Will it take a War?
Radio March 10, 2009
I have three questions.
Where in the world are we?
How did we get here?
What comes next?
I only know of two places to turn for answers: History and the Bible. By now, we should know that history runs in cycles, and the bible says it will be so. Speaking through Isaiah, God challenged Israel’s idols:
(Isaiah 41:22-23 NIV) Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
Prophecy in the Bible is written in what teachers call type and antitype. The word “type” comes from the Greek and refers to the die that is used to strike an image into metal or a clay tablet. The die is the type, the impressed image, the antitype. What happened in the past is the key to the future, as it shapes repeated images yet to be seen.
In the past 150 years, we have seen cycles of economic boom, followed by a bust, followed by hard times, followed by war in one form or another. One theorist of these cycles thinks that the cycle runs for about 60 years. Maybe it depends on how long it takes us to forget. We have a generation now that doesn’t recall the Jimmy Carter years, and they have never experienced a real recession. And I don’t have the impression that much history is being taught these days. If indeed, those who don’t remember the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them, it seems we are in for some tough sledding.
So, here we sit, teetering on the brink, wondering if a real 12 year depression lies ahead (as it did in 1929), and if it is likely that it will take a war to bring us out of it, as it did before. It took the Japanese to get us out of the great depression by bombing Pearl Harbor. This time, the cycle has started out with greater extremes than we have seen before, and one wonders if the extremes will carry forward.
In this past boom, more wealth was created, and more people were brought out of poverty than at any time in history. It is easy to forget this in all the lamenting about the plight of the poor. One reason is that the government in this country keeps changing the definition of what constitutes poverty.
David Smick, in his book, The World is Curved, remarked that the world was awash in capital, that there was more capital than there were reasonable places to invest it. So, people took greater chances with it, and we now see where it has taken us. Much of that capital has simply been wiped out.
Does the Bible give us any idea of why this happens? Yes, it does. I commend to your reading Deuteronomy, chapter 28. A lot of people make a fundamental error in reading this: They assume it is merely the old covenant, and it has only to do with God and Israel. Actually, it is a formula which describes what will happen in any nation depending on how they conduct their affairs—a classic if/then statement:
(Deuteronomy 28:1-2 NIV) If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
This is not complicated. God handed down a moral code from Mt. Sinai. He went further and laid out a religious code to keep people mindful of the moral code. The whole idea of religious assembly is keep people mindful.
(2 Timothy 4:2 KJV) Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
So, what are the conditions of this formula? The first condition is: “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands. And the result? “The LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.”
The blessings that follow are a type. The life we have lived in this country since our founding was for a while, the antitype of what happens to a moral people.
But then there follows in Deuteronomy what happens when we forget.
(Deuteronomy 28:15 KJV) But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:
There follows a staggering litany of what can and will go wrong for the nation that forsakes the Divine Law. It is unfortunate that people read this as though God curses the people. The truth is, God doesn’t have to lift a finger. Note the wording: “these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:” I.e., your sins will catch up with you. The curses are the natural result of a way of living, not the result of God pressing a button. You can read Deuteronomy 28, lay it over the history of this country, and see about where we are. Take this for an example:
(Deuteronomy 28:43-44 NIV) The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.
Or take the example that one day we will hit the ultimate down cycle.
(Deuteronomy 28:45-50 KJV) Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee: {46} And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. {47} Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; {48} Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. {49} The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; {50} A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young:
I wonder if anyone in Britain during the Blitz thought about this passage. I wonder if anyone in this country considers that this might lie in our future. Is it possible that a people can turn this thing around? Of course there is. That is what allows the cycle to repeat. There are two thing that tend to change people: hard times and war. And no matter how far back you go in history, human nature doesn’t change. The same cycles can be found there with different technology.
I came across an interesting example in an obscure prophet named Zephaniah. He wrote during the reign of Josiah. Josiah became king when he was 8 years old. The people became so angry with the previous kings, there was something of a revolution. When Josiah was in his late 20s, they discovered the book of the covenant, the law, in the Temple while repairs were proceeding. The book was brought to Josiah who was shocked and frightened when he heard it read.
Unless you read the story of his reforms (2 Kings 23), you can’t grasp the extent of the moral landslide that had taken place. Idolatry, and the morals that went with it, had gone even further downhill than we have today. That lays the groundwork for what Zephaniah had to say. After his preamble, and the recounting of the sins of the people, he wrote:
(Zephaniah 1:11-13 NIV) Wail, you who live in the market district ; all your merchants will be wiped out, all who trade with silver will be ruined. {12} At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, 'The LORD will do nothing, either good or bad.' {13} Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They will build houses but not live in them; they will plant vineyards but not drink the wine.
Josiah instituted a lot of reforms, but they didn’t reach everyone, and they ultimately didn’t hold. Remember, I said it sometimes took a war to change things? Josiah was killed in war with the Egyptians in his late 30s.
So, here we are. Facing hard times. We have experience a boom like no other in history, and a moral landslide that beggars the imagination. Are the hard times enough to turn us around this time? Or will it take a war? In an earlier cycle, it took WWII. Winston Churchill called that war one of the most preventable wars that ever came to be. It was also the most destructive of human life in the history of man.
If that war was preventable, why wasn’t it prevented? I recommend to you the first volume of Churchill’s history of the war. I think in large measure, that war happened because the world would not believe that Hitler was as evil as he obviously was. Do you suppose we could make the same mistake again?
There is a new book out that is worth thinking about: Inside the Revolution, by Joel Rosenberg.
The Revolution at issue the one that ousted the Shah of Iran and installed the current regime.
Someone sent me some excerpts from the introduction of the book. I can’t say I didn’t know these things, because the information has been rattling around out there for years. But the book may be especially timely in pulling a lot of the facts together.
Rosenberg wrote:
On April 1, 1979, Iran became the first Islamic republic in history. Three decades later, the shock waves from the Iranian Revolution are still being felt around the globe. Iran today is the most dangerous terrorist state on the face of the planet. What's more, we are rapidly approaching the most dangerous moment in the history of the Iranian Revolution.
Iran's senior leaders have taught in recent years that the Revolution is now reaching its climax. They have stated publicly that the end of the world is "imminent." They have taught that the way to hasten the arrival or appearance on earth of the Islamic messiah known as the "Twelfth Imam," or the "Mahdi," is to destroy Israel, which they call the "Little Satan," and the United States, which they call the "Great Satan." They have vowed to annihilate the United States and Israel and have urged Muslims to envision a world without America and Zionism. They have come to believe that Allah has chosen them to create chaos and carnage on the planet.
I know this is true. You don’t have to be a student of Iran or the Middle East to know it, you just have to be attentive and realistic. I have no idea how seriously our government is taking this. You would think they would see it coming. After all, they are the government. They have all this information. I don’t know, but I know this. In the 1930s, Hitler’s intentions were plain. He had written a book stating his intentions. One man, Winston Churchill took him at his word. Chamberlain and the government did not. It has been said that Chamberlain’s trip to Munich was the trigger that headed of a planned coup to oust Hitler from power. Back to Rosenberg’s introduction:
The key leaders in Iran seem hell-bent on accomplishing their apocalyptic, genocidal mission. They are feverishly trying to build, buy, or steal nuclear weapons. Iran is actively testing advanced ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Tehran is building alliances with Russia, China, and North Korea-all nuclear-armed powers-and has cooperated on the development of offensive and defensive weapons systems with those countries.
This next quote should catch your attention:
Iran's leaders are building a network of thousands of suicide bombers ready to strike American targets. They are sending suicide bombers and other insurgents, money, and weapons into Iraq to kill Iraqis as well as American and Coalition forces. They are harboring scores of al Qaeda terrorists and leaders inside Iranian cities and allowing terrorists to crisscross their territory. They are making a concerted effort to enlarge the reach of terrorist operations by building strategic alliances with other jihadist organizations, regardless of their theological differences.
The Iranian leaders are digging hundreds of thousands of new graves in Iran itself to bury the enemies of Islam. They are calling for the unification of the Islamic world politically and economically, including the creation of a single currency. They are aggressively exporting their Islamic Revolution to countries throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Put simply, the leaders of Iran believe that Allah is on their side, the wind is at their back, and the end of Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it is near.
Now, Rosenberg is not a doom sayer.
I believe just the opposite. As an evangelical Christian with a Jewish father (and Gentile mother), I worship the God of the Bible-the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who is also the God of the New Testament. I do not believe that God is on the side of the zealots that run Iran. Rather, I believe that the end of their reign of terror is increasingly close at hand. Every day I pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Every day I pray for peace throughout the Middle East. What's more, I pray for the salvation of the leaders of Iran and the salvation of their terrorist allies, and I encourage others to do the same. And because I serve a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, a wonder-working God of miracles, I firmly believe that God in His grace can change the leadership in Iran.
That said, the God of the Bible may have other plans. If, in His sovereignty, He chooses not to remove the Radicals in Iran, then I believe a major, cataclysmic war or series of wars is coming soon as a direct result of the Iranian Revolution that was set into motion by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The United States, NATO, Israel, or some combination thereof could initiate a preemptive strike to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat. If they do not, Iran will soon be poised to launch the apocalyptic war required by its theology to destroy the West and usher in the End of Days. The question we all must be asking is not if there will be war with Iran but when it will begin and who will strike first....
What the extremists need most-what they pray for most of all-are Western ignorance, apathy, and lack of moral clarity. If the West can be lulled to sleep, if free people the world over can somehow be prevented from understanding the true goals and objectives of the Radicals and mobilizing to take all necessary actions to prevent their success, then the Radicals will soon be able to pull off a series of attacks that make 9/11 pale by comparison and could leave millions dead, not thousands.
So, what is going to happen? It all depends. It depends on where we stand with God. The prophets speak with remarkable consistency about a pattern. Repent, turn to God, live according to his standards and have freedom and peace. Ignore the prophets, pursue immorality, and a sequence of bad things follow. Economic collapse, then war, then loss of freedom.
We have been down this road ourselves more than once. Now, we head into another economic collapse, and wonder if war is on the other side. Keep in mind, that the warnings of the prophets do not require God to lift a finger. The calamities come our way for the simplest of reasons. Because we reject any source of morality apart from ourselves, we rot away from the inside.
There is a way that leads to life. There is a way that leads to death. And we have come a long way down the wrong road. Joel Rosenberg had the key in his hand. Any turn around that takes place in the hard times will have to be led by Christian people.
(Matthew 7:13-14 NIV) "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. {14} But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
It is up to Christian people to show the way. What worries me is that Christian people are not led by the Bible as they once were. And thus, they lack the moral clarity, the willingness to call evil by its name, the courage to confront evil. With force if necessary.
I hear a lot of idealistic nonsense these days. We mustn’t use enhanced interrogation with terrorists, who are murderers after all. I am waiting for someone to ask the definitive question:
How many American lives are you prepared to sacrifice for this principle?
Are you ready to die for it?