And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. And some from every people and tribe and language and nation will gaze on their bodies for three and a half days, and they will not permit their bodies to be placed in a tomb. Rev. 8, 9.
At 4:00 p.m. on October 27, 1962, President John F. Kennedy met with his military leaders. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that the U.S. attack Cuba within 36 hours and destroy the Soviet missiles that aerial photography had detected there. The CIA assured the leaders that the Soviets had not yet delivered the nuclear warheads to arm those missiles. What they did not know at the time was that the Soviets already had 162 nuclear warheads in Cuba. Fidel Castro had even recommended to Nikita Khrushchev the use of nuclear weapons if the U.S. invaded. Events were spiraling out of control.
Khrushchev had sized up the young president Kennedy as a weakling, considering him full of talk but timid in action. Knowing that getting nuclear missiles into Cuba would change the balance of power in an instant, he calculated that Kennedy would bluster but in the end do nothing. He was wrong.
Not only did Kennedy challenge Cuba, he threw down the glove to Khrushchev's own Soviet Union. And he did it in spite of great danger to his people. When he asked Walter Sweeny, chief of the Tactical Air Command, if he was certain he could take out all the missiles, Sweeny replied, "We have the finest fighter force in the world; we have trained for this kind of operation, and they would destroy the great majority. But there might be one or two or five left."
On October 27 Khrushchev gave no sign of backing down. Kennedy's advisors had split between those who wanted to attack and those who thought they should negotiate. At the last minute Kennedy took up an offer from Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles if the U.S. promised not to invade Cuba. Worried that war might break out in the six hours it took to encode and transmit a message from the Kremlin to the White House, Khrushchev decided to broadcast his response to Kennedy on Moscow public radio.
The two witnesses in the book of Revelation seemed weak and helpless to their enemies. Evil is often emboldened by a "turn the other cheek" mentality. But those who assert their power and position against God's people in this life miscalculate as surely as the Soviet premier did in 1962. The book of Revelation teaches us that the triumph of evil is always short-lived. In the end God will vindicate His people in the sight of all who have despised and abused them (Rev. 20:7-10).
Lord, give me the patience to wait for Your vindication.
At 4:00 p.m. on October 27, 1962, President John F. Kennedy met with his military leaders. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that the U.S. attack Cuba within 36 hours and destroy the Soviet missiles that aerial photography had detected there. The CIA assured the leaders that the Soviets had not yet delivered the nuclear warheads to arm those missiles. What they did not know at the time was that the Soviets already had 162 nuclear warheads in Cuba. Fidel Castro had even recommended to Nikita Khrushchev the use of nuclear weapons if the U.S. invaded. Events were spiraling out of control.
Khrushchev had sized up the young president Kennedy as a weakling, considering him full of talk but timid in action. Knowing that getting nuclear missiles into Cuba would change the balance of power in an instant, he calculated that Kennedy would bluster but in the end do nothing. He was wrong.
Not only did Kennedy challenge Cuba, he threw down the glove to Khrushchev's own Soviet Union. And he did it in spite of great danger to his people. When he asked Walter Sweeny, chief of the Tactical Air Command, if he was certain he could take out all the missiles, Sweeny replied, "We have the finest fighter force in the world; we have trained for this kind of operation, and they would destroy the great majority. But there might be one or two or five left."
On October 27 Khrushchev gave no sign of backing down. Kennedy's advisors had split between those who wanted to attack and those who thought they should negotiate. At the last minute Kennedy took up an offer from Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles if the U.S. promised not to invade Cuba. Worried that war might break out in the six hours it took to encode and transmit a message from the Kremlin to the White House, Khrushchev decided to broadcast his response to Kennedy on Moscow public radio.
The two witnesses in the book of Revelation seemed weak and helpless to their enemies. Evil is often emboldened by a "turn the other cheek" mentality. But those who assert their power and position against God's people in this life miscalculate as surely as the Soviet premier did in 1962. The book of Revelation teaches us that the triumph of evil is always short-lived. In the end God will vindicate His people in the sight of all who have despised and abused them (Rev. 20:7-10).
Lord, give me the patience to wait for Your vindication.
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