The Tragedy of War, The Hope of Peace – Sunday, May 19, 1985
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “There are only two powers in the world—the sword and the pen; and, in the end, the former is always conquered by the latter.”
History has proven the statement to be right, in the long term—the pen is mightier. But, in the short run, even Napoleon turned to war to achieve his ends. And in spite of what history has taught us since, the world still turns to war.
The world has made many justifications for its wars: to protect our honor, to honor what we presume to be courage; to regain what has been wrongly taken, to take what we need. In every war ever fought, both sides believed they were justified in the war they made. Sometimes, perhaps, they were. But the outcome of war is inevitably the same, no matter who is right or wrong. As the Duke of Wellington observed, “The next dreadful thing to a battle lost is a battle won.”
Because war is indiscriminate in its dehumanizing effects, it punishes the victor with the victim, turning men from the peace of God and delivering them to the dogs of war.
The lessons of Christ are simple and clear: “Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.”1 To what end? To the end that one day, if we love and pity enough, if we have faith enough in the truth of God recorded by the pens of righteous men, one day we shall beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruninghooks, In that day, nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall we learn war anymore.2
But that day is not yet with us. Today, and all through this night, there are tents on the fields of the world’s wars; there are men and boys, women and children dying together or together becoming tomorrow’s veterans.
God does not love the wars, but He loves those who suffer them. He loves us. And He calls to us; He calls us to set aside our warring, to come into His peace, to accept His love, to tent no more on the world’s battlefields.
1 Luke 6:27-28
2 Taken from Isaiah 2:4
May 19, 1985
Broadcast Number 2,909