War god

“ Our prayer and wail are lifted. Not alone
Upon the battle's seared and desolate track,
Nor with the sword and flame, is it, O God,
That Thou hast smitten us. Around our hearths,
And in the crowded streets and busy marts,
Where echo whispers not the far-off strife
That slays our loved ones; in the solemn halls
Of safe and quiet counsel--nay, beneath
The temple-roofs that we have reared to Thee,
And 'mid their rising incense--God of Peace!
The curse of war is on us. Greed and hate
Hungering for gold and blood ”

“ It is simply foolish to make "the war in heaven" apply to a war in the holy habitation of God, where we may be sure war is impossible. If there could be war there why should we pray that God’s will may be done in earth as it is in heaven. ”

“ They have been able to see God through the cloud of smoke raised by shot and shell, and the Presence of the Divine has not been obscured by the horrors of war. Conscious of the seriousness of the work in which they are engaged, feeling every moment the nearness of eternity, our soldiers have in no craven spirit, but with a due remembrance of their relationship to God and to eternity, turned to religion as a stay in the hour of conflict.... ”

“ He who puts his trust in the Lord shall not fear what man can do to him; he will be like Mount Zion which cannot be moved.
Remember, dear brethren, that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, and mighty through God. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ”

“ It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should We then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of My Son, as every tree.—The weapons of war will make a frightful slaughter among men; and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, will cause millions to cast off Christianity. It glitters with flashes of enlightenment reflected from the risen Sun of Righteousness, which to its idolatrous enemies are gleamings of trouble and distress. ”

“ That great God who is the searcher of my heart, knows with what a sad sense I go on upon this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy, but I look upon it as opus Dei, which is enough to silence all passion in me. The God of Peace, in his good time, send us the blessing of peace, and, in the mean time, fit us to receive it. ”

“ Dear brethren, these events are rapidly rolling in the fiery wheels down the descent of time; and although the nations must first drink the vials of divine wrath and the battle of God Almighty must first be fought, yet the time is at hand when we shall no more hear the sound of war, and of garments rolled in blood, for man will cease to be the enemy of man, and every one will sit quietly under his own vine and under his own fig tree ”

“ We are come here this evening to offer our earnest prayers and supplications to God for His help in this grievous and dangerous crisis of our national life, to entreat Him to grant the victory to our King and his Allies, and to deliver our nation, our Empire, and the world from the violence and oppression with which they are threatened by the enemy. In order that we may do so aright, it is necessary we should realize distinctly what is God’s special concern with the war, and what is our own relation to Him in respect to it. ”

“ They slew the victims, and noticed the face of the heavens, the passage of clouds over the sun, and the appearance of a rainbow. If the omens were favourable, the image of the principal war-god was brought out in front of the whole army and placed near the king. The priest then prayed to the gods, beseeching them to prove themselves stronger than the gods of the enemy in the ensuing engagement, and promising them hecatombs of victims in the event of victory. The bodies of foes slain in the battle were dragged to the king or priest, who offered them as victims to his gods. ”

“ But there seems to be no doubt that this step has been taken by these peoples, and that these various gods of abstract function have been evolved by them. And it seems to us that, were a god of war once conceived, it would be inevitable that, among communities whose chief interest is war and whose prosperity and very existence depend upon success in battle, such a god of battles should come to predominate over all others, and to claim the almost exclusive regard of his worshippers. ”

“ IV—CHRISTMAS IN AN AUSTRIAN HOSPITAL
Christmas Eve: peace on earth and good will toward men. And all through "the still night, the holy night," the sound that means killing goes on almost continuously. How can any one say prayers for a world which is at war, or for himself that is a part of it? May God, who knows everything, help each of us to bear our part and not disgrace Him, and make us instruments to the end that He wishes. ”

“ Now, now the fight's done, and the great god of war
Lies sleeping in shades, and unruffles his care.
Love laughs at his rest, and his souldiers alarmes,
He drums, and he trumpets, and struts in his armes ”

“ To me it seems that we are greater heroes than the others, we, who without being upheld by warlike enthusiasm, accomplish faithfully our duty, while hating war with our whole souls.... They talk of a holy war ... I know of no holy war. I only know of one war which is the sum of all that is inhuman, impious, and bestial in man; it is God's chastisement and a call to repentance for the people that throws itself into war or lets itself be drawn into it. God sends men through this hell so that they may learn to love heaven. ”

“ He represents this war as agreeable to the Divinity, and as the duty of a true disciple of the Gospel. “Thy arm and thy lance,” says he to every Christian soldier who shall take arms against the infidels, “shall be the arm and the lance of God. In immolating Turks, thou wilt not shed innocent blood, and the world will consider thee as the executioner of the decrees of divine justice; for thou wilt but kill those whom God has himself condemned. ”

“ Penitent Christians may weep and mourn with propriety for their own sins and the sins of the nations, with a hearty desire not only to forsake their own iniquities, but that the nations may be brought to confess and forsake their sins and turn from them to the living God. It is true that war is a judgment in God’s providence. ”

“ Because one of the titles of the Lord is "the Prince of Peace", they argue that war is displeasing to God: and that Jesus came to establish peace as the result of preaching. But war is not displeasing to God any more than a rod is displeasing to him that uses it for correction. God instituted war when he put enmity between the serpent and the woman. It is a divine institution for the punishment of the transgressors of His law; and a most beneficent one too: for all the little liberty the world enjoys is attributable to the controversy of the tongue, the pen, and the sword. ”

“ His hands had been used to the crook and his fingers to the harp, but God taught his hands to war and his fingers to fight, because he designed him for Israel's champion; and what God calls men to he either finds them or makes them fit for. Let the men of war give God the glory of all their military skill; the same that teaches the meanest husbandman his art teaches the greatest general his. It is a pity that any whose fingers God has taught to fight should fight against him or his kingdom among men. ”

“ I saw that all this world, except for a few base monstrous spirits, was suffering hideous things because of this war, and before the war it was full of folly, waste, social injustice and suspicion for the same reason, because it had not realized the kingship of God. And that is so simple; the essence of God is simplicity. ”

“ The God who made iron knew men would make swords of it—just as He also knew they would make plowshares. Making war is sometimes the only way to make peace. If the cause is a just one the Lord calls himself the God of battles. ”

“ What is it that has kept war alive for all these centuries? Largely, that bishops and preachers have always been ready to bless colours, and to read a Christening service over a man-of-war—and, I suppose, to ask God that an eighty-ton gun might be blessed to smash our enemies to pieces, and not to blow our sailors to bits. ”

“ German militarism would have been crushed and the world would be at peace.'
'Nonsense,' I replied with a laugh.
'It's not nonsense. This, as it seems to me, is the case: We are fighting God's cause, but God counts but very little. We are not laying hold of His Omnipotence; we are trusting entirely in big guns, while God is forgotten. That is why the war drags on. ”

“ And the Beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, are gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse and against his army, i. e. against Christ and his kingdom to attempt to overcome them. Thus with sublime imagery the vision leads up and on to the close of the great battle with the world-forces, which was briefly described before in chapter sixteen as occurring at Har-Magedon; the war is the same, the battle between the sinful world and the hosts of God which is ever going on through the ages to final victory in the end. ”

“ Such are some of the divine precepts on this subject. So different, however, are the laws of war among Christian nations, that rendering comfort or relief to enemies is considered high treason, and they punish with death the performance of the very duty which God commands as a condition of eternal life!
The common sense of every man revolts from the idea that resisting an enemy by war is returning good for evil. Who would receive the thrust of a sword as an act of kindness? Was it ever considered that killing a man was doing good to him? ”

“ To the superficial, war seems to be a grim contradiction of the fact that God is the Ruler of the world. To them it 101seems as though this world were governed by a demon. But really war is a terrible confirmation of God's presence in the world and a lurid re-emphasis of His inevitable and inexorable Law. ”

“ Does it not appear absurd for nations voluntarily to engage in war, and then to proclaim a fast to humble themselves before God for its evils, while they have no desire to turn away from them, but, on the contrary, make it an express object to seek the divine aid in assisting them successfully to perpetuate it? ”

“ Let us, if we would turn this occasion to due account, look up for a while from the human thunders and lightnings by which the earth and sea are now shaken; let us raise our eyes and our hearts to the Psalmist’s vision of God sitting on His throne, above all these earthly and human struggles and sufferings, and though clouds and darkness are round about Him, yet controlling them by His righteous judgment.
Let us look into this general consideration a little more particularly. War is the result of human passion, human error, and human sin. ”

“ While we bitterly mourn the loss of those who are sacrificed in such a war as this, we can feel that they have laid down their lives in the eternal battle in which Christ is the Commander, and in which we are all taking part, and that we remain one with them, and they one with us, in serving Christ and asserting the will of God. ”

“ war's a fearsome thing. They'll be cunning that catches me at this wark again.—But, for God's sake, sir, let us mak for some strength!" ”

“ War and Deity.—There are many good people who believe that anything of a war-like character, anything involving violence and bloodshed, is wholly incompatible with the benign disposition and benevolent purposes of Deity. According to their view, God has nothing to do with wars. From first to last they are the work of the Evil One, moving upon wicked men to stir up strife for selfish and sordid ends. ”

“ The sickle has been thrust in and the harvest of the earth reaped. Armageddon’s war has been fought. God has plead with all nations in the valley of decision. What now? To those that are left the command will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and it will be obeyed, in the nations "beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into scythes, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." ”

“ I own, said I, that there is something cruel and inhuman in War; but just Wars are often enter'd into, and then God himself gives a Sanction to them, and as a Mark that he takes Pleasure in them, he has term'd himself the God of Hosts. ”

“ In the light of what has been said of the two possible methods of divine providence, it may be denied that the war was providentially caused by God in order to curb other evils, such as softness and idleness, or the selfish pursuit of wealth and pleasure, or drunkenness and vice, or thoughtlessness and irreligion. It is true enough that in the face of war conditions some of these evils have been decreased, and the martial qualities of self-sacrificing courage and fortitude have been stimulated. ”

“ But if, having to-day pleaded with the God of Peace we may hereafter have to call upon the God of War, we may be sure that it will advance against the foe in rank with the powerful men-of-war whose crews have to-day entered into so near and fraternal union with us. ”

“ The good old German God has vied with Jehovah of the Israelites in stimulating and sustaining the will to war.
Those atheists to whom all war is an abomination and entirely irreconcilable with the highest human attributes have found complete unanimity in their repudiation of the idea of a presiding God of Battles in the dissenting objections to war expressed by Quakers, Christadelphians, Plymouth Brethren, and other sects of Christianity. There can be no doubt that the faith in war, and in the Divine guidance of war, is receding. ”