The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Throwback Episode: Raising Warriors for God

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Jeff is traveling overseas and will be taking a break from recording this week and next week! In the meantime, please enjoy this throwback episode. How are we supposed to prepare our children for what is out in the world? If you are on social media or pay attention to the news, you know that there are a lot of challenges you and your children will face in our world. Today, Jeff Cavins speaks honestly about the war we are in and how to prepare ourselves for it. Snippet from the Show The real battle is in the unseen territories. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 337, Raising Warriors for God. Hello, my friend. Good to be with you once again as we discuss everything that deals with Scripture and being a disciple, evangelization, living our faith, literally walking with Jesus. That's what it's all about. Today we're talking about raising warriors for God, and maybe that

title caught your attention. Because a lot of people today are wondering how they're supposed to raise their children, particularly in the face of this culture, that we are living in. And that's a big question that parents have, is how do I prepare my children for what is out there in the world? Do I just isolate them? Do I just not teach them anything about it? Or do I let them just indulge, you know, and kind of say, Lord, they're yours, and I'm not going to do anything, but I trust them to you. What do you do in raising children? I want to give you a biblical response to that and a response that is doable in your life and effective in your life. You look at those little kids sound asleep at night, little Ralph and little Peggy Sue, and you're thinking to yourself,

Warriors? Really? Well, yeah. And by Warriors, we're not talking today about running around hurting people or anything like that. In fact, what we are going to see is that there is a war in the invisible realm that is manifesting itself in the physical natural realm, and our children are going to be faced with making choices when they grow up. Are they going to stand against this and stand strong for the Lord in his word, or are they going to give in to the request of our culture and relegate their faith to some kind of backseat tolerance position? I don't think so. And I don't think you want that either. And I don't think you want your grandchildren to be that way, or your niece or your nephew. You say, well, I don't have children.

Well, you do have nieces and nephews, most likely. We're grandchildren. And so there's something for all of us to gain by looking into this particular topic. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to delve back into Maccabee and revolt. And I want to read some stuff to you from there and give some commentary as to what they did in a culture that was changing and putting a lot of pressure on them to change. Before we get into that, however, you need the notes? Well, I've got some notes for you today. And you are probably driving, running, whatever it might be.

You don't have time to write all this down, so I did. And I'll give them to you free. All you got to do is type my name, Jeff Kavins, and that's one word, Jeff Kavins, and send it to 33777. That's 3377. You'll get the notes in perpetuity. So you don't have to worry about it in the future. Okay, so let's take a look at this.

We're facing a culture war. We are. And we're facing a culture that is not just enjoying, quote unquote, enjoying the fruits of their own change and their own community, but feel that it's important to make sure that everybody else in the culture agrees with them and that we don't put up any resistance. to the norms in our culture. Now, I'm speaking from the United States, but I think it's true that this would apply in Canada.

It would apply in Europe. It would apply everywhere. But I'm just telling you that I'm an American. And I'm in the midst of it, even though I'm deep in the woods today. I have the most beautiful view of a lake and a walking path and trees. It's the middle of summer.

Still, the battle rages. And if I wanted to, I guess I could just hide out. out here with the animals and raise some food and forget about it. But that's not what we're called to do. We're called to be salt and light in the community. And so we are facing a culture war that wants to force us to change. From the outside, the pressure to change or at least discern your own sexuality. And your children's own sexuality is very real.

Where people are literally going to challenge your son or daughter to conclude, are you really a boy or are you really a girl? Now, if somebody would have said to me back in the 1970s that that was going to be a reality in 20, 2023, I would have said, you are out of your mind. That is social science fiction. And it's not going to happen. But it's happening today. And it's happening in your kids' school.

You know, if your kids go to a public school, they're talking about this right now. The definition of family is being treated like Plato. You can do what you want with it. You can make it whatever you want. You can mold it and shape it and nobody can tell you differently. That's happening right now. The expectations of buying and possessing much, you know, materialism. They're out there right now.

What you buy, where you live has, you know, it's a big deal. The pressure to change your faith because of popular opinion. that you can no longer believe what you believe because that will be bigoted oppression, that will be a bigot's opinion, and that if you do have an opinion that's different than the popular culture, it's seen as offensive and aggressive and needs to be dealt with. In other words, you need to be dealt with. Your kids need to be dealt with. Well, this isn't new at all. I want to take you back to the Jewish people before Jesus came on the seen in a period of history called the Maccabian revolt. The Maccabian Revolt. Now, before we get

into that Maccabian revolt, I want you to understand one thing, and that is that the Maccabian revolt that happened a couple hundred years before Jesus was not a revolt against just simply ideology. It was a revolt against real people who are trying to bring real change on Israel. And behind that, though, is a spiritual battle. And Paul said this. He said that we don't war against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in high places. So he's saying, hey, the battle that's taking place is not against people, but there is a battle against the ideology of principalities and powers, the devil's cohorts, his minions. And the culture war is the manifestation of a spiritual war.

And I know one thing, and that is that the other side is willing to fight all the way to the end. All the way to the end. And so what we are going to go over here with the Maccabeean Revolt, think in terms of the modern era today, and that the real battle is in the unseen territories. But we have to respond to it, and we do have to respond to our fellow citizens as well. But the story of the Maccabian revolt is so interesting. And before I read about this revolt, I need to bring up one topic here that is really the focus of this show. As you are facing the pressure of a cultural upheaval, you look around and you see families with great kids. Your neighbors and the people that go to church with have 11 kids and five of them are priests, four of them are sisters.

and the other two are running non-profits or good cause. And you look at your own family and you think, oh, man, I wonder how our kids are going to turn out. I wonder what's going to happen to them. Will they be able to withstand the pressure of the culture to change? Are we going to lose them to our culture? Or is there a way to raise them so they'll be strong? Well, the latter is the case.

You can raise them in a way where they can be strong. I'm not saying that it's easy. I'm not saying that it's an overnight deal, but it is the way to respond to a culture that's trying to bring about changes. So I want to go back and give you the setting of this, okay? Okay, so if you go back into the Old Testament, the last book really is Malachi, the prophet, but the last real big book that tells the stories before Jesus is first and

and second Maccabees. Now, first and second Maccabees is all about the pressure of the Greek empire, the Seleucids, the Ptolemais and the Seleucids, the pressure that they're bringing to change the life in Jerusalem. So it kind of goes like this. After you have the Babylonians in 587 BC, taking Israel into captivity, they come back. After 70 years of captivity, and at that point, things look like they're going to go pretty well until the Greeks took over as the world power. And the leader of that world power, introducing a philosophy of Hellenization, meaning to make the world Greek thinking, great Greek sexuality, the gods, and everything else, that's led by Alexander the Great, the son of Philip of Macedonia. So Alexander the Great really does an amazing campaign and conquers the known world, stops just short of India, because his troops were worn out.

But he was impressed with the people in Jerusalem. He was actually impressed with him. And then after Alexander the Grey died in 323, suddenly of some kind of virus, some people think he was poison, but he died suddenly, leaving his entire empire to the Ptolemais out of Alexandria, Egypt. You might remember that the Ptolemae's had a big impact on Israel. So the Ptolemae's ended up ruling over the land at that point, and they allowed Israel to keep their Jewish identity, to continue to circumcise, to continue to offer sacrifices in the temple, teach Torah, all of that. Well, that came to a sudden end when the Seleucids, the other branch of Alexander's army, the first was the Ptolemae's. Then the Seleucids defeated them, and they took over as the ruling power in Jerusalem. But they didn't allow this doctrine of tolerance, no? They wanted change to take place in Jerusalem.

And so when they came in, they forced conversion. They took the temple. They desecrated it. And they offered sacrifices of pigs in the temple. And if somebody broke the rules and circumcised their child, They themselves would be destroyed and their children would be hung around their necks. This was serious stuff that the Greeks, under the rule of the Seleucids, serious stuff. It was going on at that time.

And the leader of the Seleucids was Antiochus Epiphanes. He's kind of a madman, but the word epiphany, meaning God, he thought he was, God made manifest, which he wasn't. you know, story spoiler right there. So what was the response to Israel? What was their response at that point? Well, the response to this terror was divided. There were a lot of people willing to bow to this, to cooperate with the Greeks and the demands of Antiochus Epiphanies,

also known as Antiochus the Fourth. and in so doing they compromised the very ethos that was established under the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah earlier. It's like giving it all back. Give me a break. Others resisted and soon found out that resistance was going to be hard. And Antiochus Epiphanes, he targeted a city about 17 miles north west of Jerusalem called Modin. And Modin was where the real Orthodox. were. They were the ones that, man, they weren't going to give up at all. And it was in Modin that an aged

priest by the name of Matathias rose up. Matathias had five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Ileazar, and Jonathan. And those five sons countered. They countered the king's officers, the Greeks officers who had been sent to force them to become apostate. And when the village was summoned to a public assembly and commanded to offer the pagan sacrifices, guess what Mattathias, the son of the five guys? What did he say? 1st Maccabees 2, 19, and 20, I'll put it in the notes for you.

He said this, get this. Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him and have chosen to do his commandments, departing each one from the religion of his fathers, yet I and my sons and my brothers will live by the covenant of our fathers. Far be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances, we will not obey the king's words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left. Ooh, got some spunk there, Mattathias. When the Jewish man came forward to perform the, another guy came forward to perform the requisite pagan sacrifice.

You know what Mattathias did? Matthias, moved by a zeal for the Torah, killed both this Jewish man and the king's enforcer, reminiscent of Phineas in Numbers 25 or Elijah in First Kings 18. And this, this triggered a revolt against the Greeks. Now, this was so serious of what the pressure on these people in Jerusalem that they actually, they actually, many of them underwent a reversal surgery for circumcision because the men were in the gymnasiums. And that's where men, that's where they would oftentimes, you know, meet. And that's where they would do business and so forth.

and they did not want to give away by means of circumcision that they were Jews. They didn't want to give that. They didn't want to give it away. So there was all of this pressure. But Mattathias, the father of the five sons says, no way are we going to do that. And he rallied all those people into a resistance in his sons, and he fled at that point. But before Mattathias' death, you know what he did? He encouraged his sons.

You can read about this in 1st Maccabees 251. He encouraged his sons to, quote, remember the deeds of the fathers, unquote. So Mattathias is continually recalling the deeds of the great men throughout salvation history, kind of like Hebrews chapter 11 in the New Testament that goes through all the men and women of faith. Keep that in mind towards the end. into this podcast. It'll come in handy. First Maccabees 2, 51 through 64 talk about this, how he would raise up the lives of these holy men before the eyes of his sons. Do you get that? I'm giving you some of the hints here. So how do we fight? How do we respond? How do we raise warriors for God?

Well, Mattathias raised up the lives of these holy men and women before his sons, stirring their hearts and rousing their courage. Matathias knew well the stories of Israel's great heroes and forefathers and had taught them to his sons so that they could recall them often to strengthen their resolve to be faithful to God's truth. Isn't that what you want of your kids? Don't you want your kids to have a strong resolve and courage to be faithful to God's word? Matathias taught his sons the story and the lessons of salvation history. I am so pleased that over the last three years, millions of people have gone through Bible in a year

and have followed that great adventure method of reading through salvation history as a narrative because when you do that, you review all the stories of the great men and women in salvation history. Now, Judas, his son, Judas Maccabees, himself recalls these people and events when he encourages his men before battle. So Judas is one of his sons. You might remember that he has John, Simon, Judas, Eliezer, and Jonathan, the third son is going to rise up as being very, very strong. And in First Maccabees, four, six through

11, he is going to do what his daddy did. He's going to do what his papa did. He's going to read the stories of the valiant men and women in salvation history to encourage his men before battle. You see a pattern taking place here? Pause. How often have you read the great stories of the men and women in salvation history to your children? You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. We'll be right back. Someone shows up in your parish because they're being drawn towards the Catholic Church.

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Invited includes a participant guide that meets the seekers exactly where they are, a leader guide with catechus formation built right in. A trade book with questions and answers many newcomers might be afraid to ask, and a mass companion book to help them participate in the mass, both interiorly and exteriorly. Our hope at Ascension is that Invited will help make OCIA in your parish what it was always meant to be, a true journey into life with Christ. To learn more, visit ascensionpress.com slash invited. Talking today about raising warriors for God, the pattern is right here in scripture in the Maccabee in revolt. By the way, the first and second Maccabees are not in

the Protestant Bible. They have 39 books in the Old Testament. We have 46. We have seven more. Because before Jesus, there was a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. It was translated into Greek down in Alexandria, Egypt. And that's what the early church adopted as the full Old Testament. It wasn't until the, wasn't until the Reformation that a group of reformers decided not to go with that canon anymore, but to go with it. Jewish canon in Hebrew. I thought I'd just throw that in right there. So we go from Mattathias now to Judas Maccabias. So after Mattathias's death, leadership of the revolt fell on Judas, the third son. And he's nicknamed Maccabias, the hammer. That's what to me, a hammer. And as a military

strategist and commander, Judas overwhelmed his enemies. He defeated more powerful opponents such as Apollonius, the governor of Samaria, Seron, the commander of Syria. It goes on and on. This guy was really, really powerful. And so the greatest contribution that Judas Maccabeus made was that he recaptured Jerusalem in the temple in 164, and then exactly three years after the incursion of Antiochus Epiphanes in the overtaking of the temple, he cleansed the temple, rebuilt the altar, and replaced the sacred vessels that had been plundered. First Maccabees chapter 4. And so this was celebrated by a great feast.

Now get this. This is an important little point that you don't hear very often. The reconsecration was celebrated with sacrifices and great fanfare for how many days? Eight days. Well, if they're going to dedicate the temple again, they've got to have enough oil for eight days. But they have only enough oil for one day. Now, why for eight days? Well, because this dedication of the temple after it was desecrated is going to be with the memory of the Feast of Tabernacles,

which was the feast during which Solomon dedicated the first temple. That's all contained in First Maccabees four. So get this. In order to fight the war that is taking place, they brought up the memory of the feast. of tabernacles, the feast of booths. Now, in the Transfiguration, in the New Testament, Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah and Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor. He's transfigured, and it is a recalling of the Feast of Tabernacles. And that's why Peter says, should we build three booths? One for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. You see,

Jesus spoke to the men on the transfiguration about his own exodus, which would begin in Jerusalem, his own freedom and the freedom of those who are following him. Jesus didn't need freedom in the sense of sin, but he was building freedom into his followers by bringing up the feast of tabernacles. And that's what Judas Maccabias did. Judas and all the people instituted the annual commemoration. You know it as Hanukkah. In the New Testament, it's the Feast of Lights for the Feast of Dedication. So Judas continues successful against the Gentile forces.

And then Antichus Epiphanes dies and his death creates a power vacuum. And then all hell breaks loose. Now under Judas's leadership, the Jewish people entered. into an alliance with another Gentile power that was beginning to make itself felt, and that was Rome. And I don't want to go into that. I don't want to go into that right now. But after the sudden death of Judas Maccabias in the battle on Mount Azatis, Jonathan assumed leadership in difficult time. So Jonathan becomes the leader. And he also is a mighty man. Now that's one story in the Maccabian Revolt, where you have Mattathias and his five sons, and they are going to fight the fight,

but it will require their life. Now, there's two ways to fight here. Two options. To kill or be killed. Now, in both instances, they ended up losing their lives. The Maccabees chose martyrdom as the weapon finally to deal with the occupation of the Syrians, the Greek Empire. And Jesus, for Jesus, it was crucifixion that was used against the real enemy, which was death, hell, in the grave against Satan. So this becomes the seed, the sacrifice of their lives becomes the seed of Jesus era where the path was suffering. The path was suffering. And Paul understood that well, because in Colossians 1.24, he says, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake. and I fill up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.

So suffering became the choice of warfare. Now does that mean all we do is roll over and die? No, we fight. We fight for our families. We fight for what is right. We fight for the truth. But we are willing to give our own lives. And we raise children as warriors to fight for the fight, fight for the truth,

fight for the faith, and to be willing to give their own lives. That's the only way that we can be successful. We cannot be successful if we are a bunch of theological pansies who just want to do apologetics with our culture. Because we will lose. But if we're willing to give our lives, nothing can stop us. Now, I'm not saying that we go out and kill people. That's wrong, right? But we go out and lay our lives down to fight for the truth.

And the key to Mattathias was that he read the stories of the great men and women of faith to his sons. He soaked them in those stories so that when they faced the battle themselves, they were strong and they were willing to lay down their own lives. Let me ask you a question. Are you raising your kids to die for the gospel? I remember a story I was just with Kimberly and Scott Hahn this last week. And Kimberly was telling again this story she told me a year or so ago, and her son was ordained a priest, Jeremiah. He ordained a priest.

And there was so much going on out there in persecution of priests because of the priest's scandal that it concerned her. And she has some kind of vision or dream where she saw her. own sons, you know, on the cross and cried out to Mary and said, please protect them. And it's almost like Mary was saying to her, you're asking me to protect your son. Can promise you this, I'll be at the foot of their cross, the way I was at the foot of my own son's cross. You see, we've been willing to give our lives for the gospel brings this whole battle to a new level. A level that the world is not used to right now when they face people who love the Lord so much in their faith so much that they will not bow to the whims of our culture.

They will not do it. But they'll stand for the truth. Now there's another story here dealing with martyrdom that is so powerful. It concerns a mother and her seven sons. You can read about it in Second Samuel or Second Maccabees, rather, chapter seven. Second Maccabees chapter 7. It's a mother with seven sons who were subjected to torture and killed, cruelly treated for doing what? For refusing to break the Torah. By doing what? By eating swines flesh. You say, oh, come on, Jeff. I mean, what's a BLT? You give your life for a BLT? No. I'm not saying give your life for a BLT. Neither is this mother. She's saying give your life. for the word of God. We're not going to disobey the Lord. We're not going to do it in our families and the way

we teach our children and schools we go to and the choices that we make. Sorry, world, we're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. Will you be tortured? Will you be cruelly treated? Perhaps. Perhaps. But listen to what she said. The sons repeatedly proclaimed that they are willing to die. Her sons, her seven sons, continually are saying, I'm willing to die for faithfulness to God's law. And I'll quote it right here from Second Maccabees 7, too. We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers. We have died for his laws because of his laws. And I obey the command of the law that was given to our fathers through Moses.

And before his death, the sixth son out of the seven said, for we are suffering these things on our own account because of our sins against our own God, therefore astounding things have happened. The martyrs did not see their subjugation to Antiochus Epiphanes as a consequence of their political weakness per se, but rather as a result of their unfaithfulness to the covenant. That was why they were facing what they're facing. I want to say something to you, my friend today, and you can share this with as many people as you want, and that is this. The culture that we are facing today may just be the fruit

of the lives of Americans or the last 50 years. God used his enemies to deal with them. And as this sixth son said, we are suffering for these things on our own account because of our sins against our own God. And now our response is, we must be faithful. don't continue down that, that track. So one of the most striking features in this account of the martyrdom of the mother and her seven sons is that these martyrs believed that their suffering, which was brought upon them because of their own infidelity to God, would bring about the redemption of the nation.

That's what they believe. They believe that their suffering would bring about the redemption of the nation. In other words, of the youngest and last of the sons killed, listen to what he says, He says, I, like my brothers, give up my body and life for the laws of our fathers, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation, and by afflictions and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God. And through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty which has justly fallen on our whole nation. Is there a chance that we are reaping what we have? have sown in America, in the United States. If so, then our posture must be the same as Matathias and his five sons and this woman and her seven sons. And so this conviction about suffering

for our sins in fighting the true fight of principalities and powers by giving our lives is emphasized by the literary strategy of Second Maccabees, the accounts of martyrdom. They're inserted into the story of Judas Maccabees so as to interrupt its progression. When the narrative about Judas and his companions resumes, the author states explicitly that the Gentiles could not withstand him, Judas, for the wrath of the Lord had turned to mercy. See that? The wrath of the Lord turned to mercy. and it was due to the willingness to lay down their lives. That's what we have to do.

And so I want to encourage you, and by the way, I encourage you to read first and second Maccabees. And if you have the book Walking with God, a Journey Through the Bible that Tim Gray and I wrote, I really encourage you to read the chapter on the Maccabian Revolt. It's chapter 10, and it will really open your book. your eyes. If you haven't read it or if you've read it, reread it, it'll open your eyes anew. But here's the thing. This whole mindset of the woman in her seven sons and Mattathias and his five became the seed of Jesus era where the path was suffering. And that suffering had

had redemptive power. And it was the blood of the martyrs became the seed of evangelization and growth. So with your own children now, as we get ready to come into the airport here with your children, you can do one of two things. You can teach them to kill or you can teach him to die, where the path was suffering. And so you can teach them to die. It is dying for the faith that inspired. Do we have any heroes today? Do we have any priests, bishops, cardinals? Do we have any laymen, married, and single women? who are dedicated virgins, married, grandmothers, grandfathers, do we have anybody who's willing to fight by laying down their lives and saying,

I'm not going to give up, I will be an example to my grandson. I'll be an example to my daughter. I'll be an example to my nephew. This mother watched her seven sons die for the faith, and it turned everything around. So I would encourage you to do this continually. Continually review the heroes of the faith. They will do something magnificent for your sons and daughters.

I would recommend, this is just an idea. I would recommend that on their birthdays, your sons and daughters' birthdays, I would recommend that you read Hebrews chapter 11. Because of Hebrews chapter 11 goes through the entire hall of faith, of all the people, men and women who were faithful, and it goes through the whole story of them. I'd recommend you read it on their birthdays and say, Son, you know, Johnny, Greg, Paul, Susan, Martha, Donna, whoever.

I would say, I want to read this to you because you are a part of a long story of faithful men and women who are willing to give their lives. And this is what we want to pass on to you. I would read Second Maccabees 7 with the woman. I would read it to your children. I'd read First Maccabees, chapters 1 through 4, about Mattathias and his son, Judas, Jonathan, warriors for God. I would read Ephesians talking about the equipment of a soldier of God.

and if you will do this over and over, you will be in the line of Matathias and this woman, who confronted the cultural changes of their time with faithfulness, faithfulness, not capitulating, but faithfulness. I just have this sense, as I'm sharing this right now, that there are some of you. you, my friends, that this could be a change in your family, a change that may manifest tremendous

fruit in 15, 20, 30 years from now. But you've got to make the choice today. Make the choice today. If you read the great stories to your children, they will have built, you have, we will have built into them a way to stand against the culture that wants to force them to change. You heard the world say, hell no, not going to do it. I'd say heaven. Yes, we're going to do it. We're going to fight the faith. We're not going to roll over and go away.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you. We thank you. We desire, Lord, to be with you and to be like you. In Jesus, we are facing such a changing world. and you said, you said, in the world we'll have tribulation, but behold, be of good cheer, you have overcome the world.

You overcame the world by giving your life on the cross, O Lord. May we follow in your footsteps, and may we pick up our cross and follow you. May we teach our children to pick up their cross and to follow you, not to just come up with psychological and cultural ways of explaining things away, but to share with our children what's really happening

and to, by example, fight the good fight or faith, pick up our cross, and walk in joy and love. Blessed Virgin Mary, you were at the foot of the cross where the victory was won. We thank you for being at the foot of the cross of our children, where the victory will be won. We ask you to pray for our children. Help them with your intercession and your example.

In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. I love you, my friends. I know this has been a heavy one, but I think it's needed right now in our times. Look forward to seeing you next week.