Apr 23
The Dispensation of Evil
Once again, the world has seen record incidents of mass killings. Unless you've been trapped in a coal mine the past week, you probably know that Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 Virginia Tech students and teachers before turning the gun on himself. Between shootings, Cho mailed a package to NBC News containing "disturbing" videos explaining why he committed his heinous crime against humanity. With all the nonsense on the cable channels, you might not have heard that his shooting was the single worst case of gunman homicide in our nation's history.
Two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, Iraq suffered its deadliest day of carnage since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
In Baghdad, a series of car bombs and various other terrorist attacks left more than 230 people dead. One car bomb alone in the mainly Shi'ite Sadriya neighborhood set a record by killing 140 people, the most ever in single bomb attack.
If there were any doubt that the world is going mad, one only needs to look at the historic record for various categories of mass murder in the U.S. and Iraq to see an alarming trend:
Other Mass Shootings in America:
October 16, 1991: George Hennard entered a Luby's Cafeteria, where he shot and killed 23 people and wounded 20. Though Hennard was shot several times by police, only when he ran out of victims did he walk to the rear of the seating area and take his own life with a gunshot to the head.
July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an unemployed security guard, walked into a McDonald's in San Ysidro, just north of the
U.S.-Mexico border, and began shooting. Armed with three guns, he killed 21 people, including five children and six
teenagers, and wounded 19 before he was shot and killed by a police sniper.
July 31, 1966: Charles Whitman began his day of mass murder by killing his mother and his wife. He then barricaded himself in
the University of Texas clock tower and began picking off students. After 90 minutes, Charlie had killed 16 people and
wounded 30 others.
The Iraqi blood bath from just the past couple months:
March 27, 2007: At least 198 people were reported killed or found dead. Truck bombs hit markets in the northwestern city of
Tal Afar, killing at least 152 people, while another 46 Iraqis were also killed or found dead.
March 6, 2007: Officials reported 194 deaths, including 120 by two suicide bombers in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Hillah,
south of Baghdad.
March 2, 2004: Coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives strike Shiite Muslim shrines in
Karbala and Baghdad, killing at least 181 people.
February 3, 2007: Officials report 167 deaths, including 137 by a suicide truck bomber at a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad.
Terrorism in the U.S.:
September 11, 2001: Islamic extremists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. Two planes targeted the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed. A total of 2,973 people were killed that day.
April 19, 1995: Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 when they blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City.
May 18, 1927: Andrew Kehoe, the first mad bomber on U.S. soil, blew up a school in Bath, Michigan, killing 45 people--37 of
them children--after detonating explosives he planted under the school.
The above three lists represent just a small portion of a much larger problem. I didn’t even mention the school shootings at Jonesboro and Columbine.
It is very hard to categorized the extreme level of the evil we see today. This weekend, I read about an Islamic terrorist group that used a
small boy to decapitate one of their hostages.
I believe firmly that the reason we are seeing an across-the-board surge in violence is directly related to the end times.
Because man has turned his back on God, the Lord is slowly lowering the hedge of protection.
Without God's protective power, Satan would be able to destroy every Christian on the planet. The story of Job gives us good
insight into devil's capabilities. In the book of Job, Satan complained that God had made Job unreachable. Once God gave the
devil limited authority over Job's life, he had control over weather, enemy forces, disease, and pestilence--and he could even cause
fire to come down from the sky.
The rapid growth in the power of evil seems to forewarn of the time when the devil will be given nearly full control of the earth. The
Bible warns that the calling card of the last days would be a world filled with violence. The carnage of last week is a stunning
testimony of how close we are to the tribulation hour.
The desensitization process has largely robbed us of the ability to sense our moral freefall. I like what one board member
said last week, "Are we becoming an un-shockable society, with a higher tolerance for evil? I believe this is true, and it is
a sign of the end times. While everyone is still asking 'Why?' this week, we as Christians have an opportunity to share our
perspective on end-times events and offer hope to those whose hearts are burdened."
If there is any final stage to the dispensation of evil, it will likely come in the form of an attack with weapons of mass destruction. A terrorist group could release chemical or biological agents in a crowded area, killing tens of thousands of people.
Because such an attack is generally easy to pull off, I believe the preventive will of God is the only reason we have not
seen terrorists successfully deploy such weapons.
Every time we see one of these deadly attacks take place, we should remind ourselves that earth is not our true home. When
Christians become comfortable in their lives, they tend to be unproductive. An active believer is someone who realizes this world
is of no lasting value.
"And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only
he who now letteth [will let], until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall
consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy wit the brightness of his coming" (2 Thes. 2:6-8).
--- Todd
End-of-Days Scenarios Part 8
We live in the last time. This is undeniable, if one accepts God’s Word. It is indisputable to anyone who holds the Bible as truth. Proof is found right here:
“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the
last time” (1 John 2:18).
So, this is the end of days, for sure. At least, that’s how I read the Apostle John’s words. It was already the end of days at the time he wrote his epistles and the Revelation. I’m aware some don’t believe that the same John wrote both. I profoundly disagree. And there are those who believe the reference here is to the “spirit of Antichrist,” not to “Antichrist,” as the beast of Revelation Chapter 13. I profoundly disagree with that assessment, too. John, here, is writing about BOTH the spirit of Antichrist and a specific man who will come on the scene at some point. He will both come posing as (the counterfeit of) Jesus Christ, and as against all that is Christian. He will be the worst man who has ever walked the surface of this fallen planet. We will begin to postulate how this beast might come to power while we continue with our hypothetical, though well-studied and scripturally-based consideration of things that will quite possibly happen from this point in time forward.
Following the rapture of all born-again believers, the leadership of Israel will look around to find its world support gone with the disappearance of millions of people. All who truly believe Israel has a God-given right to the land, based upon Scriptures in Genesis, will be missing. America will be in total turmoil, and desperately searching for ways to regain its national equilibrium. This can only be accomplished by reestablishing government that will provide structure for restoring order. The European Union, somewhat shaken, nonetheless will remain solid. All civilized parts of the western world will rush to the EU for help in trying to regain and/or preserve things lost in the greatest catastrophe in recorded human history.
The Islamics of the Middle East, who have for centuries held the people under their despotic thumbs, will not be cowered by the disappearances –even of all of their young children. Rather, they will be emboldened to look toward Israel and see an Allah-sent opportunity to once-and-for-all scour the Jew from the face of what they consider to be their land. This rumor of war will not escape Israel’s leadership.
While the Arab-Islamic forces gather in council of war, the military leadership of Israel will be given the top spot in doing whatever is necessary to insure the nation’s continued existence. The liberals and woolly-minded who harbor delusional thoughts that peace is primary will be pushed to the margins. Israel must survive.
Gamel Abdul Nasser will be remembered in the councils of both Israel and her enemies who spawned that Egyptian warlord. Nasser gathered the combined forces of Arab nations and attacked Israel in 1956. He was in the process of again doing so in 1967, when the Israeli Defense Force pre-empted the Egyptian dictator’s plans and thoroughly defeated that collective foe. The people who declare they will never again sit still while forces gather to destroy the nation will now be in charge in Israel. Dramatic action is called for; it will be taken.
Leadership of the major Mid-East terrorist organizations will gather at the one place they are all headquartered –the oldest inhabited city on earth, Damascus, Syria. Their drum beat of blood-vowed hatred will make the inevitable obvious to the Israeli hawks –most all within Israeli leadership. They will decide to cut off the heads of the hydra-headed serpent in one mighty blow. That blow will be delivered by the nuclear sword: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isa. 17:1).
One Israeli jet with a 15-kiloton bomb will cut off the heads, bringing much of Islam into confusion and immense rage. Then, there will be jihad of the most nightmarish sort. But, preparation for such jihad will take time. Much of the diabolical terrorists most proficient at planning such a holy war will have gone to their 72 virgins.
Now, America will agree to agree with EU brainstorming. Something, all agree in the western power sphere, must be done--immediately. World War III –that some have said has already begun with the War on Terrorism--will be about to get underway in full-blown fury. Israel will then sense the collective wrath not just of its Islamic neighbors, but of the entire world, including its former staunchest ally –the United States of America.
Israel, through its preemptive destruction of Damascus with a nuclear weapon, will have enraged everyone, who now looks at the tiny Jewish state as the number-one trouble maker on the planet: "The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zech. 12:1-3).
Israel will be friendless. Most all Jews will know they are doomed. There will be no choice but to invoke the Samson Option. They will bring all who come against them down with their own deadly fall.
But there will be one man within the hierarchy of the EU who wants to try a diplomatic tact others haven’t considered.
Again, we are at the end of space limitations. We will hear this fellow out next time.
--Terry
