Does this mean we should just go ahead and start the final battle by attacking Iran and drawing China and Russia into the battle?  As the Apostle Paul would say, "may it never be!"  I had a caller to my radio show this week who said he was tired of the politics of appeasement.  He wanted to see Israel launch nuclear weapons at Lebanon and Syria so we can go ahead and fight this war that is surely coming.  I reminded him his philosophy would lead to world war and a nuclear nightmare.  I tried to tell him that his children would then see the horrors of war but he was adamant.  Right after his call, a woman called to say she was memorizing a passage from James and she thought it would be appropriate to address the previous caller's mindset.  She quoted James 3:17-18: "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.  And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."   Does this mean there is never a time for war?  Of course not, but it does mean we should never have a lust or desire for war.  We should sow the seed of righteousness so that peace may grow and flourish in our generation. 

There can be no doubt that one day, if we live long enough, we will experience the rapture of the Church.  God's people will, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye be transported into the presence of Christ.  The world will then fall under the unbridled and unfettered hand of the Anti-Christ and it will experience for seven long years the wrath of God.  But the final chapter of history finds God's people living under the glorious reign of Jesus Christ.  We should not fear world events.  We should not magnify their significance nor make sure predictions about their impact.  We should live daily with one eye on world events and one eye scanning the heavens always remembering these words of Jesus: "When when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28).

View other recent entries on Dr. Beam's blog.

Dr. Tony Beam is Director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina. He also serves as Interim Pastor at Whitefield Baptist Church in Anderson, S.C. and as host of Christian Worldview Today heard Monday through Friday mornings from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. on Christian Talk 660.