Idaho Citizens for
Good Government
Idaho Citizens for
Good Government
One of the most dividing issues in our community these days is the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has proponents on both sides, both of which are friends of mine. I knew that this issue was a deep and complex one, so I offered to the anti-Zionists among us to meet and discuss the issue. I wanted to make sure I understood their side of things as well as I could before making any judgments on it.
If I went into the arguments over this issue here, this article may never get finished. There are deep historical issues at stake and in the middle of it all is the Bible. I still don’t pretend to fully understand all the ins and out of this issue and I probably never will.
What I can relate to is that this, and other conflicts, both around the world and in our community, are not yielding the fruit that I would like to see. So I would like to take a bigger picture look at these issues here and try to make some reasonable points.
The first words of Satan to Eve were “Did God say?” It brought doubt into her mind concerning the truth of the word of God and caused a division between her and Adam. As we know, Eve took the bait and was now doomed to die as God had predicted. This left Adam with the unenviable choice of either living forever without his helpmeet or joining her in sin for a season. He chose the latter and the first dialectical materialistic conflict on earth, created by Satan himself, resulted in the synthesis of fallen man.
Jesus saw these same kinds of conflicts his whole life. When the Pharisees would try to trap him or when Satan himself would try to tempt him, He would speak the words of God and not engage in arguing the particular point. Many times he never answered the question posed to him but rather pointed to the Father and left it at that.
Jesus, when asked about the end times, predicted “wars and rumors of wars” among many other disturbing things. His admonition was to “endure to the end and you shall be saved”. He asked “will there be faith on earth” by the time he returns? He even predicted that the times would be shortened “lest no flesh should survive”. His promises to us were “you will have tribulation in this life” and if you obey your parents, that life “will be long”.
So it doesn’t sound like life will be all fun and games for those in Chirst Jesus.
But let’s step back and look at things from a bigger perspective.
Psalm 2 says:
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD, and against his anointed
[saying] Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
He that sits in the heavens shall laugh:
the Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath,
and vex them in his sore displeasure.
There is a rebellion, growing and maturing, like leaven in bread. It has and will tear nations, civilizations and eventually the world into pieces and God will have to return to rule the earth with a “rod of iron” to give us a little rest before the end of time and the New Jerusalem arrives and the wheat and tares are separated and placed into their respective habitations.
Satan works by division and conflict and his tools are lies and half truths and controversy.
But you may say: Evil will triumph if good men do nothing!
Evil will do what it has always done, until God puts a stop to it.
The pilgrims came to America to get away from the tyrannies and wars of Europe. They came here to breathe free and worship God in truth and spirit as each person saw fit. They produced the greatest nation the world has seen since Solomon’s days. God has blessed us greatly and so we celebrate Thanksgiving each year. James Monroe introduced the doctrine of isolation from the controversies of the old world and for a bit of time, we had relative peace.
The enemy sowed division using the slavery issue to attempt to divide our union and a Civil War took place, good or bad, to preserve it. We still live with those scars to this day.
We are now in the endgame; and so I wanted to bring to your attention a very interesting letter by the Masonic leader Albert Pike of America who wrote a letter to his fellow Masonic leader, Giuseppe Mazzini of Europe, back in 1871, outlining a plan for 3 world wars that would ultimately give them control of the world.
The first two wars predicted came out quite accurate. Things now look like we are coming up on the third world war. I wanted to share that part of this famous letter, preserved in the British Museum until the 1970s when it mysteriously was “disappeared”.
“The third world war must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “illuminati” between both political Zionists and the leaders of [the] Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam … and political Zionism … mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue, will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual, and economical exhaustion.”
You see, the enemy doesn’t care who is right or wrong here. All they want is the conflict and they are fomenting it to higher and higher levels to achieve their evil ends.
There is no right side to take. Any side you take walks right into the enemies’ plans. There is no fixing this conflict. There is no solution to the Middle East conflict. It is collateral damage in the great battle we are witnesses of between the forces of good and of evil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
We are pawns in a chess game much larger than any of us can comprehend and as the rate of the doubling of our collective knowledge increases each day, we find ourselves more ignorant, knowing less of what there is to know than we did the day before.
Would you rather settle this controversy by unending study and discussion or would you rather have peace by simply resting in the fact that God will make all things new and will make all things right in the end?
This is the “peace that passes understanding”.
The conflict will rage, and rage it must, but God has laid a table for us “in the presence of His enemies” and has promised to keep us as we hold fast to Him and “endure to the end”.
Sanford Staab, Editor
