Benjamin Franklin, U.S. Founding Father (1706-1790)

 

In the past few weeks, we've celebrated a couple of holidays that relate to and remind us of one of the terrible calamities of this world. War. A philosopher once said that "humanity has but three great enemies; fever, famine and war." Well, he was right to some extent, but he left out the greatest enemy of mankind, Satan. We'll discuss this more a little later on in this editorial.

Yes, war, as man wages it and the world knows it, is a terrible thing. No one in their right mind, wants war as we think of it. It's not fun. It's not glamorous and heroic as depicted by the movies, but rather it is intense fear, filthiness, discomfort and suffering for those who participate and survive. It is death to those who do not survive.

Probably one person who is more than qualified to speak of war and describe it accurately is a famous General, William Tecumseh Sherman. He is the originator of the phrase, "War is Hell," but I would like you to hear the whole statement from which those three words came. He was addressing a graduating military class when this was said. "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell."

Benjamin Franklin is the one who said, "There never was a good war or a bad peace." As regards man-made warfare, he is right. But, here again, we'll discuss this further a little later on. In sort of a humorous vein, I like the words of Stephen Vincent Benet, who said that if we had to have one, to "make war on the men - the ladies have too-long memories."

I suppose that, if we had the time and the inclination, we could study all of the wars that ever occurred and I betcha we'd find one thing in common in just about all of them. That the mind of some man or men brought the war about by the advocation and commission of policies that are of an unGodly nature. If the minds of men were Godly in nature, we would never have to worry about being involved in a war.

But, man's minds are not so, are they? The minds of men are both noble and base, but it's the baseness that most often wins out over the noble. Minds that have given the world great discoveries, like many of the medicines we have and inventions that truly benefit mankind also bring us some of the most terrible atrocities imaginable. Following is what I consider a classic example of this.

A very gifted and brilliant man once invented what he thought would be something that would be used for peaceful purposes and would be a great boon to man. But then, other minds turned this invention into tremendous implements of destruction and have used them against each other ever since. So distraught over the destructive use of his invention, he set aside the sum of 9 million dollars for the awarding of annual prizes, with one of them being a prize to a person who most promoted peace. Yes, Alfred Nobel, best known for the Nobel Peace Prize was the one who gave the world dynamite.

There have been other weapons invented that have caused man to say that their invention would make war obsolete. That they were so terrible and devastating that, man would not engage in war. The machine-gun was one of them. It was so devastating when fired, that man would be fool-hardy to start a war with these in existence. And, of course, the atomic bomb ended World War II with Japan and supposedly that weapon would end all future wars. What none of these people who said these things took into consideration was, that man's base nature and mind would figure out a way to use these inventions against their fellow man and will continue to do so.

But, back to the things we said that we would discuss later in this article. Is there, like the philosopher said, only three great enemies of man? No, as mentioned, he left out man's greatest enemy, Satan. Satan is called the "adversary" of God, the "prince of this world" and "the Devil." As such, he is God's enemy and he is waging warfare against God on a constant basis. The battlefield is here on earth and the spoils of this war is the souls of men.

But, God also has an army. Christians. We are the army of God and it is our duty to go to war against Satan. Several scriptures indicate that we are at war with Satan and his followers. In 1 Pet. 2:11 we see that Christians are warned to "abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." That is one of the weapons that Satan is using against us in this war. And we know that Satan is the enemy because Peter further tells us in 1 Pet. 5:8 that he is like "a roaring lion who goes about seeking whom he can devour." This is why Paul tells us in Eph. 6:10-17 about the uniforms of God's army and the only weapon we are to use.

In 1 Tim. 1:18 Paul is telling Timothy that he is committing a "charge" to him. This charge is mentioned earlier in verses 3 (teach no other doctrine, or in other words, hold onto and teach the truth) and then in verse 5 where he says, "Now the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned." In verse 18, Timothy is then told that by keeping this charge, he "mightest war a good warfare." Later in Chapter 6:12 Paul tells him to "fight the good fight" and by doing so he will "lay hold on eternal life."

And, we must never lose track of where our army's strength lies. In God and His Word. Many, many scriptures tells us this. Throughout the Psalms, David tells us over and over that God is our source of strength. Almost as if he was giving us a pep-talk, in Psa. 27:14 he tells us to "Wait on the Lord and be courageous and He will strengthen our hearts." And in 27:1 he says that the Lord is the strength of our lives, so "of whom shall we be afraid." In 28:7 he says that God is our "strength and our shield." In 2 Tim. 4:17 Paul is saying that, even though others had deserted, God "stood with him and strengthened him.

I guess one of the most appropriate verses, in regards to where our strength lies, is found in Isa. 41:10. Here God is telling His people "Fear not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

In closing, I offer a short poem, whose author is anonymous. It came out of one of our wars and is simply known as A Soldier - His Prayer.

　

Stay with me God. The night is dark,

The night is cold: my little spark

Of courage dies. The night is long;

Be with me God, and make me strong.

　

Ron Covey