All the conduct of our Lord had meaning to it, and much of it was with an express view to teach his disciples by way of example. A little before he was betrayed, he ordered his disciples to take swords. The object of this must have been either to use them for defense, or for some other purpose. The event proves that they were not taken for self-defense. The question then is, For what were they taken? The event appears fully to answer the question, viz.: To prohibit, by way of example, the use of them for self-defense in the most trying situation possible. If any situation would justify self-defense with carnal weapons, it must have been the situation in which our Lord and his disciples were placed at the time he was betrayed. They were in a public garden, and they were assaulted by a mob, contrary to the statutes of the Romans and the laws of the Jews; and the object was to take his life. This the disciples knew, and Peter judged it a proper time for defense, and drew his sword and smote a servant of the High Priest and cut off his ear. As our Lord's kingdom was not of this world, he would not suffer his subjects to use the weapons of this world in any situation. He therefore healed the wound they made and rebuked Peter for his mistaken zeal. "Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot pray to my Father, and he would presently send me more than twelve legions of angels?" Here we see that our Lord not only forbade his disciples to use the sword in self-defense, but added a dreadful penalty to transgressors,--"all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." The disciples did not then fully understand that his kingdom was not of this world. As soon as they were prohibited using the weapons of this world they all forsook him and fled.[8] The apostle James, in his epistle to the twelve tribes of Israel which were scattered abroad, asks them this question: "From whence come wars and fighting among you? come they not even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, and yet ye have not." "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend to the world is an enemy of God." From this we think it evidently appears that the warlike spirit of the world is directly opposed to God. The God of this world works effectually in the hearts of the children of disobedience and stirs up their lusts which war in their members and hurries them on to acts of cruelty, revenge, and fighting.