Category: Resource Notes

The Terror Tactic

            As our Congress debates the proposed nuclear deal with the largest sponsor of terrorism, Iran, we are reminded that terrorism continues to be a tactic of choice for Islamic extremists.

The terror tactic has a long and tragic history. Military historians tell us that the worst terrorist of all time was Genghis Khan, whose armies destroyed the agricultural hinterlands of their enemies, drove the peasants into the cities, and then destroyed the cities without mercy. Second to the Mongolians were the Romans, who merely destroyed the cities without mercy. Modern examples abound, from the London Blitz to the 9/11 attack.

As a military tactic, however, terrorism is a double edged sword. More often than not, it backfires on to the terrorists. Thus, the London Blitz steeled British resolve and in the end it was the cities of Germany that were reduced to rubble. Palestinian terrorist intifada attacks brought swift retribution and isolation behind the Israeli wall. The 9/11 perpetrators were tracked down and their Afghan sanctuary was overrun by Americans. It turns out, according to military historians, that terrorism only works for militarily dominant powers like Genghis Khan and Rome. For weaker opponents the terror tactic only leads to destruction.

Even so, terrorists inflict much suffering from their self destructive path. There is also a spiritual battle, as terrorists hope to paralyze their enemies with fear and goad them into overreacting in order to create more terrorists. This is truly spiritual warfare, and we must use our spiritual weapons to defeat the terror tactic of the ultimate terrorist, Satan.

We must first learn to pray blessings on our enemies. Not blessings for their violence, but blessings that their eyes be opened and that they will be satisfied with good things and desire to live in peace. Judgment still belongs to God, and it is for Him to avenge, not us. At the same time, God wants our enemies to come into His Kingdom, and we must not let bitterness or unforgiveness set us against God’s purposes. Instead we must deploy the powerful spiritual weapon of love to stay in step with God.

We must also turn back the spirit of fear which has been sent against us. We know from the famous 91^st Psalm that our protection comes only from God, and that He will be with us in our trouble. Yet we also know that we can overcome the evil one if we do not love this life more than the next (See Rev. 12:11). Let us live fearlessly in faith as God intended, looking forward to the day when we will be called home to Heaven.

Yes, we mourn for the victims of these cowardly terrorist attacks, and pray that God will comfort them. But we will not quit loving our enemies and living by faith.

And, just as the terror tactic is a losing strategy for weaker opponents in the natural world, so is the terror tactic futile against the most powerful kingdom on Earth, the Kingdom of God.

            This week marks the anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, when Germany declared war on France.

Before the war, the ten European colonial powers effectively ruled the world. They stood at the pinnacle of an era of incredible technological innovation. Trains, autos, steamships, radio, gasoline, steel, electricity, and many other inventions of the industrial revolution transformed the lives of First World citizens. Trade and prosperity reached record highs and most imagined that the human progress would climb ever upward.

This week also marks the anniversary of the final stage of the world wars which began in 1914, when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. The short span of 31 years from 1914 to 1945 had seen the overthrow of the European hegemony and the emergence of only two powers, the U.S. and Russia. Third world colonies of the great powers gained independence, and the nation of Israel was reborn. Prosperity finally returned to the First World and those new nations which had avoided the traps of socialism and communism. We have seen great technological advances and now, as in 1914, most imagine that human progress will continue its upward climb.

The Bible speaks of a time when the world would be ruled by “Ten Kings” (see Rev 17:12). Those ten nations, the European Colonial Powers, were used by God to break up the dominance of pagan religions in the world and create an opening for the Gospel to be preached (See Rev 17:16). From this opening has come the powerful revivals we see in Africa, Asia, and South America today.

Sadly, the ten nations have not participated in the Christian revival. Instead, most embraced secularism and attacked or marginalized Christianity. Believing themselves to be wise, they left their Christian belief and values behind. The result was a descent into brutality, atrocity, genocide, and destruction. Because they lost their faith, the Ten Kings also lost their place.

The message for America today is to be on watch lest we lose our way and lose our place. Our faith is the foundation of our place, and without our faith we can fall backwards into depravation as the Ten Kings did.

Let us pray for Christian awakening and a realization that our foundations must be restored if our nation is to survive.

In 1918 a new strain of influenza emerged which eventually killed as many as 100 million people. Unlike most illnesses, most of the victims were young and healthy. The reason for this mystery was soon discovered: the victims were not killed by the disease, but by their own immune system’s response to the disease.

Like the human body, our social body also has an immune system designed to fight off toxins. The immune system is composed of our laws and those who enforce them. The toxins are people whose behavior is damaging to society. But in America we are reaching the point where, like the 1918 influenza pandemic, our immune system is attacking the body.

Take the war on drugs. We all know that drug abuse is a terrible thing, so we passed laws against drug abuse and drug dealing. The effect of those laws was to criminalize common behavior in many minority communities and thrust the drug dealing business into a highly profitable big business. We passed more laws with tougher penalties, sending many minority community members to prison and allowing law enforcement to seize suspect property. The result is a devastated minority community and laws that let police confiscate cash from anyone, as in a recent case where a man on his way to buy a car had his money seized by police. The immune system has turned on the body, creating toxic results.

There is real oppression in the minority communities, but it comes not from the old evil of racism, but from the modern war on drugs. The minority community lives this reality, while most middle class whites are unable to understand what would drive a young men into a life of drugs and gangs. Thus, more division is created as the social body is infected with more and more toxins.

It is time for Christians to deploy their spiritual weapons to bring healing to our society. The spiritual weapons needed are love and forgiveness, and we are going to have to let go of some of our cherished political positions to do so. We must admit that the war on drugs, like prohibition before it, is a good idea gone bad. We have made criminals richer and prisons fuller, destabilized minority communities and put all of our freedoms at risk, caused crime wars in our cities and abroad, and subsidized killers and terrorists around the world.

Drug crime can be stopped the same way prohibition era bootlegging was: legalize it, tame it, and tax it. Laws can be changed to restore our freedoms, and restoration can begin in the minority communities. Such monumental changes will not come unless the Church humbles itself, prays, seeks God’s face and repents (2 Chr 7:14). Then God will forgive and heal our land.

Let us pray that the Church will awaken to society’s immune system disorder and use its spiritual warfare weapons to heal our land.

Today’s heated debate about immigration serve as an ironic reminder of the millions of aborted children whose loss makes immigration a necessity for the U.S.

Infanticide and abortion have always been with us, and it was not until the 1870’s that the American Medical Association led the fight to outlaw abortion in the U.S. However, abortion advocates fought back, with Planned Parenthood organizers wanting to abort black children for racial reasons and others wanting to abort babies for genetic or racial purity. Finally, with the sexual revolution and rise of Feminism, abortion was forced upon the U.S. by our Supreme Court in 1973. As a result, we’ve lost over 50 million American Babies.

With the advent of legalized abortion and sexual “Freedom”, the birth rate in the U.S. and the Western World began to fall. As the birthrate in one country after another continued to fall, the birthrate dropped below population replacement rates. As a result, these countries are experiencing declines in population, a phenomenon known as Demographic Collapse. At the same time, the average age of the population is increasing, leaving fewer workers to meet the needs of society.

Demographic Collapse, in addition to being a spiritual and human tragedy, is an economic disaster. A shrinking population means that economic growth is reversed, causing stagnation and then contraction. Economic contraction means lower tax collections and a reduction in national finances and power. Even worse, the decrease in young workers means that social welfare programs such as government funded retirement and medical benefits become unsustainable. So societies which murder their own children are actually killing their own future.

The process of Demographic Collapse in the U.S. has moved more slowly for one simple reason: immigration. Immigrants tend to be younger and therefore productive, adding to economic growth and paying into our government welfare systems. Skilled immigrants have helped the U.S. maintain its technological edge, while unskilled immigrants form the backbone of our agriculture, construction, and other industries. As far as America is concerned, increased immigration is the price we must pay to replace the millions of babies we have aborted.

As Christians we must look at America’s immigration problems from the perspective of the Kingdom of God. After all, the world’s mission fields are coming to our neighborhoods, and we will have the opportunity to love them into the Kingdom. Many Latin American immigrants are already Christian, with strong family values, and we should reach out to them to help them assimilate and strengthen the Kingdom in America.

Let us never forget God’s command to treat the aliens among us fairly.

And let us pray that God will save America from Demographic Collapse, and ask for His wisdom to solve our immigration problems.

            Just ten days after the Americans celebrate their Revolution, the French celebrate theirs, on Bastille Day, July 14.

The two revolutions could not have been more different. The Americans honored God (See our Blog of 7/1/15 “Declaration Day”). The French, on the other hand, adopted the atheistic, anti-Christian values of the French Enlightenment and set out to eradicate God from public life. Churches were closed, priests were persecuted, and the calendar was remade without any Christian holidays. To replace the Virgin Mary, the revolutionary leaders invented the atheistic “Goddess of Liberty”, which became the emblem of Godless Liberty.

The fruit of the revolutions was also very different. America became a beacon of hope for the world as it worked to make its dream of equality and God given rights become a reality. In France, the godless foundation of the revolution meant that all moral restraint on power evaporated, and the infamous Reign of Terror began. Neither life no liberty were safe, and even the leaders were carried off one by one to the Terror. Finally order was restored but all hope of liberty vanished under the iron fisted rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. It turns out that Godless Liberty is no liberty at all.

Sad to say, the lesson of the French Revolution has been repeated over and over since then. The Communist revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and elsewhere produced massive death and eliminated freedom. The same holds true for the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy who, like Napoleon, led the whole world into war. The post colonial socialists in Africa grabbed power after elections, giving rise to the famous statement of “One man, one vote, one time”. The same process has also occurred in countries like Venezuela, Argentina and Ecuador where authoritarians have uses the promise of Godless Liberty to subvert Democratic intuitions.

Even in America our God given liberties have been eroded by the proponents of  Godless Liberty. Beginning in the 1960’s, the Government has banned God from our public schools, allowed the murder of unborn, worked against Christian morality, and now mandated same sex “marriage.” At the same time, Big Government has increasingly limited the rights of Americans to exercise freedoms of religion, speech, and property. The fruit of the Godless Liberty in America has been fatherlessness, poverty, crime, and a Government which grows larger while the people grow poorer and smaller.

The success of Godless Liberty has come about because of failure by the Church to preach the gospel of love and truth. Lying pastors condone sexual sin, even gay marriage, when they should be setting people free in the name of Christ. Churches have substituted failed social programs for the life changing gospel of Christ. And the love of Christ is often hidden behind condemnation, political agendas, and Church division.

Let us pray that the Church will repent of its sins and return to the lifesaving work of spreading the gospel and the love of Christ. We must humble ourselves and repent if our land is to be healed.

Let us also pray that the precious gift of Godly Liberty, and especially religious liberty, can overcome the evil of Godless Liberty.

                On July 4 we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and call it Independence Day. Actually, our Independence came 7 years later, in 1783. On July 4, 1776 we made a declaration of our basic principles, and so the holiday should really be called Declaration Day.

                Our Founding Fathers declared first of all that all men were created equal. This powerful statement acknowledges that we are created by God, and that all else comes from Him. It was God who created us equal, with no preference for ancestry, skin color, or other distinction.  They actually echoed the Biblical statement that,  in Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

Secondly, they declared that it was God who endowed us with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No one can take our life, because “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (I John 5:11 b). In the same way, it is the Spirit of the Lord who gives us freedom (2 Cor 3:17b), not to indulge ourselves, but to serve others in love (Gal 6:13). The Lord gives us the choice of which path to follow in pursuit of happiness (Deut 30:19), but he guides us to happiness by showing us that life, prosperity, and honor come from pursuit of righteousness and love (Prov 21:21).

In the many years since 1776, our nation has struggled to live up to the principles declared by our Founding Fathers. The stain of slavery and racism, denying God’s declaration of equality, has only now begun to disappear from society. Yet, in modern times, many have forgotten that our rights come from God, denying Him and looking to the State as our source of rights and happiness. Even the right to life has been subverted to a false freedom to serve ourselves. We stand in grave danger of losing the rights and freedoms declared so eloquently in 1776.

Its time to turn things around.

Let us start with ourselves and join the Founding Fathers in their declaration:

* God created us, and everything comes from Him.

* God created us equal, to be one in Christ.

* God has given us that right to life through Christ.

* God has given us freedom in order to serve others.

*God has given us the right to pursue genuine happiness through righteousness and                                        love.

Let us pray that the Church will recapture the Spirit of Declaration Day and pass it on to a nation desperately in need of real equality, life, liberty, and happiness.

        This week, on June 28, we remember two anniversary dates which are linked together in a cycle of bloodshed and unforgiveness.

            On July 28, 1914, 101 years ago, a young Serbian terrorist assassinated the Archduke and Crown Prince of the great Austro-Hungarian Empire. The act led Austria-Hungary to revenge itself by declaring  war on Serbia. The Russians entered the blood feud to protect their fellow Slavs, the Serbians. The Germans came to the support of Austria-Hungary, France and England came to the aid of Russia, and Europe erupted into the massive slaughter we now call World War I. All because of a cycle of unforgivness.

Five years and millions of deaths later, the war was officially brought to a close on June 28, 1919 in the Treaty of Versailles. Once again, unforgivness carried the day as the victorious Allies imposed draconian conditions on the defeated Germans. The resulting hardship and resentment created an opportunity for Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party to drive Europe into a second horrendous conflict which became the Second World War. Then, for another 50 years, the Russians extracted their revenge by turning the Eastern European nations into subservient police states. The First World War, called the “War to end all wars,” ended with the peace treaty of Versailles, which a critic called “The peace to end all peace.”

It was up to the Americans to break the cycle of unforgiveness. With the Marshall Plan in Europe and a humane occupation of Japan, the Americans turned their German and Japanese enemies into friends. America has also forgiven its cold war enemies in China, Vietnam, Russia, and Eastern Europe, leading the World into a time of prosperity and relative peace, and making way for the unprecedented worldwide Christian revival.

The American ability to forgive goes back to our history as a Christian nation. The Lord commands us to forgive our enemies, and the experience after the Second World War showed how the Biblical command to love our enemies produces Godly fruit of peace and revival. Forgiveness is perhaps the most powerful spiritual weapon to change the atmosphere and bring God’s answers into a situation.

There will always be those who are driven to attack others, and we thank God for those who protect us (See our 5/20/2015 Blog “Honoring Our Defenders”). But we must also know that time is no true peace without forgiveness.

Let us pray that we will remember that we are called to bless and not curse, and that we can use the spiritual weapon of forgiveness to end destructive cycles of unforgiveness.