A Time for War

Ecclesiastes 3:8

A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.

Thomas Paine once wrote, “I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my

time, so that my children can live in peace”. Like Paine, we all prefer peace. But we live

in a world where peace is hard to come by. Humans have had conflicts from the very

beginning.

Genesis 4 tells us that Cain murdered his younger brother, Abel. Matthew 24 quotes

Jesus telling the disciples, ‘You will hear of wars and threats of wars.’ Even before God

created the universe, we know there was war in heaven when satan led a rebellion

against God.

Even though war is not something to be longed for, there comes a time when war is

reality.

Paine’s words capture a timeless moral instinct: the willingness of one generation to

bear hardship, so the next might inherit something better. He recognizes that conflict is

sometimes unavoidable, yet he insists that its burden should fall on those strong enough

to face it rather than on the innocent who follow.

At its core, Paine’s statement is an expression of protective love. He does not glorify

conflict; in fact, he explicitly prefers peace. But he also understands that peace is not

preserved by wishful thinking. It requires courage, responsibility, and the willingness to

confront injustice or disorder before it grows into something more destructive. His

sentiment reflects the moral duty of a parent, a leader, or any steward of the future: to

stand in the gap, so others do not have to.

This is not a call to seek out conflict, but a recognition that avoiding necessary struggle

only postpones it, often at greater cost. Paine’s generation, he believed, should face the

turmoil of their time so their children could inherit stability.

His words also echo themes of individual sacrifice for the common good. Paine was a

champion of liberty, but he understood that freedom is sustained only when people are

willing to shoulder its costs. Peace, in his view, is not passive; it is something actively

built and defended.

Paine’s words remind us that peace is not merely the absence of conflict but the presence

of justice, stability, and moral clarity. Achieving that peace often requires difficult

choices. It demands that we look beyond our own comfort and consider the world we

are shaping for those who come after us.

In this way, Paine’s quote is both a reflection and a challenge. It invites us to ask whether

we are confronting the troubles of our own time with the same resolve. It urges us to

act with foresight, to take responsibility for the future, and to recognize that our choices

today echo across generations.

As our nation finds ourselves in another war, let us look to the day when the future

generations of Israel, Iran, and the rest of the world can live in peace.

Pastor Marty