How Wars are Started
MATTHEW 24:3-8
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? (Three questions)
4 ¶ And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (We are living in the most deceiving age of all ages)
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
GENESIS 3:16a
16 ¶ Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;
How Wars are Started
There can be many reasons why wars are started. Economic Gain, Territorial Gain, Revenge… Many reasons…
We also know that the birth of any nation is almost always associated and involves some kind of war and bloodshed among people. If fact the birth of anything is almost always associated with pain and bloodshed and sorrow.
**As believers of this hour, we know that this world is about to give birth to a new world of the millennium age that is soon to come, so as a woman gives birth in sorrow, blood, and pain, so this earth is also about to give birth through the same process as the birth pains of a woman. Brother Branham explains this in the message “Birth Pains” January 1965
BIRTH.PAINS_ PHOENIX.AZ V-3 N-4 SUNDAY_ 65-0124
89 The First World War showed great birth pains. It showed one of the first birth pains of her going into labor. Because of that time for her, we had brought forth the bombs, and we had machine guns, and poison gas. And you remember. Maybe many of you cannot. I was just a little boy of about eight years old, but I remember them speaking of this mustard and chlorine gas, and so forth. "How just look like it'd just get started and," they said, "it would burn up the whole earth. It'd kill everybody. Well, it might be a--a--a breaking of that, just winds blow it across the earth." And how everybody was scared to death of that great weapon of poison gas! The earth went through, had its first birth pains.
90 And we find out now, we've had a second war, World War, and her pains was much greater. It's more terrific all the time, the birth pains of the earth. She almost had to give away, during the time of the atomic bomb, because it would destroy a whole city. It was much greater than the pains of the First World War, of destruction to the earth.
91 Now, she knows that her time of deliverance is at hand. That's the reason she's so nervous, flusterated, as she is, is because that there is a hydrogen bomb, and missiles of the air that could destroy the whole world. One nation is scared of the other, no matter how little it is. They got those missiles that they claim will just... One of them. They can direct them by the stars and drop them anywhere in the world they want to.
92 Russia, as I heard on news, other day, she claims that she can destroy this nation, and--and keep the atoms or the things from breaking up her nation. We don't know what to do about it. Everyone is making these claims, and it's so.
93 People's science has broke into God's great laboratory, until they're going to destroy themselves. God lets, always lets wisdom destroy himself. God doesn't destroy anything. Man destroys himself by wisdom, as he did at the beginning, taking Satan's wisdom instead of God's Word.
Now, she knows she must give away. She cannot stand it.
So a woman giving birth to a child is like a new nation being birthed by wars and bloodshed and sorrow, or a new world of the millennium being birth by the birth pains of 3 world wars of bloodshed and sorrow. So brother Branham is showing us the connection between a woman’s labour pains in birth, and likening that to wars.
There can be war in a family between family members, war between churches, even (sad to say) some message churches. But before you can have wars, or before you can have labour pains, there is a conception that has to take place first. So how a war starts is the same as how birth pains start. That proves that the way Eve conceived was wrong because of what it produced.
She conceived by the means of the worldly wisdom she received from the serpent - The serpent’s wisdom led her to birth pains. And in this end time age it has also been the serpent’s wisdom with science and technology and worldly education that has led this age to the advancement of weapons and the destructive abilities that we have come to in this age.
BIRTH.PAINS_ PHOENIX.AZ V-3 N-4 SUNDAY_ 65-0124
96 …There's got to be something give away. She can't stand. If you put a George Washington or an Abraham Lincoln in every county in this United States, it still couldn't come back. It's beyond redemption.
97 There's only one thing can help her, that's the Coming of the Creator. Amen.
98 She knows she must give away. She's in pain and distress. One don't know what to do. One is looking this way, and one that way, and everything. One is scared of the other. One trying to do something will destroy this one. This one trying to contradict that one, destroy the other. Until, now they got it in the hands of sinful men, who could destroy the whole world in a five minutes time. See? So she knows she can't stand it. The people knows she can't stand it. And the world knows that they're going to, it's going to happen.
99 For, God said it was. "The whole heavens and earth is going to be on fire." It's going to be a renovation of the whole thing, so a new world can be born. God has prophesied it.
There are many different types of wars.
Corporate wars – where companies are fighting to get more of the market share
Cold wars – nations stock piling weapons as threats against each other.
Industrial wars – Manufacturing companies competing with one another in manufacturing.
Civil wars – War against people within your own nation and kind
World wars
Drug wars
Gang wars
Religious wars
Family wars
Domestic wars
Husbands and Wives at war with one another
Individuals at war with one another
Parents and children at war with one another
MARK 13:12
12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death.
We even saw that under Hitler’s reign in the Second World War – some of the Hitler youth became so indoctrinated with the teachings of Hitler and the importance of doing what was good for the mother state that these young people would even betray their own parents to the death.
In this hour, the world is in at state of mass confusion thanks to the television and fake news, and there are wars, and rumors of wars.
Notice – what one nation was in the Second World War (Germany) the whole world is unconsciously coming to that same condition of propaganda and lies and state control.
We want to study a little of how some of these wars in the bible started, because there are some great lessons that we can learn when dealing with one another in our relationships.
There are many places in the bible where the bible just doesn’t give the details of a certain war, but it also spends a lot of time giving us the details of how the war started because that is also very important.
*If you know how something starts, then it is much easier to stop it before it advances into an all-out war.
Almost all things start small before they become big. And many wars at their conception stage often involve misunderstandings and misinformation.
**Eve’s birth pains came about after she had conceived because of misinformation. (“Fake news” if you will)
Look at a war that was started by a good intension that was misunderstood.
II SAMUEL 10:1-19
1 ¶ And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead.
2 Then said David, I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father shewed kindness unto me. (I’ll buy by wife some flowers because she has had a hard day or something) And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon.
3 And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?
4 Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.
5 When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return.
6 ¶ And when the children of Ammon saw that they stank before David, the children of Ammon sent and hired the Syrians of Bethrehob, and the Syrians of Zoba, twenty thousand footmen, and of king Maacah a thousand men, and of Ishtob twelve thousand men.
7 And when David heard of it, he sent Joab, and all the host of the mighty men.
8 And the children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array at the entering in of the gate: and the Syrians of Zoba, and of Rehob, and Ishtob, and Maacah, were by themselves in the field.
9 When Joab saw that the front of the battle was against him before and behind, he chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians:
10 And the rest of the people he delivered into the hand of Abishai his brother, that he might put them in array against the children of Ammon.
11 And he said, If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me: but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee.
12 Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the LORD do that which seemeth him good.
13 And Joab drew nigh, and the people that were with him, unto the battle against the Syrians: and they fled before him.
14 And when the children of Ammon saw that the Syrians were fled, then fled they also before Abishai, and entered into the city. So Joab returned from the children of Ammon, and came to Jerusalem.
15 ¶ And when the Syrians saw that they were smitten before Israel, they gathered themselves together.
16 And Hadarezer sent, and brought out the Syrians that were beyond the river: and they came to Helam; and Shobach the captain of the host of Hadarezer went before them.
17 And when it was told David, he gathered all Israel together, and passed over Jordan, and came to Helam. And the Syrians set themselves in array against David, and fought with him.
18 And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there.
19 And when all the kings that were servants to Hadarezer saw that they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with Israel, and served them. So the Syrians feared to help the children of Ammon any more.
All this sorry and death and pain because of a few men that misunderstood the intensions of kindness from another king to their nation, and by their voice they influenced their king to act in a wrong and misunderstood way. Wars are started when false words are involved.
***Eve listened to a voice that influenced her by false words. In other words, there was a conception that was produced by false words, and that conception would lead to birth pains and war and sorrows for the entire human race.
Let us bring this down to a personal level. That is why the devil works so hard among people and especially believers to try to bring misunderstandings among us, because he knows that that will often lead to war.
***Many people are even at war with God because they have misunderstood God.
GOD.BEING.MISUNDERSTOOD_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 61-0723E
626-161 You know, misunderstanding gets us in a lot of trouble. Many times that people say things that they repeat after somebody else, where they misunderstood them. That gets a person in trouble. I believe it would be good for us if we just, well, wait till we understood what we was talking about. Don't you think so? I know it would be for me, a very good for me to find out first and then say it. See? But we're always, seem to be, misunderstood. And here David is speaking of Israel misunderstood His miracles when they were in Egypt.
Now, to misunderstand is just not to say, "Well, I didn't hear what he said," but to see something done and misunderstand what it's for, that's a--that's you're missing the boat all completely then.
627-163 Now, God doesn't do miracles just to say, "See, I'm God." God does a miracle for an understanding. See? God does it for a purpose. And did you notice the reading of the Psalms here in this 7th verse? I think it's so beautiful; I want to read it over again.
Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt;... (see, they didn't understand it)... they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even... the Red sea.
Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.
See, they did not understand why that God, down in Egypt, performed these miracles. He was trying to show them His mercies. (Just as David was trying to show kindness to Hanun) He was trying to get them to understand that He was God in their midst. I love that.
Notice how that God didn’t start a war with his children because of a misunderstanding, but he still went on and saved them for his name’s sake.
How Wars are Started
In our personal lives when dealing with one another, we want to be like God when we are misunderstood – that is the real victory. In your own personal dealings with one another, don’t allow wars to start from misunderstandings.
**When we are misunderstood or we misunderstand someone else, we must realize that we can easily allow that to advance into some kind of war, but may we be like God and not react in that way, but knowing that we can stop the war right then and let it go and pray for that person – that’s the real Christian thing to do.
If Hanun had just let king David’s ambassadors go instead of treating them badly by humiliating them, there would have been no war.