Why does God Allow War?
From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
JAMES 4:1
Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981) was a Welsh Protestant minister who served for nearly 30 years as minister of Westminster Chapel in London. Lloyd-Jones was influential in the British evangelical movement in the 20th century and his life and ministry continue to benefit the church today through his many books and sermons.
In Why does God Allow War? Lloyd-Jones writes,
War is not an isolated and separate spiritual problem and religious problem. It is just a part and an expression of the one great central problem of sin.
We must consider, first, what we may call the Biblical view of war. It is not that war as such is sin, but that war is a consequence of sin; or, if you prefer it, that was is one of the expressions of sin…the Bible traces war back to its final and ultimate cause. It is true that it does not ignore the various political and social and economic and psychological factors of which so much has been made. But according to its teaching, these things are no more than the immediate causes, the actual agencies employed. The thing itself is much deeper. As James reminds us, the ultimate cause of war is lust and desire; this restlessness that is a part of us as the result of sin; this craving for that which is illicit and for that which we cannot obtain. It shows itself in many ways, both in person, individual life, and also in the life of nations…the Bible does not isolate war, as we tend to do in our thinking. It is but one of the manifestations of sin, one of the consequences of sin…War is not an isolated and separate spiritual problem and religious problem. It is just a part and an expression of the one great central problem of sin.
It seems clear that God permits war in order that men may see through it, more clearly than they have ever done before, what sin really is.
…It seems clear that God permits war in order that men may see through it, more clearly than they have ever done before, what sin really is. In times of peace we tend to think lightly of sin, and to hold optimistic views of human nature. War reveals man and the possibilities within man’s nature. A time of crisis and of war is no time for superficial generalizations and rosy, optimistic idealisms. It forces us to examine the very foundations of life. It makes us face the direct questions as to what is in human nature that leads to such calamities. The explanation cannot be found in the actions of certain men only. It is something deep down in the heart of man, in the heart of all men. It is the hatred, jealousy, envy, bitterness, and malice that are in the human heart and which show themselves in the personal and social relationships of life, manifesting themselves on a national and international scale. In the personal sphere we tend to excuse them and to explain them away.
But on the larger scale they become more evident. Man in his pride and his folly refuses to listen to the positive teaching of the gospel about sin. He refuses to attend a place of worship, and refuses instruction from the Word of God. He rejects the gracious, loving offer of the Gospel. He believes that he knows himself, and thinks that he is capable of making a perfect world altogether without God. What he refuses to recognize and to learn by the preaching of the Gospel in a time of peace, God reveals to him by permitting war, and thereby shows him his true nature and the result of his sin. What man refuses and rejects when offered by the hand of love, he often takes when delivered to him through the medium of affliction.
all this, in turn, leads to the final purpose, which is to lead us back to God.
And all this, in turn, leads to the final purpose, which is to lead us back to God…It is only as we suffer and see our folly, and the utter bankruptcy and helplessness of men, that we shall turn to God and rely upon Him. Indeed, as I contemplate human nature and human life, what astonishes me is not that God allows and permits war, but the patience and longsuffering of God…He has patiently borne with a world which in the main rejects and refuses His loving offer, even in the Person of His only begotten Son. The question that needs to be asked is not “Why does God allow war?” but rather, “Why does God not allow the world to destroy itself entirely in its iniquity and sin? Why does He in His restraining grace set a limit to evil and to sin, and a bound beyond which they cannot pass?”
Oh, the amazing patience of God with this sinful world! How wondrous is His love! He has sent the Son of His love to our world to die for us and to save us; and because men cannot and will not see this, He permits and allows such things as war to chastise and to punish us; to teach us, and to convict us of our sins; and, above all, to call us to repentance and acceptance of His gracious offer.