A Troubled World
 Regarding
the escalating U.S. confrontation with Iran and other
disturbing news from the four corners of this planet
a man recently asked, “What in the world is going
on in the world?”. There was no smirk or smile
on his face and his eyes betrayed a concern that was
somewhat new in his heart. It was almost as if he was
awaking from sleep to a world that is very much different
from the one which existed when he went to bed. For
years he, and most all of us, worried little about what
was going on elsewhere. For most of our lives we were
content with business-as-usual, and as long as tomorrow
was going to be like today there was nothing to worry
so much about. Then things suddenly jumped up and slapped
us in the face...and we awakened to a world hostile
toward everything secure and sacred to us.
Business people, like the man above,
are beginning to ask the same question with more frequency.
Since we are becoming a global society where borders
are no longer a hindrance to enterprise and where discontent
in an insignificant part of the world can have a ripple
effect on the bottom line here in small-town America,
people are taking the events on the six o’clock
news more seriously than ever. In the balmy, Norman
Rockwell days of 1950s America no one would have ever
thought the insane words of some here-to-fore unknown
Moslem leader would someday cause the price of oil to
go through the ceiling. But it has happened. And it
is not over yet.
Indeed, what is going on in our world?
Is the situation really that bad, and if it is can anybody
do something about it? The answer to the first question
is simple: the world is going in the direction of complete
interdependence in politics, commerce and religion which
will be the platform from which anti-Christ will exert
world-wide rule. The answer to the second question is
yes, the situation is that bad, and no, there is absolutely
nothing anybody can do about it. No human, that is.
And before Jesus personally intervenes at the end of
an absolutely cataclysmic seven year period billions
of people will die, the earth will be ripped up with
earthquakes whose magnitudes are unprecedented and the
entire system of human life as we presently know it
will be turned on its edge. As Dr. Henry Morris once
said about the book of Revelation, these things are
not very difficult to understand at all; they are simply
too difficult for most to believe.
It wasn’t many years ago some
researchers held that natural calamities were not, in
fact, increasing in number and intensity as a corollary
to the Bible’s words about nature’s “birth
pains” in those last days prior to the return
of Jesus. That conclusion does not seem to hold much
water these days. There is a little thought-about geologic
fault line 50 miles wide centered near the Missouri
town of New Madrid that goes from Alabama to Illinois.
Lots of FEMA attention has been directed to that area
lately. Michel Pawlowski, a FEMA section chief said,
“New Madrid is at the top of the list. It’s
our primary objective.” 1
The reason for such concern is the prediction of a magnitude
6 or larger quake in that area is 25-50% in the next
50 years. A magnitude 7 quake would destroy more than
60% of St. Louis and Memphis.
Consider the Hayward Fault, the most
dangerous in the San Francisco Bay area and perhaps
the most dangerous in the country. Two million people
would be affected by a quake in that region, and with
the predicted magnitude of 6.7 to 7.0 it would destroy
over 150,000 houses, nearly 40,000 in San Francisco
itself and affect 2 million people. 2
Many people are presently remembering the devastating
earthquake that hit that area on April 18, 1906.
The second most interesting sentence
in the second cited article above was from a 62 year
old resident who is seeing cracks in her house and in
the street every day. She said, “There’s
dangers all around us, all the time, so if we thought
about those dangers all the time, we wouldn’t
have anything else to think about. We just come home
and say, ‘The house is still here.’ We’re
OK for another day.” The most interesting sentence
was, “The quake could come at any moment.”
This speaks volumes about the general public’s
general apathy about imminent events. I’ll leave
it to you to put it all in prophetic context.
Gas is predicted to be at historic
highs this summer because of a troubled world. Insecurity
stemming from the unknown crimps the stock market while
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejab, an Islamic madman,
flat-out threatens nuclear war. Ahmadinejab believes
war with the west will usher in the arrival of al-Mahdi,
their Islamic messiah. And this is where it could become
interesting. Ahmadinejab said Israel is a permanent
threat to the Middle East and would have to soon be
annihilated. Folks, firing Katyusha rockets and dispatching
Islamic homicide bombers is just one aspect of Islam’s
war against Israel; an aspect that is responded to in
a low-level conventional manner. Nukes, however, are
another threat altogether.
This troubled world cannot afford to
allow Ahmadinejab, et. al., to take a nuclear shot at
Israel. She will respond with a vengeance using nuclear
weapons of her own and the result would be the sand
of the Middle East melting into a sea of glass. Bush,
Blair, Putin, the EU, the UN and even many in the Islamic
world all understand this. Understanding the problem,
however, is not the problem. Doing something about the
problem is the problem. No one — repeat, no one
— has the answer. World leadership is under a
very severe time constraint because the self-imposed
deadline for Iran to do what they think they need to
do is 2007; a date that will put them beyond the point
of no return.
Tom Newton Dunn, in an article in the
18 April 2006 edition of The Son Online said
an unnamed Israeli official believes action against
Iran needs to be taken soon. Quite simply the 2007 date
will not give UN sanctions time to work. Some are saying
Iran will plunge the world into World War III, and that
is something most everyone agrees must be avoided. But,
no body knows how. Especially since Iran is part of
the Islamic world, and nothing unites Moslems like their
common hatred for Israel and America. Combine the growing
demand for oil by China, India and other rapidly developing
countries with the natural instinct of national preeminence
and preservation and we have a boiling cauldron of hatred,
distrust and fear.
If all that were not enough social
turmoil is shredding the basic fabric of society. It
seems the norm is to play the race card at every opportunity
whether it is hurricanes, immigration, crimes against
persons, etc. Agitators make their living traveling
around capitalizing on societal unrest. And this is
not limited to America. France suffers from an inability
to deal with anarchists while Spain kowtows to terrorists,
and Putin of Russia deals with rebels in Chechnya while
imposing restrictions on freedom. Putin has more domestic
problems than most might think, and the age-old method
of handling civil unrest while taking away freedom is
to have a war. Russia’s close ties with Iran will
no doubt figure in her coming invasion of Israel. By
the way, no one seems to know where their missing suit-case
nukes are located these days. It could be the Russian
lettering on them has been replaced with instructions
in Arabic.
Not many people were concerned about
Avian Flu until it began to show up closer to American
shores. The CDC said, among other things, Of the
few avian influenza viruses that have crossed the species
barrier to infect humans, H5N1 has caused the largest
number of detected cases of severe disease and death
in humans. In the current outbreaks in Asia and Europe
more than half of those infected with the virus have
died. 3 The world in general is already troubled
about such pathogens and America could very well be
on the precipice of the same kind of concern. Further,
some fear the mutation of the AIDS virus into a form
that can be spread by airborne means such as sneezing.
The bottom line is that though this seems very improbable
at this point, it is not impossible. Hardly comforting.
Note the role of disease in the judgment of Rev. 6:8.
What about Christians? Are we destined
to experience trouble and tribulation in this world?
Yes. However, never confuse tribulation with what Jesus
called “the great tribulation” (Matthew
24:21). Both Christians and unbelievers have known trouble
since Adam’s fall, and the reason is we live in
sin-racked physical bodies, with sin-influenced mortal
thinking on this sin-cursed planet. There simply are
no other options! Should Christians then be fearful
when faced with all these troubles? No! We are people
of the Book (the Bible, the only Book). We have read
the final chapter and we know how it all ends. Thus
we are able to face life and even world-wide trouble
with joy in our hearts because we know without question
our Lord’s return is imminent. This is our hope
and we rest in it.
People who have a humanist world-view
see things through rose-colored glasses. They say they
believe the human race will find all the answers and
everything will eventually be OK when everybody comes
together in the spirit of humanity with tolerance in
every heart and love in every soul, blah, blah, blah,
ad nauseam. Satan has blinded these with prideful delusion.
Others who do not have a Christian
worldview, but intuitively understand humanity is on
a collision course with complete destruction are simply
hopeless and at their wit’s end. They cannot see
the truth because, like the seed that fell on the turn-row
and was snatched up by the birds (Mark 4), they do not
even give the truth a cursory nod. Why do they do this?
To accept the truth would require changes in their thinking
and lifestyle, and that is simply too much to give up.
These are blinded by hedonism coupled with despair.
Is the world troubled? You bet! That
simple reply, however, just seems to fall short of properly
emphasizing the gravity of the fact. Just one of the
above events would have a potentially catastrophic impact
upon the world economy, and in particular the way you
live right now. The fear-mongers who predicted doom
and gloom for Y2K had no real basis for their predictions,
and many Bible prophecy teachers said so. Not so, however,
in these cases.
Does anyone have any idea how to handle
all this? Not on your life! Christians, however, know
the darker this world becomes the closer we are to our
new one. Once we are gone the problems of this dispensation
(hatred, nukes, disease, etc.) will seem like an adolescent
game of Old Maid compared to the hell that will break
loose on this earth post-rapture. DLM
End Notes
- Fox News.com. FEMA Worried About New Madrid Quake
Zone. 28 February 2006. cited 18 April 2006
- Fox News.com. Seismologists: Bay Area Fault ‘Locked,
Loaded, Ready to Fire’. 27 March 2006. cited
18 April 2006
- Key Facts About Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) and
Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus. Cited
18 April 2006
|
