When rain threatened to halt the Third Army’s march across the Rhine to deal a decisive blow to Nazi Germany’s forces, U.S. General George S. Patton commissioned a prayer, asking God “to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend.” He asked for the power to “crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”

The chaplain who penned the prayer was to “have 250,000 copies printed and see to it that every man in the Third Army gets one,” with the general insisting they collectively beseech God for victory.

A colonel explained the result: “Whether it was the help of the Divine guidance asked for in the prayer or just the normal course of human events, we never knew; at any rate, on the twenty-third, the day after the prayer was issued, the weather cleared and remained perfect for about six days. Enough to allow the Allies to break the backbone of the Von Rundstedt offensive and turn a temporary setback into a crushing defeat for the enemy.”

Failure could have meant a world reimagined in the image of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Had these men not persevered, all could have been lost. But is war the answer? In a world cut off from God, it seems necessary to pursue peace. Is it what God intended?

Patton’s counterpart General Omar Bradley lamented, “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who fought alongside both these men, poignantly expressed his hatred of war: “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

Two thousand years earlier, the apostle Paul warned the Romans to “avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore if your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head” (12:19-20).

This is the very opposite of men waging war! Jesus Christ was just as plain, telling the masses, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matt. 5:9).

The clear message was that true Christians do not go to war. Yet the same Christ is pictured in the book of Revelation as a mighty warrior: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He does judge and make war” (Rev. 19:11). Speaking of God the Father, Moses also recorded in a song, “The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name” (Ex. 15:3).

Why would God, repeatedly called the “God of peace” (I Thes. 5:23), wage war? And why does He even seem to permit war?

The Horror of War

Beyond soldier fighting soldier, civilians often suffer the most during armed conflicts—being displaced, maimed or even killed. As of the end of 2022, the United Nations reported that over 100 million non-combatants worldwide were “forcibly displaced…as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.” The number has only grown.

During WWII, Hitler corralled millions of Jews into cattle cars destined for concentration camps, where they were met with untold horrors and ultimately death.

To end the war Hitler began, U.S. President Harry S. Truman carefully weighed the assets and liabilities of unleashing nuclear weapons. In the final analysis, it was decided to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The thinking was that the horror of the resulting deaths of over 200,000 people, mostly civilians, would hasten the war and ultimately save lives. Such catastrophic munitions have not been used in battle since.

These are the awful decisions required during wartime. In a world separated from God, such choices might be called a “necessary evil.”

Japan surrendered less than a month later. But at what cost? In war, one side may “win,” but humanity always loses. Since man first learned war (Isa. 2:4) thousands of years ago, century by century, millennia by millennia, the death toll has risen. Children orphaned. Wives widowed. Life-changing injuries robbed the futures of veterans. The psychological toll of being subjected to the horrors of war—victim or soldier—cannot be quantified.

Before our modern time, warfare was, relatively speaking, primitive. Bloodshed was localized, and weapons of mass destruction did not exist. No one spoke of civilization-ending conflict. And, since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, nuclear annihilation was little talked about—until recently, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

With Russia’s back to the wall, citing NATO aggression, the nation put the nuclear option on the table. The world was in shock. Saber-rattling continued, and the prospect of nuclear war has only grown since.

Repeated discussions of nuclear options have a desensitizing effect—creating a sort of “banner blindness” wherein society begins to ignore the possibility. Yet the threat is more menacing than ever!

Created during the Cold War, the DEFCON system is short for Defense Readiness Condition or Defense Condition. Military.com defines it as “the U.S. military’s ranking system for defense readiness for a potential nuclear attack.” The system has five levels with DEFCON 5 signifying “peacetime normal” and level 1 representing “the highest level of readiness for nuclear war.”

While not publicly released by the U.S. military, the level was estimated to have increased to 3 in early 2023—“generally seen as a standby level of alert, and it is the highest level of alert during peacetime,” the military website stated.

Because so many nations have nuclear weapons—and the U.S. and Russia have vast stockpiles—any use of these could lead to mutually assured destruction, which is the “principle of deterrence founded on the notion that a nuclear attack by one superpower would be met with an overwhelming nuclear counterattack such that both the attacker and the defender would be annihilated” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

All-out nuclear war would spell extinction for humans. Those not killed in the initial exchange would likely perish in the nuclear winter precipitated by sun-blocking smoke that would enshroud the Earth.

A Necessary Evil?

The course of human history has been defined by war. Imperialists have sought to expand empires at the cost of human lives. The prospect of riches led explorers to conquer indigenous peoples. In both WWI and WWII, aggressors sought to impose their will on mankind and were stopped by those in opposition. History books record the toll on humanity.

The litany of wars and the cost of human life tells the sad story.

But was war God’s Plan for peace from the beginning? Does He subscribe to man’s idea of a “just war,” which is the idea that resorting to armed force is justified under certain conditions?

While no one could imagine God would endorse reckless, power-hungry tyrants, what about using war to defend against them?

Defense spending comprises large chunks of national budgets and is soaring ever higher. The U.S. alone allocated over $1.5 trillion for defense during the 2023 fiscal year, in which it collected about $4.5 trillion. This means more than a third of revenue went toward war!

As reported by the Department of the Treasury: “Generally, Congress allocates over half of the discretionary budget towards national defense and the rest to fund the administration of other agencies and programs. These programs range from transportation, education, housing, and social service programs, as well as science and environmental organizations.”

Put another way, defense spending outweighs all other government-funded programs!

God has a very different way of ensuring peace. Not long after delivering Israel from Egypt by raining plagues down on their enemies, He told the Israelites: “Dread not, neither be afraid of [your enemies]. The Lord your God which goes before you, He shall fight for you, according to all that He did for you in Egypt before your eyes” (Deut. 1:29-30).

Such divine protection requires national obedience to God—which is far from the case today. In fact, God says peace is an impossibility when left in human hands. As the prophet Isaiah explains: “Behold, the Lord’ s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear” (Isa. 59:1-2).

It is in mankind’s “separated” state that verse 8 comes to bear: “The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goes therein shall not know peace.” Human beings have—wittingly or unwittingly—chosen war over peace.

What God Says

War has been glorified for millennia. Boys and men alike dream of battle—victoriously vanquishing foes. In 1943, General Patton told the 45th Division in Tunisia: “Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty.”

Patton later commented on such speeches in his diary. He wrote, “in all my talks, I stressed fighting and killing.”

This is the essence of war: fighting and killing. It is why God—who commands “you shall not kill” (Ex. 20:13)—hates war. God alone holds the authority to determine who should live or die (Luke 12:5). He alone reserves the right to make war as a means to ending war.

Many believe Jesus “did away with the law.” Yet Christ said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). It was in this context that Christ chose to amplify the sixth commandment about killing.

He told his audience: “You have heard that it was said of them of old time, You shall not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca [a term of contempt], shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, You fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” (vs. 21-22).

Understand what is being said here. Emotions and words, which are mere precursors to war, are to be avoided at all costs. How much more does this apply to bloody conflict!

The apostle John wrote, “He that hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes, because that darkness has blinded his eyes” (I John 2:11).

Building on Christ’s words a chapter later, John explained, “Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (I John 3:15).

In chapter 4, John asks a very pointed question, underscoring what a Christian’s perspective on hatred is: “If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (I John 4:20).

Christians do not hate others, but they are repeatedly commanded to “hate evil”! As the adage goes, “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”

The apostle James asked a question of his own, pointing to the usual motivation behind war: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not” (Jms. 4:1-2).

Rather than relying on God for defense and their needs, nations instead rely on self. The result has been bloodshed and death of uncounted millions of humans made in the image of God. God is the God of life, contrasted to Satan, who was “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).

War Is Not the Answer!

Some wonder why God at times commanded ancient Israel to go to war. It was never His purpose that this be their path, but Israel’s decisions made it necessary.

When Israel requested a king, God told the prophet Samuel, “Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto you: for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (I Sam. 8:7). God was willing to go along with the request of imperfect human beings so that they could learn the consequences of their decision (vs. 8-18). The result was a long series of Israelite rulers enriching themselves at the citizenry’s expense.

War is similar. Because Israel refused total reliance on God, He used them to fight battles—to learn the hard lessons of war.

Real Truth Editor-in-Chief David C. Pack wrote this in his booklet War, Killing and the Military: “God instruct­ed Israel that He would protect them—that they did not need to fight and defend themselves. However, they rejected this instruction—and protection—so that they could participate in the adventures and conquests of war waged by the nations around them. Again, God allowed them to do this, but gave them instructions—rules of war—that they were to follow if they did. These rules are found in Deuteronomy 20.

“Notice, none of them involved the actual teaching of war skills, strategies and tactics—the art of war—to Israel. They also allowed for certain ones to receive military exemptions (vs. 5-9). Study the chapter. God said (twice) that He would now fight ‘with’ them (vs. 1, 4) at the time they actually went to war. He would no longer exclusively Himself defeat Israel’s enemies.

“But this did allow Israel to be able to drive out certain degenerate, idolatrous peoples from the Promised Land. Yet, Acts 7:45 reveals who was really responsible for their success. Stephen, before he was stoned, referred to ‘the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers.’”

These nations—given to cannibalism, demon worship, child sacrifice and numerous other abominations—had gone too far in this life. God did not want these practices to spread among His people. A merciful God therefore put the rebellious people in these nations to “sleep” and plans to resurrect them in the coming Kingdom of God. Then, He will educate them in His ways and provide them the opportunity for eternal life that they could not receive in their original lifetimes.

At this time, “the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isa. 2:2-3).

Only with this change in attitude and way of life can mankind achieve true peace. The next verse makes this clear: “And [God] shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (vs. 4).

War will end permanently. God’s Kingdom—His Government on Earth—will ultimately give rise to a time of everlasting peace, explained only seven chapters later in Isaiah. “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end…The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this” (Isa. 9:7).

God will bring this about methodically and justly until war is completely eradicated. Notice Jude’s summary: “The Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (vs. 14-15).

In other words, God will use war to end war. He has a series of campaigns outlined in both the Old and New Testaments that will rid the world of anyone who—after being given the greatest chance for success—persists in rejecting God. What will be left are vast billions who have learned to hate war and love God’s Way, which is the only way that leads to peace.

Here is the ultimate result of the gospel—the good news of the Kingdom of God—that Jesus Christ preached: a permanent era of unbroken peace!