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In several parts of the bible, God is described as a warrior…

• The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name. (Exodus 15:3, NRSV).
• But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. (Jeremiah 20:11a, NIV)
• The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory. (Zephaniah 3:17)
• Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. (Psalm 24:8)
• I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war…. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen…. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: ‘King of kings, and Lord of lords'” (Revelation 19:11-16)
• … In truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left. (2 Corinthians 6:7)
• If you go back to the poems that most scholars consider the oldest pieces of the Bible, there’s no mention of God creating anything. He seems more interested in destroying; he is in large part a warrior god. What some believe to be the oldest piece of all, Exodus 15, is an ode to Yahweh for drowning Egypt’s army in the Red Sea. It begins, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea… the Lord is a warrior. Robert Wright
• The LORD of hosts is not just an expression of greatness, but of armed might willing to punish evil and uphold righteousness. The message of this passage in Joshua, and the entire Bible, for that matter, is that God is a mighty Warrior who will judge righteously and punish wrong. If we believe God is too loving to punish the wicked, then our Bible knowledge is thin indeed. He is mighty. And his mere presence is enough to win the battle, for the “battle is the LORD’S” (1 Samuel 17:47; Exodus 14). Ralph F. Wilson
• You may have known God as Almighty God. But did you ever think of him as Mighty Warrior? The Israelites did. He is ´El Shaddai, Almighty God. He has military prowess as the LORD of Hosts/Armies (Yahweh-Sabaoth), a Mighty Warrior, and the LORD our Banner (Yahweh-nissi). Ralph F. Wilson

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…or a mighty war commander

• Almighty God, we put our trust in your might and power. We feel safe from the enemy with you on our side. Help us to arm and be part of the battle, your battle, ever trusting in you, the Commander of the armies of the LORD. In Jesus’ mighty name, we pray. Amen. Ralph F. Wilson
• An common title for God in the Old Testament is as “The LORD of hosts” (Yahweh-Sabaoth), which appears nearly 250 times. The plural Hebrew noun is ṣebā´ōt, “armies, hosts.” It’s quite possible that Yahweh-Sabaoth became a technical term that referred to Yahweh the mightiest Warrior or Yahweh the all-powerful King, which explains the consistent NIV translation as “LORD Almighty.” However you take the term, Yahweh-Sabaoth portrays God as a mighty war commander, able to bring to bear innumerable hosts or armies wherever and whenever he desires. Ralph F. Wilson
• We will follow our God, the Mighty Warrior, Almighty God (´El-Shaddai), the Commander of the Armies of the LORD, the LORD of Hosts (Yahweh-Sabaoth). And he shall win the battle! Ralph F. Wilson

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We are said to be soldiers in the army of God, helping to fight God’s battles…

• Each restorational advancement of the Army of the Lord has established denominational forts that are given responsibility to maintain the purity and power of that truth… New recruits are now being drafted and trained and older soldiers and generals are being put through intensified training for the next advancement of the Church Army. They are being purified by the Baptism of Fire… Are you ready? Where do you start? What will you do? A new government must be established, a new way of life for those millions of people. You are now ready to rule and reign on your overcomer’s throne! Bill Hamon
• The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. Charles Spurgeon
• And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’S, and he will give you into our hands.” (1 Samuel 17:47, KJV)
• Look to the souls of Your own soldiers, God, who labor in Thine awful cause. Janet Morris
• The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. (Proverbs 21:31)
• Armed Soldier, terrible as Death, relentless as Doom; doing God’s judgement on the Enemies of God. It is a phenomenon not of joyful nature; no, but of awful, to be looked at with pious terror and awe. Thomas Carlyle
• Gentleman, God created you with the heart of a warrior. Until there’s something you’re willing to die for, you can’t truly live. Craig Groeschel
• God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers. Jennifer Lee
• God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions. Voltaire

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…a metaphor particularly common in Christianity

• A true and faithful Christian does not make holy living an accidental thing. It is his great concern. As the business of the soldier is to fight, so the business of the Christian is to be like Christ. Jonathan Edwards
• Christian soldiers armed with virtue- hearts afire with blind obsession, cannot see the difference ‘twixt compassion and oppression. Lucretia Mott
• Christianity is warfare, and Christians are spiritual soldiers. Robert Southwell
• Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs — he wants to please his commanding officer.” (2 Timothy 2:3-4)
• Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe; forward into battle, see his banners go! Sabine Baring-Gould
• The Christian soldier must avoid two evils – he must not faint or yield in the time of fight, and after a victory he must not wax insolent and secure. When he has overcome, he is so to behave himself as though he were presently again to be assaulted. For Satan’s temptations like the waves of the sea, do follow one in the neck of the other. George Downame
• This is no time for wimpy Christians. It’s time for soldiers of Christ to arise! Alistair Begg
• We must participate in the battle. We are called to war against the spiritual enemies of God that we face. So many Christians are passive wimps in the face of a still-strong foe. We must arm spiritually; we must be ever-wakeful, ready to fight with God at our head. In the New Testament sleep and lethargy are the opposites of vigilance. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus roused his disciples: “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Luke 22:46). Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
• The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain; His blood red banner streams afar: Who follows in His train? Who best can drink his cup of woe, Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears his cross below, He follows in His train. Reginald Heber

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We are told to fight the “good fight”…

• I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)
• Fight the good fight of faith. (1 Timothy 6:12, cf. 1:18)

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…to wage a spiritual battle

• Automatically thinking ‘everything that happens is God’s will’ is a lazy way to live. We live in a war. Jesus wasn’t fighting the Father’s will when He raised the dead. Bill Johnson
• Before commencing battle, the Warrior of Light opens his heart and asks God to inspire him. Paulo Coelho
• Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honour of losing and the joy of winning I am not here to tell you that defeat is a part of life: we all know that. Only the defeated know Love. Because it is in the realm of love that we fight our first battles – and generally lose. I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated. They are the ones who never fought. They managed to avoid scars, humiliations, feelings of helplessness, as well as those moments when even warriors doubt the existence of God.’’ Paulo Coelho
• Each Warrior of the Light contains within him the spark of God. Paulo Coelho
• Follow your dreams, transform your life, take the path that leads to God. Perform your miracles. Cure. Make prophecies. Listen to your guardian angel. Transform yourself. Be a warrior, and be happy as you wage the good fight. Take risks. Paulo Coelho
• For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4)
• Prayer plumes the wings of God’s young eaglets so that they may learn to mount above the clouds. Prayer brings inner strength to God’s warriors and sends them forth to spiritual battle with their muscles firm and their armor in place. Charles Spurgeon
• The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:12)
• The warrior knows that the most important words in all languages are the small words. Yes. Love. God. They are words that are easy enough to say and which fill vast empty spaces. Paulo Coelho
• The warrior of light knows the importance of intuition. In the midst of battle, he does not have time to think of the enemy’s blows, and so he uses his instinct and obeys his angel. in times of peace, he deciphers the signs that God sends him. People say, “He’s mad.” Or, “He lives in a fantasy world.” Or even, “How can he possibly believe in such illogical things?” But the warrior knows that intuition is God’s alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars. Paulo Coelho

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We are told that God will help us fight our battles

• How should the knowledge that the battle is the Lord’s affect the way we approach life? In what way do both timidity and brashness get it wrong? Are there any instances in which the Lord will not fight our battles? Ralph F. Wilson
• If God is on our side, he’ll stop the next war. Bob Dylan
• There are two important lessons that disciples must learn from these names of God: 1. The battle is the Lord’s. He will fight for us. We, too, must prepare ourselves to fight. Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
• This is what the LORD says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s.’ (2 Chronicles 20:15b)
• But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.” (Jeremiah 20:11a, NIV)

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We are encouraged to be at war with our sinful nature

• One must wage war against his predominant passion and not retreat until, with God’s help, he has been victorious. Ignatius of Loyola
• I preach hard against that idea and plead with people to make war against sin. I tell them it’s not going to be easy. Some people are meant to wrestle with their sin a long time before God brings them to freedom, but let’s wrestle. Let’s fight. Let’s do something besides just complain. Matt Chandler
• Make peace with man and war with your sins. Proverb
• God is always at war with sin. G. Campbell Morgan
• Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death. John Owen

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We are encouraged to be at war with the devil…

• Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesians 6:11-13 and through verse 17)
• The war of Armageddon has already started… God is using his many weapons. He is sending hurricanes so fast that [the blue-eyed devils] can’t name them. He is drowning them in floods and causing their cars to crash and their airplanes cannot stay up in the sky. Their boats are sinking because Allah controls all things and he is using all methods to begin to wipe the devils off the planet, [and] the enemy is dying of diseases that have never been so deadly. Malcolm X
• We are on God’s side. This is not a war between Arabs and Jews. It’s a war between God and the devil. Benny Hinn

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…at war with evil

• It is a war of light vs. darkness, of Christ vs. antichrist, the Word of God vs. secular humanism. There will be a winner and a loser!.. There is no compromise with the enemy. There is no neutrality in this war! John Hagee
• A man can no more be a Christian without facing evil and conquering it than he can be a soldier without going to battle, facing the cannon’s mouth, and encountering the enemy in the field. Edwin Hubbel Chapin

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The words war and God have been linked for eons

• All gods are tricksters, and war gods worst of any. Janet Morris
• All the gods are dead except the god of war. Eldridge Cleaver
• Ares (The God of War) hates those who hesitate. Euripides
• Artillery is the god of war. Joseph Stalin
• Blood is the god of war’s rich livery. Christopher Marlowe
• I’m the god of war, the resurrector of the horror-core. The carnivore, destroying you wasn’t hard at all. Vinnie Paz
• The hideous god of war. William Shakespeare
• The god of war hates those who hesitate. George S. Patton
• The god of war is impartial: he hands out death to the man who hands out death. Homer

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Those who believe in God as warrior tend to become warriors themselves

• People who think of God as a warrior may become warriors themselves, whether in a Christian crusade, a Muslim jihad, or an apocalyptically oriented militia. People who think of God as righteous are likely to emphasize righteousness themselves, just as those who think of God as compassionate are likely to emphasize compassion. People who think God is angry at the world are likely to be angry at the world themselves. Marcus Borg

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Throughout history, man has made use of God as an excuse to wage war

• Man’s idea of God, and a God’s collusion, is an essential part of the equation to wage war. Ralph Steadman
• May God have mercy for my enemies because I won’t. George S. Patton
• Men of God and men of war have strange affinities. Cormac McCarthy
• God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts. Possess them not with fear. William Shakespeare
• Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain. Mark Twain
• Muhammad said, “…fight everyone in the way of God and kill those who disbelieve in God…” Ibn Ishaq

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Many make the point that war is a purely human affair and that God is against all war…

• War isn’t declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely. Woodrow Wilson
• War lives on despotism and is not waged with God’s love. Simon Bolivar
• Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change. Fred M. Vinson
• No man can be a Christian and a soldier at the same time, for the two ideas are wholly incompatible. William E. Woodward
• So I would say God hates war, but God loves every soldier. Rick Warren
• We’re all sick of holy wars and bloodshed because religion is supposed to give us life and a better life and is supposed to bring out our best self. When it results in mass destruction and hatred and anxiety, it’s the antithesis I think of what religion was designed to do. Vera Farmiga
• World War II proves there’s no God. Penn Jillette
• You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill nor daring. It is not a trial of souls, not the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them. Scott Bakker
• In times of war, you often hear leaders—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans. Greg Mortenson

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…and that the idea of a holy war is a contradiction in terms

• A holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it. Elie Wiesel
• If there is a God, the phrase that must disgust him is – holy war. Steve Allen
• We don’t need holy wars. What we need is tolerance and brotherhood and simple humanity. Arlen Specter
• I think the evangelicals think they’re in a holy war now. Maureen Dowd

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Some argue that Jesus symbolises the end of the warrior God of the old testament

• The sin that Jesus bore, and that we are now empowered to live free from, includes all the sinful warrior deity images humans throughout history have projected onto God. In this way, the cross is at one and the same time the definitive revelation of the true loving God and the “crucifixion of the warrior god”. And just as we should forever revolt against the sin and that was permanently put to death on the cross, so too followers of Jesus should forever revolt against the sinful warrior image of God that was permanently put to death on the cross. Gregory A. Boyd

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To be at war with our sins is to be at war with ourselves and counterproductive

• When I used to fight my unconsciousness, it turned the adventure of awakening into a perpetual struggle. Tim Freke
• We mistakenly define the spiritual life as a battle with sin, making it the centerpiece of our story, giving it far too much power and attention. Doug Hammack
• Once we define the spiritual journey as a battle with sin, we don’t focus on returning to our true selves. Doug Hammack
• There is no holy life. There is no war between good and evil. There is no sin and no redemption. None of these things matter to the real you. But they all matter hugely to the false you, the one who believes in the separate self. Deepak Chopra

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• A friend was in front of me coming out of church one day, and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands. He grabbed my friend by the hand and pulled him aside. The Pastor said to him, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!” My friend replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.” Pastor questioned, “How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?” He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service.”
• Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography. Paul Rodriguez