Some Christians will say that Jesus did not tell us how to avoid illness because man needs to be chastened by pain. If that is correct, if pain and disease are sent by God and are consciously permitted by Jesus, sick people should be allowed to suffer instead of trying to heal them.
Jesus has been called the Prince of Peace, but the weight of his testimony is not on the side of absolute pacifism. With his view of rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, it is possible that he would have advised young men to obey the state and enlist, or accept the draft, whenever their country called.
On November 12, 1931, Rev. Dr. T. Andrew Caraker said at a banquet of the American Legion in Baltimore that if Jesus Christ had lived in 1917 He would have been the first to volunteer in the American army, the first to wear a gas mask, shoulder a rifle and enter the trenches.
Other ministers derive from the same gospels the belief that Jesus would not have stabbed Germans with a bayonet. Nor would Jesus have advised others to fight if he had been unwilling to fight himself.
Most of the sayings of Jesus regarding violence or non-resistance were intended to apply chiefly to personal relationships; he said little of international strife. What he did say showed placid acceptance of the war system:
"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. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."[19]
"And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."[20]
"But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."[21]
These verses have a more direct bearing on war as we now know it than any of his other sayings. They show his belief in the inevitability of war. Apparently he did not feel himself competent to counteract general mass militarism. He offered no program for arbitration of international disputes, no substitute for war between nations, no policy of war resistance.