I want to tread this holy ground carefully, for some of you may be offended; yet please hear me out.

We begin with the martyrs of 9/11/2001, a group of men determined for a religious cause, followers of radical Islam with a jihad vision of a Kingdom for Mohammed on earth, an angelic vision given to a prophet and a heavenly reward of intercourse with virgins given to martyrs for the glory of a prophet.

How easily (and for a short time) do the enemies of this earth remember the heroic actions of their dead. How quickly we forget the god whom we praised or the God to whom we cried out.

Mankind knows no limit of evil nor glory forgotten by the sacrifice of human life.

Yet to what end?  And for what reward?

Are the rewards of heaven the same as those we crave for the desires of this flesh?

We dismiss the passions of young men living lives of hopelessness, worshiping a past which glorifies war – a past which promotes culture of enforced righteousness on this evil place, a false hope of conquering peoples for the glory of the conquerors. It is nothing new under the sun.

God is sovereign. God allows a time of evil to refine or humble mortal man. God allows the crumbling of mortal dreams into parched dust in need of the Lord’s cleansing life.

Looking back: before America, before England, before Rome, before David and Israel; looking back to cultures of conquest and times of evil:

Judges 4:

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. 2 And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3 Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.

4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time…

[Read more of this story of war unfamiliar to me, (probably you), most Christians and most Jews. I point now to the song of the spoils of victory you will not hear preached in our ‘family sermons.’]

Judges 5:

Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day:

2 “That the leaders took the lead in Israel,
that the people offered themselves willingly,
bless the Lord!

…

19 “The kings came, they fought;
then fought the kings of Canaan,
at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo;
they got no spoils of silver.
20 From heaven the stars fought,
from their courses they fought against Sisera.

…

28 “Out of the window she peered,
the mother of Sisera wailed through the lattice:
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’
29 Her wisest princesses answer,
indeed, she answers herself,
30 ‘Have they not found and divided the spoil?—
A womb or two for every man…

‘A womb or two for every man’: the expected spoils of war. And how have the women of other lands become the concubines of conquering kings and warriors? The answer you know; for in the desires of the troops and warriors burns the lust of the flesh for the rewards of this life.

Though some would explain away the motives of the victors (be they crusaders, knights, soldiers of the war we won or draftees into the foreign lands we lost), let’s be clear about the Biblical text.

Have they not divided the prey?

Plunder, spoil, booty, gain. (Does a young man not continue to refer to the desirable parts of a young woman as her ‘booty?’ The meaning here and still considers the sacrifice of virgins once protected by their defeated fathers, even the wives of slain husbands – a dividing of the gain of war.

‘A womb of two for every man’ is translated in some versions as: a damsel, a girl, a woman, a maiden, a female, ‘two ladies to every man.’

The motive is clear. And is this not the same motive and false promise of heaven made to the men who commandeered these planes to fly into the buildings of the city on 9/11/2001? Nothing is new under the sun.

Read the account of the battle. Sisera had not won the battle of the day. His reward was same as those who shouted, “Allahu akbar,” as their plane martyred the lives of innocents at work in New York City and Washington D.C.

Yet to what end? And for what reward?

Sisera’s reward was no different than that of IS [or ISIS], who take spoils untold of young girls as they conquer the lands of the Middle East in 2014 for the kingdom of the devil and his prophet; young men with the weapons of atheists in hand, marching against the sovereign borders of their own Muslim brothers.

And the Lord has allowed it.

To be continued…