How should Christians respond to wars and rumours of wars?
Question 10092
Jesus told His disciples that “wars and rumours of wars” would characterise the period leading up to the end (Matthew 24:6; Mark 13:7). In every generation since, believers have looked at the conflicts of their own era and wondered whether these are the wars Jesus meant. The question of how Christians should respond to global conflict is both eschatological and intensely practical, and the answer requires a careful reading of what Jesus actually said alongside a sober assessment of the believer’s calling in a world that has never known lasting peace.
What Jesus Actually Said
In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:4-14; Mark 13:5-13; Luke 21:8-19), Jesus described a series of conditions that would characterise the period between His ascension and His return. Wars, famines, earthquakes, and persecution are listed as “the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:8). The phrase is deliberate. Birth pains increase in frequency and intensity as delivery approaches, but their early occurrence does not mean the birth is imminent. Jesus was describing conditions that would be present throughout the age, growing worse as the end draws nearer, but He was equally clear in the same breath: “See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6).
This instruction is extraordinarily important. Jesus did not say, “When you hear of wars, conclude that My return is imminent.” He said, “See that you are not alarmed.” The wars and rumours of wars are indicators that the world is broken, that human rebellion against God produces violence and suffering, and that history is moving toward a climax. They are not, in themselves, prophetic signs with specific eschatological timetables attached to them. The Tribulation will involve wars of an entirely different order, including the campaign of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16; 19:11-21), but the conflicts of the present age, however devastating, belong to the category of birth pains rather than the delivery itself.
Not Alarmed, But Not Indifferent
“See that you are not alarmed” is not an instruction to be unconcerned. The Christian is not a stoic, indifferent to human suffering because the end is coming anyway. Wars destroy families, displace communities, kill the innocent, and create suffering on a scale that demands compassion. The believer responds to conflict with prayer, with practical generosity toward those affected, and with the proclamation of a gospel that addresses the root cause of all human violence: the sinfulness of the human heart. James 4:1-2 diagnoses the source of wars with unflinching directness: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”
The Christian also recognises that governments bear the sword for the maintenance of justice (Romans 13:1-7), and that the use of force in defence of the innocent is not inherently sinful. Pacifism as an absolute principle does not sit easily with the whole of Scripture, which records God commanding warfare, endorsing the execution of justice through human authorities, and ultimately returning in person to wage war at Armageddon (Revelation 19:11-16). At the same time, the believer’s confidence is not in military power, political alliances, or the rise and fall of nations, but in the God who holds all of history in His hand.
The Temptation of Prophetic Speculation
Every major conflict in the last two centuries has produced a wave of prophetic speculation identifying the participants as the armies of Revelation or the nations of Ezekiel 38-39. The Napoleonic Wars, both World Wars, the Cold War, every Middle Eastern conflict, and every new geopolitical crisis have all been fitted into eschatological frameworks with great confidence and subsequently proved to be premature. This pattern should produce humility. The wars of the present age may indeed be harbingers of something larger, but the Christian is not called to decode the news cycle through prophetic lenses. Date-setting and event-mapping have a dismal track record and bring the study of biblical prophecy into disrepute.
What the believer can say with confidence is this: human history is moving toward a defined conclusion. God has not lost control. The wars and sufferings of the present age do not indicate divine absence or indifference; they indicate the consequences of human rebellion in a fallen world, and they will continue until the Prince of Peace returns to establish a kingdom in which “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
So, now what?
The Christian response to wars and rumours of wars is threefold. We pray, because God hears the prayers of His people and works through them even when the world is in chaos. We serve, because the victims of war are people made in the image of God who need both temporal help and eternal hope. And we proclaim, because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only message that addresses the root of all violence and offers a peace that no treaty can deliver. We are not alarmed, because the Lord told us these things would come. We are not idle, because He also told us to occupy until He comes (Luke 19:13). And we hold fast to the promise that the same Jesus who warned of wars also promised to return and make all things new.
“See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.” Matthew 24:6