– General William Tecumseh Sherman

December 4, 2025

Although I was born in 1940, sixteen months before the United States actively entered World War II, I didn’t taste my first candy bar, sip a coke, or lick an ice cream cone until after the end of the war. Why? Because sugar was the first food rationed and the last removed from the ration board’s list.

But as a small child, I had no idea what I was missing, and if I had, my concern would have been frivolous compared to the enormity of horrors faced by hundreds of millions around the world, horrors from which I was shielded.

The people of the USA suffered far more than my innocent little eyes were permitted to see. The United States suffered over 400,000 deaths directly attributed to the war, but few on our own soil. And in spite of Germany’s so-called Fifth Column, and in spite of a large German population in the United States, little damage was done on this continent by spies, and none by an invading army. Perhaps we did more direct damage to our own civilian population than did the Axis powers.

Since the Germans were not easily distinguised from most Americans, but the relatively loyal and benign Japanese Americans were – and in spite of the fact that many Germans were very active in pro-Nazi and anti-American activities prior to our entry into the war – it was the Japanese who suffered most.

With the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, made prior to their declaratioin of war, there was a massive reaction against Japanese citizens in the United States. To our shame, Earl Warren of California was successful in having the property of loyal second and third generation Japanese Americans seized, and the Japanese were incarcerated isent to prison camps. It was a great shame on our nation, and it thaat shame was compounded because its instigator, Earl Warren, was later appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The scope and intensity of the war grew. It is estimated that just prior to the war, when a few nations were diverting resources in anticipation of involvement, that the United States invested just 2% of it’s gross national product in preparation, while the British, who had just survived World War I, its people war weary and hoping for peace, spent 7%.

By 1944, as the end of the war in Europe drew near, the Nazis were on a total war footing, devoting 75% of their GNP on their war machine, with England at 54%, and the USA, 42%. Many people in the USA were simply inconvenienced, with gasoline and many foods rationed. In many countries, however, people were starving. The figures for Germany, however, are misleading, as they pillaged every country they conquered, and then made slaves of millions of people, forcing them to work in war plants on starvation rations.

Our efforts to help the people of Britain were hindered by the German wolf packs,submarines preying on our cargo ships and oil tankers.. At one point, half the cargo ships we sent to England were sunk by German submarines, sending to the bottom of the Atlantic precious food and clothing that would never benefit anyone. But these numbers cannot begin to express the human misery, deprivation, suffering, dislocation, economic loss, and physical destruction of property, much less the deaths of millions.

It’s estimated that 16-million military personnel and 45-million civilians lost their lives, including 405,000 from the USA and 384,000 from Great Britain, not to speak of 5.3-million Germans and an incredible 26-million from Communist Russia.

War brings casualties, and civilians are often referred to as collateral damage or incidental damage, innocuous phrases that gloss over the deaths of non-combatants. I don’t call them “innocent civilians,” as the victims of crime and warfare are often characterized. For none of us is truly innocent. But there’s an important lesson here, for those who have been made righteous because they trusted in Christ, who are not simply prone to collateral damage, but are often targets of the world and the devil. Most people consider their deaths as defeats for Christianity, just as others consider the death of Christ to be a victory of Satan over God.

But they are wrong. Jesus came to this world with the express purpose of dying for our sins, and he proved it by raising himself from the dead.

“Sometimes what looks like defeat is victory,” as a Holman Study Bible commentator wrote, “as when believers die for their faith.”

But as the three Hebrews who faced Nebuchadnezzar said,

“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.”

Daniel 3:17

Jesus Christ observed that “there will be wars and rumors of wars,” but God doesn’t motivate mankind to go to war. So when the faithful are targeted by enemies of God, as were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they know that they will be delivered out of the hands of the enemy—whether through life or death—because “…to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8); and they “…will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).

We all inevitably face death, and we had better have that holy confidence that we will ultimately see God. Few of us will pass quietly into that dark night, just falling asleep and awakening an instant later in paradise. Most of us face the trials of injury, accident, and illness; and yes, the vicissitudes of war. And you might face your very own fiery furnace for a moment in time, but if you are born again, it will be just like a snap of the fingers, and you will be in heaven. But those who reject God will face a fiery trial forever.

Consider Job, who Satan tempted and tortured mercilessly. Yet Job proved faithful, and triumphed, as do those written about in The Revelation. And just as you will triumph as you hang on to Jesus. The beloved disciple John tells us what will happen to Satan who tried Job and continues to harasses us.

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Revelation 12:10.

And what will be the outcome for those who turn to Christ during the coming great tribulation?

And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Revelation 12:1

Each of us has a major part in this epic adventure called life. Jesus provided for our salvation by dying for us, by taking the penalty for our sins, so that we would not have to suffer for all eternity. We prove our faith by testifying that he is Savior and Lord, and by our willingness to pass through the darkness of death into his marvelous light. We reveal that we are serious with God because we live through whatever comes by trusting him to ultimately deliver us.

If you feel challenged today—if an enemy has attacked, or you’ve been betrayed by a loved and trusted relative, friend, or associate; or you are suffering from a physical ailment, mental breakdown, severe privation, or even by murderous assault; whether you are thrown to lions, or pass away in your sleep, remember, we all live forever–some in God’s presence and the others under everlasting judgment.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Hebrews 9:27

Are you one who will overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of your testimony, or will you awaken from death only fo find yourself facing the second death?

“War is hell,” but you may overcome by the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, and by your faith in him.

Copyright 2025, Frank Becker

File: 3DEC25, War Is Hell