If we are going to consider God and war, we must begin with God and love. Every heavenly action is born out of passion for his children. God only does what is good. Just as important, God only does what is just.

We have a just God.
When WWI broke out, the war ministry of London dispatched a coded message to one of the British outposts in the inaccessible areas of Africa. The message read: "War is declared. Arrest all enemy aliens in your district." The war Ministry received this reply: "Have arrested four Germans, six Belgians, four Frenchmen, two Italians, three Austrians and an American. Please advise immediately who we are at war with."

The Bible's answer to that question may surprise you. Man's enemy is sin. Self-centeredness ravages our hearts. From the very beginning the wages of self-centeredness has been death. "A man reaps what he sows." (Gal. 6:7) If you sow seeds of peace, you reap the fruits of peace. But sow seeds of destruction and the result is destruction. "...those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same." (Job 4:8)

War is a fruit of sin.
The Bible does not isolate war, as if it were something unique and quite apart from other human struggles. International combat resides in the same neighborhood with rape, murder, wife-beating, husband-berating, loneliness, arrogance: these are the fruits of sin.

War is one of them. On a larger scale, no doubt. In a more terrible form, certainly. But war with Iraq is born in the same hospital as a quarrel with your neighbor. The hospital of sin.

Before we blame international conflict on finances or boundaries or religion, we must lay the blame where God does: our sinful nature. "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?" (James 4:1)

It's not so much that war is sin, but that war is a consequence of sin, a result of the lust and desires that wage war within us. James goes on to say:
"You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask." (James 4:2) A boy once asked, "Daddy, how do wars begin?" "Well, take the first world war. It began when Germany invaded Belgium." Immediately his wife interrupted him, "Tell the boy the truth. It began because somebody was murdered." The husband yanked his head toward her, "Are you answering this question or am I?" She walked out of the room in a huff- the dad sat and scowled. The boy interrupted the silence, "Daddy, you don't have to tell me how wars begin. I think I know how."

Whether it's two toddlers fighting in a playroom or two super-powers directing nuclear missiles at each other; the cause of conflict is the same. Selfishness. One side cannot get what they want so they demand their way. They fight. War is the fruit of sin.

To ask God to prohibit war, then, is to ask him to prohibit the consequence of human behavior. Something he has never been won't to do. As long as there is sin there will be war.

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