to belabor this but I do want to continue to talk about how we need to help our veterans. Our country owes a debt of gratitude to our veterans and I know that you agree with me on that.

16:42 Because veterans need to reach out to each other and in turn, all non-veterans must reach out to veterans and are active military and bless them. All Americans need to make an oath to help veterans. Let me read the oath that civilians made to America when they went into enlist to serve their country. These are exact words that I said in all the military men that I served with. I do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.

17:24 Look at that quote. Isn't that amazing? What an amazing oath that is. That's the kind of commitment and oath that civilians made when they were inducted, when they joined a military service here in America. You know, that oath reminds me of the words written by the Apostle Paul in the book of Philippians, chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. I'll read it out of the new international version. Listen to this. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves. Not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others. What the Apostle Paul said there is so similar to what a civilian gave an oath to serve his country made. Remember, the civilian was basically saying that I'm just going to do what I'm told to do.

18:09 I'm going to help other people. I'm going to protect other people. I'm going to do everything that I possibly can do to make this country great. And then Paul turns and writes to Christians in their walk with God and he says, don't do anything out of selfish ambition. Well, the veteran doesn't do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. And then Paul says, rather in humility, value others above yourselves. Well, I think our veterans have proven in their life that they value others as being more important than themselves. And also Paul said, not looking out to your own interest, that's what the veteran says when they make that oath to serve our country. But in each of you to serve and to bless others for the interest of others. You know, when Jesus came to earth, he came here to do what?

18:52 To save the loss, to win the loss, but to sacrifice his life for the loss, but to serve others. And that's what veterans have done. They made an oath to serve others. And I believe the oath that veterans make, and I believe that the words that the apostle Paul spoke in Philippians chapter two, verses three and four are basically, they prove that that the military must serve others. Just as Jesus came to serve others, the military must serve others. Therefore, we are available today to help and to serve our veterans. We need to make an oath, a commitment to serve those who volunteered, made an oath to their country and an oath to help others. So therefore we must make an oath to commit to help them.

19:33 How do we do that? How do we make an oath to help and then carry it out for our veterans? I made a comment earlier, I'll review it very quickly. When you see a veteran, just tell them thank you for their service. And if you see that maybe they're a little sad or sitting by themselves, go over to them and just tell them, can I pray for you? Is there anything I can pray with you about? We need to reach out to them. We need to tell them that there's help available to them. If you see a veteran living down the street from you, go over and knock on their door. Take them some cookies. Just do something nice for a veteran. It needs to happen more and more and more in our country. Something else that we can do for our veterans is to invite them to church or for those who already attend our church, just seek them out. Just visit with them. Have a coffee with them.

20:14 Just let them know that you appreciate what they did. Now when we meet with a veteran, there's some things we should say and there's things that we shouldn't say. One thing is to obviously thank them for their service. And if it's a Vietnam veteran, you might want to say thank you for your service and welcome home because the Vietnam veterans didn't get much of a welcome home when they came home. So bottom line, see a veteran, thank them and appreciate them. But things that we shouldn't say to them is, where did you serve? What did you do when you were in the military? That's the kind of stuff they don't particularly want to talk about. If they were a combat soldier, most of those fellows and now ladies don't want to talk about what they did in the military, but they sure appreciate being told thank you for your service, thank you for what you've done for our country.

20:55 Invite them to church. Be sure they get into your church. And if you don't have a veteran's ministry in your church, then get one going. If you'd like to know how to form one, how to get one set up, you could just email me if you'd like and I'll give you my email in a moment at the end of this when I kind of wrap this up. But I would encourage you to let me know if you have an interest in starting a veteran's ministry in your church. I'll give you some tips and some ideas of how you can make that happen and make it active in your church. It's going to require you to step out. It's going to be require you to talk to your pastor and be sure that they're in agreement to do that. And if they're not, then you might want to find out why they wouldn't want to do that. But I think they'll probably will. So I want to encourage you to do that. Let me give you the email now before I forget it. If you would like to set up a veteran's ministry in your church, then you can just send me an email at David C. That C is in cat.

21:42 David C. Friend. Friend is the opposite of enemy. Author at gmail.com. Let me repeat that. David C. Friend. Author at gmail.com. And when you send that to me, I'll give you some tips and some ideas that have worked to get it started in our church. And I know that it'll be a blessing in your church. So today in closing out this podcast, I'm just going to read a paragraph that's in my article that I wrote for Curbism and Magazine. Today, we salute our veterans and the sacrifices of their families. When I see a veteran, I thank them for their service. We need to reach out to them and show our love by contacting our local and national politicians to increase veterans benefits. Although there have been improvements in the Veterans Administration, there's still more we must do.

22:26 Christians need to reach out to our veterans. Consider starting a Veterans Administration in your church. I'm praying for a revival to break out in America's veterans. Just like we teach our children about how much Jesus loves us, we must tell our children about how American veterans have served to keep us free. Let me pray for those who are listening in today and I'll give you a little information about getting more information on veterans ministries. Heavenly Father, bless those who listened in today. If they're a veteran, I pray that you would touch them in a very special way. I thank them for their service and I welcome them home. And I pray that you would just keep them now, Lord, and bless them and that they would prosper in all things and be in good health even as their soul prospers. And Father, for those who are non-veterans but they're family members of a mom or a dad who is a veteran.

23:12 I pray blessings upon them, comfort them and help them, Father. And I pray that you would provide for their every need, Father, and bless whatever they do. Thank you, Lord, for those. And for those of you who are listening in and you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I just ask you right now, if you're not sure where you're going to heaven, I'll ask you to pray this prayer with me very quickly. Just say, Heavenly Father, I'm sorry for the sins I've committed. I repent of my sins. I ask you to forgive me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. I believe that Jesus gave his life for me, that he was crucified, dead and buried, and he arose on the third day. And he sits at the right hand of the Father. So because all of that, I receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I thank you, Lord, for what you did for me and I promise to serve you all the days of my life.

23:55 In Jesus' name I pray, amen. That only took about 30 or 40 seconds, but that 30 or 40 seconds could be the greatest time you've ever spent if you didn't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If you prayed that prayer and you meant it with all your heart, you need to find a good church, you need to find a church, a local church somewhere by you, you need to get a Bible into your hand. And many churches give Bibles away. So just get a Bible, go to the Salvation Army, go to some place that will provide that for you and start reading the Word of God. I recommend starting with the book of Romans. It's a wonderful scripture about how to live life as a Christian. It's a good way to start. So I just want to thank you for praying that prayer. And I just want to close this podcast out. I hope that it's been a blessing to you. I hope that it has reached into your heart and blessed you and that it will strengthen you and your understanding of how to deal with our veterans.

24:41 And if you're a veteran, I pray that you'll be blessed because of this and through this. So let me just though give you more information about Quality Christian Living. If you'd like to know more about us, you can go to my other webpage. That's davidseefriendauthor.com. If you go there, when the front page comes up, you'll notice that there's a link there to the podcast that we've done. We are doing podcasts called Quality Christian Living. This is the 253rd podcast in about two and a half years that we've done. And the Lord has blessed us with tens of thousands of people who have listened into these podcasts and downloaded them in as many as 92 countries. And I thank God for that. But I would like to give you this free invitation to just pull up my webpage and press the link on the front page there.

25:23 And that link will open up to a plethora of topics that we've covered. I've done series of podcasts dealing with faith, dealing with miracles, dealing with the gifts of the Spirit, the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. We've done podcasts for people in business, how to run a Christian business. I did a podcast for those with debt saying experience the joy of debt-free living. It was a, I think, 20 podcast series. There's a huge list of podcasts talking about spiritual prosperity and financial prosperity. Those are all things I believe are of God and have been a blessing to many people. So I would like you to go ahead and look at those if you'd like. If you'd like to scroll down from my first page, scroll down to the next one. You'll see a list of books that I've written. Two on Vietnam. And those books that are available on Amazon, one is Vietnam One and Vietnam Two.

26:09 Vietnam One has to do with my experience before, during, and after the Vietnam War. And the second book that I wrote, Vietnam Two, has to do with helping people, having an impact of Agent Orange and PTSD in their life. So it explains where to get help and how to get that help. Now the books that you would purchase from me, those Vietnam books that you would buy from me, I want you to understand that the money that's made off of those, and it's not a lot of money, but the money that's made off of those will go into supporting my nonprofit group and they are working to help veterans. Vets Helping Vets is something that I've put together. And through David Seifren Ministries and any book sales dealing with Vietnam will go back into vets helping vets so that we can continue to give away free books and help veterans receive the kind of help that they're in need of.

26:57 In addition to that, I've written books on finances, experience the joy of debt-free living, another book on generosity, what's in it for me, and a book on faith entitled Receive Everything from What We Call Nothing. People come into me and say, I don't have anything left. I've lost everything. I've lost everything. And I always tell them, no, you haven't lost everything unless you've lost your salvation. And you can't do that. So I want you to understand that God wants to bless us and you've never lost everything. So with that, I would also encourage you, if you'd like to subscribe to my podcast, you can do that by going to cpnshows.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. So I want to thank you for listening in to this podcast for our veterans today. Next week, next podcast, we'll be going back to our series on success and abundant living.

27:42 It's an area of teaching that I think is much needed in our world today. And we're going to be giving you some ideas of why God really helps us to be successful and wants us to prosper and wants us to live abundantly. Remember what Jesus said in John 10, 10? He said that the devil comes to steal, to kill, and destroy. But he said, but I've come to give you life and to give it you more abundantly. Those are the words of Jesus. So just think about that. And we're going to talk about that in our upcoming podcast. I hope that you'll join me after we close out this particular one. Thank you once again for listening in. And I'd like to just say a couple of words of blessing over you. May the Lord bless you and keep you in his face. Shine upon him and be gracious unto you.

28:22 May he give you faith and strength and hope in your life. And that may you prosper in all things and be in good health, even as your soul prospers. So until next time, thank you very much for listening to Quality Christian Living. I am your host, David Fren. This was podcast number 253. I look forward to seeing you once again. Thank you for listening. God bless you.