“Wars and Rumours of Wars”

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The Real Truth magazine, of which I am editor-in-chief, reports on global conditions as nations on every continent edge toward all-out war. Here are but a few snapshots from our regular “World News Desk” feature:

China Upgrades Nuclear Arsenal: After marked increases in military spending, China announced that it must possess second-strike capability—which would enable it to defend itself against a nuclear attack—and said it is in the process of upgrading and expanding its nuclear forces with increasingly sophisticated weaponry.

“Like all the nuclear weapons states, China is secretive about its arsenal, developed from a first atomic test explosion in 1964. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has estimated that by 2009 China possessed 186 deployed strategic nuclear warheads” (Reuters).

As major world powers collectively attempt to contain nuclear proliferation, China is moving away from easily monitored, silo-based, liquid-fuelled rockets and opting for highly mobile, solid-fuel-powered rockets that are easier to launch and difficult to track. Among its upgrades are anti-satellite and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that arm the nation’s new generation Jin-class nuclear ballistic submarines.

A retired Chinese general stated the upgraded missile system “is able, should a foe launch an initial nuclear strike, to really possess, and to convince the other side that it faces, an intolerable second-strike nuclear capability, thereby deterring an enemy from using nuclear weapons against us.

“It must make them grasp, without the least ambiguity, that we possess a deterrent” (ibid).

Germany Calls for an EU Army: Germany has expressed a desire for the European Union to create an army under the political control of the EU, according to the nation’s Foreign Minister.

“The long-term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control. The European Union must live up to its political role as a global player. It must be able to manage crises independently. It must be able to respond quickly, flexibly and to take a united stand,” he said (AFP).

At the Munich Security Conference, held earlier this year (2010), he stated that the door for a European army was opened by the passing of the Lisbon Treaty, a revised version of an EU constitution draft, and that this army would be a cohesive factor in creating a European defence policy.

Iran Declares Itself a Nuclear State: In early 2010, Iran’s president declared that Iran was now a nuclear state: “I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first consignment of 20 percent enriched uranium was produced and was put at the disposal of the scientists,” he said to a gathering of thousands waving flags and banners to demonstrate their support.

While Iran maintains its nuclear work is for generating electricity and producing radioactive isotopes to be used for therapy in hospitals, world powers, particularly Western nations, are not convinced.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel claimed to have access to an intelligence dossier showing the existence of a secret military branch of Iran’s nuclear research program, whose aim of producing a bomb has reached an advanced stage. According to the paper, “Experts believe that Iran’s scientists could produce a primitive, truck-sized version of the bomb this year, but that it would have to be compressed to a size that would fit into a nuclear warhead to yield the strategic threat potential that has Israel and the West so alarmed—and that they could reach that stage by sometime between 2012 and 2014.”

South America Increases Military Spending As Poverty Grows: Leaders of South American nations have embarked on record military spending, while their citizens face the worst level of poverty in years!

Tension between neighbouring countries and the Colombian government’s decision to forge closer ties with the United States in its fight against drugs have fuelled what some are calling an arms race.

Massive arms spending includes an air defence system, combat aircraft and tanks for Venezuela, as well as military aircraft for Chile and Ecuador. Other countries in the region have also increased their military budget. (Venezuela, an ally of Iran, is the most recent nation to openly tell the world that it too will now develop nuclear weapons.)

“In 2008 the 12 South American countries together channelled more than $50 billion into military expenditures, about 30 percent more than in 2007. Most prominent among countries where arms buying went up are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela” (UPI). This is virtually every country.

North Korea – Demanding World Attention: A statement from North Korea’s Central News Agency read, “If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will...wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all.”

This bellicose assertion came just days after Japanese intelligence sources reported that North Korea would fire a missile toward Hawaii, possibly on America’s Independence Day.

The next day, marking the 59th anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities in the Korean War, Pyongyang’s rhetoric continued. This time, the nation threatened a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” for any attack. State news sources were filled—more than usual—with venom against the U.S. for its military action in 1950, and with charges that Washington is seeking another opportunity to show aggression toward North Korea.

October 2006 saw the nation provoke worldwide outrage with its first nuclear test, which violated the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty it had signed years before. A second underground test took place on May 25, 2009 (America’s Memorial Day), followed by a number of offshore missile tests. Two days later, the Central News Agency reiterated that it was not bound by the 1953 armistice that set its southern boundary.

The Associated Press: “Southern parts of this impoverished Central Asian nation [Kyrgyzstan] were thrown into chaos by five days of ethnic violence, mostly Kyrgyz attacks on ethnic Uzbek neighbourhoods. The violence followed a bloody uprising in April that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.”

Guardian (of London): “Mobs of Kyrgyz men rampaged through southern Kyrgyzstan today, slaughtering ethnic Uzbeks and burning down houses in a third day of ethnic bloodshed...The country’s interim government granted its security forces shoot-to-kill powers and promised to send a volunteer force to the region—but the violence continued to rage, taking the death toll…to more than 100. At least 1,100 have been wounded in what are the country’s worst ethnic clashes in 20 years.”

The Los Angeles Times: “At least 50 people were killed…in attacks west of Baghdad, including a double suicide bombing against Sunni Arab paramilitary members waiting to receive their pay checks outside a military base.”

The Washington Post: “Peshawar, Pakistan – The death toll in a massive suicide bombing climbed to more than 100 victims…115 [more were] wounded, making it Pakistan’s deadliest attack of the year...The bombing targeted government offices and a prison in Pakistan’s volatile tribal borderlands. The blast tore through a large crowd, including disabled people who were at the government centre in the Mohmand Agency to collect wheelchairs, Pakistani officials said.”

The Christian Science Monitor: “In the...Congo, sexual violence has become so common that the eastern provinces are sometimes called ‘the ground zero of rape.’ Tens of thousands of women here have been raped by armed combatants seeking to destroy communities by assaulting the women, who are often shunned and sometimes abandoned after sexual assaults. In Congo, it has become common to say rape is a weapon of war.”

The New York Times: “I’ve never reported on a war more barbaric than Congo’s, and it haunts me. In Congo, I’ve seen women who have been mutilated, children who have been forced to eat their parents’ flesh, girls who have been subjected to rapes that destroyed their insides.”

Sadly, almost before these stories are even printed, they are out of date—overtaken by another round of atrocities.

The “Just War” Concept

Nations have sought to justify this state of affairs through rationalizing and moralizing about the “inevitability” and “necessity” of going to war, and with the concept of the “just war.” Understand. It is at this point that the white horse and rider are directly connected to war in a central way!

First we must ask: Is it possible for human beings to come together to fight and kill each other and be even a little bit noble, just or righteous—or even godly—in their cause? A greater question: Are human beings inherently capable of making correct judgments about war—or for that matter about other fundamental issues in life? The answer to these questions has much to do with why the world is filled with turmoil, strife and war.

Let’s look at what God says regarding human nature and judgment. This is vital to understand.

Wise King Solomon recorded several Proverbs that, when placed together, present a sobering picture. He wrote that “All the ways of a man are CLEAN in his own eyes; but the LORD weighs the spirits” (Prov 16:2) and that, “Every way of a man is RIGHT in his own eyes: but the LORD ponders the hearts” (Prov 21:2). Together, these similar passages make a profound statement. Anyone who has ever tried to correct someone who was wrong will have no difficulty believing their message.

However, another Proverb reveals that this natural tendency of human beings—to believe that all that they do is clean and right—carries an even greater implication: “The way of a FOOL is right in his own eyes” (Prov 12:15).

When combined, these three verses reveal that all people are born naturally foolish! If all men and all fools see themselves as right—clean—then they are naturally one and the same.

Stop and ponder the impact of these verses—and then notice another twice-recorded Proverb: “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of DEATH” (Prov 14:12; 16:25).

War may seem right to puny, foolish men who do not consider they have chosen a “crooked” path that leads to death—both now, and eternally, if they do not repent of it. The carnal human mind always deceives itself—Jeremiah 17:9!—into thinking that its ways are clean and right. People do not naturally feel a need to seek God’s view on matters. They believe that they are inherently qualified to correctly make their own judgments. But Jeremiah also wrote, “The way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps” (Jer 10:23).

In the end, God is not truly consulted or included in men’s thoughts or plans, even on the most complicated social issues. The human reasoning of “experts” guides policy on abortion, the cloning of human beings, pornography, the definition of immorality, the definition of a family, the acceptability of “alternative lifestyles,” “mercy killing,” political correctness and many other issues.

Men devise ways to justify whatever they do. War, the greatest of all social problems, is no exception! And man’s pattern of not asking God what He thinks is also no exception. When nations have already decided it is in their best interest to go to war, all that remains is the task of spelling out the human rationale to justify what they have pre-determined to do! Enter the moralists, ethicists, philosophers, politicians and religionists for support.

Here is an example. Some time ago, when several soldiers were killed in a U.S. war by “friendly fire,” it was said that they died “for a noble and just cause.” This was said to soften the grief of the families they had left behind. But who decided that their deaths were “noble and just”? Certainly not God!

In the same conflict, a very high government official offered his assessment of why the war in question was being fought in the way that it was. He spoke of the “infinite judgment of the world community” that stood behind the war. He stated that “thoughtful people believe…” such and such. He made other similar references to what world leaders, the United Nations, moralists and military strategists thought or felt.

But he neglected entirely to reference any opinion or instruction that God might hold in the matter!

During every war, endless television talk shows parade politicians, generals, colonels, war heroes and other “analysts” before the cameras. They offer nonstop “insight” into what it all means, what must be done and why. For instance, they speak of being “bold” and “innovative” in the world’s war on terror because it is a “new kind of war.” Each “expert” seems to have a different opinion on what will, or will not, work. Where God is absent, disagreement abounds!

Again, not once have I heard a single one of these leaders, generals, war heroes or military planners ask what GOD thinks about war!

I have certainly heard many ministers, evangelists, religionists and theologians—usually representing well-known church denominations, ministries or organizations—express their own personal view about particular wars. But their views are nothing more than what they think or feel! Almost without exception, such “religious” thinkers believe that war can be “just and noble” in purpose. Also, virtually without exception, these same churchmen were part of the country that was attacked. Is it surprising that they agreed with the opinion of the overwhelming majority surrounding them, which was already driving the course of the country?

Modern religious leaders lack the moral and spiritual strength to reflect what God commands, so they cave to national peer pressure.

However, I have heard nearly all of these same churchmen beseech God—after the fact—to BLESS what men had already decided to do through means of war. In their weakness, they have the gall to ask God to bless their sin—war!

In reference to a particular U.S. war, a large conference of religious leaders said that it was “regrettable but necessary,” and that they felt military action was “appropriate” as long as “the principles of morality and human dignity” were followed. Another group of leaders stated the hope that a “wise, just and effective” response could occur. All of these statements flow from human reasoning. None are based on the Bible—and none of these groups or individuals made a pretense that they were.

Asking God to bless the horrific nature of war is like asking Him to work through a Frankenstein monster! (My booklet War, Killing and the Military) tells the truth of what God’s Word really teaches on this subject.)

In Their Own Words

Let’s now hear from religious leaders in their own words. First comes Rome. Authors Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, in a book about papal diplomacy, wrote this in the 1980s about influential Philadelphia archbishop John Krol’s views, which “are in keeping with the church’s position, itself based upon St. Augustine’s original ‘just war’ theory, which had been refined and developed by Thomas Aquinas and other theologians. The theory…is that a war can be ‘just’ when it is declared by a legitimate authority, when it is conducted for a ‘righteous cause,’ when it is launched with ‘good intentions,’ when it is a ‘last resort’…” (Averting Armageddon).

The authors added, “Nine years after Hiroshima, he [Pope Pius XII] had approved the use of atomic, bacteriological, and chemical weapons only if ‘they did not totally escape from the control of man’ or produce ‘annihilation of all human life within the radius of action,’” and further added that, in an address to the United Nations in June 1982, John Paul II said that nuclear “deterrence” was “morally acceptable” (ibid.).

Rome’s daughters agree—and have from the beginning. Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation, said, “He who starts a war is wrong and that it is just for him who draws the sword first to be defeated or at least to be punished in the end” (What Luther Says, vol. 3, Ewald Martin Plass).

Before the first Gulf War, America’s most famous televangelist stated, “There is an ethical responsibility that goes with power, and sometimes it becomes necessary to fight the strong in order to protect the weak…There come times when we have to fight for peace” (Billy Graham, quoted in the Los Angeles Times).

Another famous minister asserted, “If one depends on the Bible as a guidepost for living, it is readily apparent that war is sometimes a necessary option” (“God is pro-war,” Jerry Falwell, World Net Daily).

A Southern Baptist Convention official wrote, “Conducting war in a just manner is an act of Christian love that seeks to accomplish the divinely ordained duty of the state: to punish and restrain evil and to protect and reward good. The Bush administration’s policy vis-à-vis Saddam Hussein fits well within the framework of Just War theory” (“The Time Has Arrived,” Richard Land).

Before World War I, the American Federal Council of Churches declared, “As American citizens, members of Christian churches…we are here to pledge both support and allegiance in unstinted measure…the hour lays upon us special duties…to keep ever before the eyes of our allies and ourselves the ends for which we fight…” (The Churches of Christ in Time of War, Charles S. MacFarland, pp. 129, 131).

It is religious leaders, throughout professing Christianity, who have validated—and even suggested and promoted—such thinking about war. Yet ask: How could they endorse and empower such AWESOME EVIL in Christ’s name?

The answer? Ignoring God’s instructions has never been a problem for a universal religious system long unconcerned with what GOD says! Lost are such simple statements as this from Jesus about war: “My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then [and not otherwise] would My servants fight” (John 18:36).

One Honest Man

Some have been willing to tell the truth. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a famous Baptist minister, told the League of Nations in 1925 (emphasis mine):

“We cannot reconcile Jesus Christ and war—that is the essence of the matter. That is the challenge which today should stir the conscience of Christendom. War is the most colossal and ruinous social sin that afflicts mankind; it is utterly and irremediably unchristian; in its total method and effect it means everything that Jesus did not mean and it means nothing that He did mean; it is a more blatant denial of every Christian doctrine about God and man than all the theoretical atheists on earth ever could devise.

It would be worthwhile, would it not, to see the Christian Church claim as her own this greatest moral issue of our time, to see her lift once more, as in our fathers’ days, a clear standard against the paganism of this present world and, refusing to hold her conscience at the beck and call of belligerent states, put the Kingdom of God above nationalism and call the world to peace? That would not be the denial of patriotism but its apotheosis” (Best Sermons 1926, Joseph Fort Newton).

Never believe that, given opportunity, the system which “fornicates with the kings of the earth” will even hesitate to empower generals looking for moral and religious authority to butcher vast millions with weapons of mass destruction. It becomes clear why God will use war—from HIM!—to destroy the whole war-making universal system, with her daughters.

The black horse and rider, third of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, paint a picture soon to become reality for all nations, even those of the prosperous West: widespread famine, daily ration lines, starvation for mass millions. As the population explodes—and food supplies dwindle—the horrors of FAMINE will soon strike the entire world, bringing conditions that are unimaginable. Many signs of the coming catastrophe are already here!

Nowhere to Hide

Horrific events will unfold in affluent First World nations. While the inhabitants of the West bask in hedonism, and live the “good life” on borrowed funds, horses’ hooves can be heard in the distance. The sword in the hand of the red horse rider will first slash across all nations of the world. It will then move to the comfortable suburbs and idyllic countryside of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Scandinavia, and certain other countries—before returning to again assault the entire inhabited world in the greatest way ever.