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Phoney War
My friend Richard said to me some months ago, after a spate of suicide
bombings in Israel: 'I used to wonder when I read about the thirties, how
everyone could see that the world was drifting into war and yet nobody
could do anything about it. It used to puzzle me: If they knew that, how
come they were powerless to stop it? Now I think I understand how they
felt!"
Well, this week the last bit of rubble was finally cleared away from
Ground Zero in New York, and the Israeli government proposed to erect a
concrete and steel wall to protect itself from Palestinian Suicide bombers
coming from the West Bank.
The world is in a state of war; it has been since September 11th. Yet it
is a strange war, unlike any other before it. It's opening shots announced
to an incredulous world new front lines and new methods of waging war. Yet
since then, not much has happened. Has the spirit that so conspicuously
humiliated the most powerful nation on earth had enough? Is it now
satisfied? Has it achieved victory and laid down its arms to savour peace?
Or has it been defeated?
No it has not. We are in a time of 'phoney war' - just like the period
after Hitler subdued Poland in September 1939 and then nothing much
happened until May 1940.
I have noticed that in this war, there hasn't been too many Christian
suicide bombers (or for that matter Jewish suicide bombers). Of course
there hasn't been any. I am not poking fun at those Islamic warriors, men
and women, who have cast their young lives to destroy their enemy, quite
the reverse. I am saying I understand that if you dare do such a thing you
can only do it in a sure, steadfast and absolute belief that for one, your
enemy is God's enemy, and two: God approves your method of fighting him.
To put it another way, you have to believe that the end justifies the
means, that God so approves the end He exonerates the means. You
cannot begin to do it unless you are definite about that.
And therein lies the rub: Let's be quite clear, the reason why there
hasn't been any Christian suicide bombers is not because Christians are
too feeble in their faith to act so 'boldly', it is because they are
certain that the Almighty does not say that 'the end justifies the means'
- but rather more the opposite, that the means ARE the end! It is
in the way we conduct ourselves - not our accomplishments for him - that
God judges us. To put it another way, the Almighty says: 'I am in charge
of the end, you concern yourself with the means!' God demonstrated this
clearly through the life of Jesus Christ, who did not conspire to kill as
many Romans as possible with his death, nor encourage anybody else in such
a way.
The war that began on September 11th is not against America, not against
'profitability' or 'affluent excess' or 'western ungodliness', it is
against one thing and one thing only - Israel and the Jewish people. If
today America were to disown the Jewish people it would have no more
trouble with Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, if America were to change
policy and come into opposition to the Jewish state, the Moslem world
would likely fete it as a 'Great Saviour' instead of a 'Great Satan!' But
the truth is, America is Israel's only friend.
Let our expectations not be clouded; the war has NOT ended, the enemy has
NOT achieved what it seeks, and will make further aggressions. Yes this is
a time of Phoney War, don't be misled into thinking otherwise.
For never before has the battle line been drawn across an issue of such
stark global polarity: We did not see independent terrorist acts by
disgruntled, fragmented militants, we saw the spirit of wickedness herald
the era of end-time conflict, the one that will close the age. For
September 11th trumpeted the dawn of a struggle that cannot end until
biblical prophecies are fulfilled:
On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against
her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who
try to move it will injure themselves. (Zechariah 12:3)
No one knows whether it will be in two decades or two weeks, or exactly
how it could be that the nations will be so drawn against Jerusalem. We do
not know what form it will take yet for the first time, it has become
feasible, just as the prophet Zechariah recorded it. To put it in simple
language this war leads to the time when everyone in the world will be
sucked into the argument and forced to take sides.
David Scott-Morgan 10 June
2002
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