And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come!" And another horse, a fiery red one, went out, and the one sitting on it was given to take peace from the earth, in order that they might slaughter one another, and a great sword was given to him. Rev. 6:3, 4.
Those who have never known war firsthand often glorify the image of war. But those who have experienced it tend to view it more realistically. The fear, the pain, the separation, the carnage, the loss of life--it has nothing pretty about it, except perhaps in the minds of armchair generals. In the words of General Robert E. Lee: "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
War is not far from any of us today. Even without the use of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism has found ways to multiply suffering and garner worldwide attention.
And while international terrorism is an ongoing threat, we cannot ignore its domestic version. Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb killed 168 people in Oklahoma City, and he was not an isolated activist. He took the script for the bombing from the novel The Turner Diaries, which has sold 200,000 copies.
It is hard to use the word "civilization" in the phrase "twentieth-century civilization." That century witnessed the Nazi holocaust against the Jews, the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Turkey, Croats and Muslims from parts of Bosnia, and Serbs from Croatia. Less known is the "rape of Nanking," in which, after the city's surrender, soldiers gang-raped women and butchered men for bayonet practice. And we do not have space to talk about the millions destroyed by Mao, Stalin, and World War I.
In 1905 the United States approved Japan's annexation of Korea, often viewed as the nation's first subjugation in 5,000 years of recorded history. During World War II the occupying soldiers abducted about 200,000 Korean women for daily rape. After virgins became rare they seized married women. They abused the women from 20 to 70 times a day, and when the war ended, they left them to die in desolate areas or exterminated them to conceal the evidence of their war crimes. War brings out the worst in people of every ethnic group.
If John had received his visions in our time, the terrifying symbols might have been different, but the essential message would be largely the same. Humanity has not been evolving morally through the centuries--we have simply developed more efficient means of killing one another. In a world filled with terror and chaos, nothing is certain except that God is the one who is in ultimate control of history. The only solid ground we have to stand on is to trust in Him.
Lord, I choose to trust in You, no matter what I see on today's news.
Those who have never known war firsthand often glorify the image of war. But those who have experienced it tend to view it more realistically. The fear, the pain, the separation, the carnage, the loss of life--it has nothing pretty about it, except perhaps in the minds of armchair generals. In the words of General Robert E. Lee: "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
War is not far from any of us today. Even without the use of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism has found ways to multiply suffering and garner worldwide attention.
And while international terrorism is an ongoing threat, we cannot ignore its domestic version. Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb killed 168 people in Oklahoma City, and he was not an isolated activist. He took the script for the bombing from the novel The Turner Diaries, which has sold 200,000 copies.
It is hard to use the word "civilization" in the phrase "twentieth-century civilization." That century witnessed the Nazi holocaust against the Jews, the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Turkey, Croats and Muslims from parts of Bosnia, and Serbs from Croatia. Less known is the "rape of Nanking," in which, after the city's surrender, soldiers gang-raped women and butchered men for bayonet practice. And we do not have space to talk about the millions destroyed by Mao, Stalin, and World War I.
In 1905 the United States approved Japan's annexation of Korea, often viewed as the nation's first subjugation in 5,000 years of recorded history. During World War II the occupying soldiers abducted about 200,000 Korean women for daily rape. After virgins became rare they seized married women. They abused the women from 20 to 70 times a day, and when the war ended, they left them to die in desolate areas or exterminated them to conceal the evidence of their war crimes. War brings out the worst in people of every ethnic group.
If John had received his visions in our time, the terrifying symbols might have been different, but the essential message would be largely the same. Humanity has not been evolving morally through the centuries--we have simply developed more efficient means of killing one another. In a world filled with terror and chaos, nothing is certain except that God is the one who is in ultimate control of history. The only solid ground we have to stand on is to trust in Him.
Lord, I choose to trust in You, no matter what I see on today's news.
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