What an answer we've given to the diabolic treachery of September eleventh. Terrorists used our jetliners loaded with fuel their governments had sold to us to become guided missiles destroying our skyscrapers. In contrast, we've retaliated with humanitarian aid to the refugees they've caused to flee from Afghanistan along with our bombs upon their terrorist training camps. It makes me recall that Bible text, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good," though there's little reported as yet on the success of the aid lift to all those trying to escape to Pakistan. And when we end the air war, our ground forces will have to finish the job eradicating terrorists. It sure won't be as free of casualties as our war over Kosovo several years ago which was all done from above 30,000 feet in the air. As you may know, earth's atmosphere is Biblically the first heaven. Then above the air clear out into the stars is a second heaven; beyond that is the third heaven or throne of the One over all creation. Fighting these wars from the sky does seem awesome and strange, but being caught up to meet our Lord in the air when He returns is far more so. If I am mixing the factual (daily news) with the figurative (Scriptural eschatology) then it's because of the overwhelming excitement of current events. We may not suffer bombing in this land, but the threat of widespread terrorist acts has become a reality. And so being caught up to be with the Lord for that interval of several years before His glorious appearing to the whole world looks ever more appealing each day. Yet the days that we stay here we are to represent Him as Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain." So we have that "gain" or rapture to deliver us from all that must be endured here on earth. It's a brief tenure in the first heaven (the air). Theologian's term "translated" has been applied to those like Enoch or Elijah who went straight to glory without death, but I think that means to the third heaven beyond the rim of our universe where GOD and the angels dwell. Down here, those caught away will be changed along with those raised from death, and will all still be involved for another thousand years under the reign of Yeshua Christ. Then everything will be handed over to the Father as a completely "new heaven and earth" Rev. 21. All this is described in Scripture as the DAY of the Lord, since time is no factor: "a thousand years in a day and a day as a thousand years." President Bush told our military to be ready for the hour and their orders came Sunday morning. Just so, we are told to be ready when Jesus returns. If we haven't made preparation to go with Him, then we'll be left behind. That sad little song from the Viet Nam era still applies: "Life was filled with guns and war and everyone got trampled on the floor. I wish we'd all been ready. Children died, the days grew cold. A piece of bread would buy a bag of gold. I wish we'd all been ready. REFRAIN There's no time to change your mind. The Son has come and you've been left behind; you've been left behind. Man and wife asleep in bed. She turns her head, he's gone. I wish we'd all been ready. Two men walking up a hill, one disappears and one's left standing still. I wish we'd all been ready. REFRAIN" The song uses Jesus' own description of how our blessed hope will take place before His subsequent glorious appearing.
Antipathy in the Islamic world toward Israel seems to be their common denominator despite the nearly universal repudiation of terrorism by Muslims. I spent Monday afternoon rereading an English version of the Koran found on the Internet. I'd done it years ago but this time it really let me see the many distortions and misrepresentations of what the Bible says. Muhammad claims to have written down what Allah said through an angel to include as recitations for his people. My seminary training was quite critical of to Bible's historical accuracy in many places, but the Koran twists the record so far that it could never withstand the scrutiny of skeptics the way our Scriptures have. It seemed to demand a superstitious unquestioning allegiance that makes robots out of believers; more like a cult than a religion. All I could find in the 114 chapters about Jesus was in the one entitled Mary, though I know He's counted as one of Islam's prophets and must have been the source of compassion in Muhammad concept of Allah. One quip that stung my young mind in seminary days was "If God made man in His own image, then man has been eager to return the compliment." That was during the outset of the Cold War and atheism, so our struggle then was just hanging onto belief in God. I don't remember much searching for Jesus. But now that quote really fits how I felt reading the Koran. I had a professor then who called himself a "radical monotheist" and now I wonder if he might have been a Muslim in disguise (though his brother was our bishop in Washington D.C.back then, so I'm only jesting). If Muhammad use of Scripture had been accurate, I'd appreciate his radical monotheism. But the Koran to me is more from Muhammad's mind than heavenly revelation. Strangely, when he has Allah speak it's as "We." I wish that could be reference to the triune GOD, but it surely isn't. We support our president in befriending Islam internationally, but to see it as a mission field for the Gospel, tough though it is and much as we'd rather just back off to live and let live. With terrorism to cope with everywhere, do we have the strength to pray for Muslims to know our Lord Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords? At least we can pray for those two missionary ladies still held by the Taliban. Let's not be like the northern alliance that seems to lost heart for their part in that specific war. Ours is fought with prayers and deeds of kindness instead of bombs and guns, though we pray for our troops that have to employ this current violence. Lord protect them and the innocent civilians caught in the conflict.
I heard someone report that the four planes hijacked by terrorists a month ago today were probably not known to be suicide missions by any of the terrorists besides the pilots. That put an even more sinister spin on the plot if most of them thought it was only a standard hijacking that would land somewhere else. Most of them were just thugs while the pilots were the suicidal fanatics. The whole thing still just seems too incredible to be reality doesn't it. Yet now we are being warned that another hit is likely. If the report is true about only four out of 19 planning to die, then maybe we are not so bad off as having hundreds and hundreds like them in "sleeper cells" all over our land. Events of the past decade are all beginning to fit together as more is learned of that El Qaeda terrorist network. I watched a report of our loss of 18 Army Rangers in Somolia that made it clear how Osama bin Laden was behind that failed incursion. One father who lost his son just would not settle for the explanations given. And finally he got to the true depth of terror that caused our defeat. Seems that it took the WTC and Pentagon attacks to wake us up to war that was already upon us. Thank GOD for our president with the character needed for this crisis. Surely the hand of the Lord is upon him as he leads us, now to get through this scare over bio-terrorism. With four different places reporting anthrax, it sure looks like a planned attack.
I've been reading about Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, who is mentioned only in the O.T. (Genesis, II Kings, I & II Chronicles) but is very prominent in the Koran. Islam sees him as the ancestor of Arab peoples, which would fit the twelve sons mentioned in Genesis and noted in the Jerusalem Bible as in Arabia. Then he's supposed to have been the "only" son Abraham put on the altar of sacrifice before Isaac was born. The Koran says Abraham had a dream that he should do it and that Ishmael submitted to the dream as from Allah when his father told him. So both father and son were in submission to going through with the offering when Allah stopped them and said he hadn't sent the dream. the dream. Yet their submission (or "Islam") becomes the basis of the new faith or true religion Muhammad would proclaim in a distant century yet to come. It was supposed to unite Judaism and Christianity into Islam. Genesis 16:12 says of Ishmael that "he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." Then Genesis 25 lists the names of his sons and his death at age 137. He was buried in the same cave of Macpeala where Abraham and Sarah were. Verse 25:18 is the last we hear of him and in the KJV says that he rested with his brohers. Yet it can be translated that "he died fighting with his people" instead as in the Jerusalem Bible or the New International Version. Thus conflict would be mentioned at his birth and at his death in that alternate translation. That must have had prophetic significance as we see the Arabs constantly in combat. Of course Islam isa lot more than Arab nations now. But Ishmael lives on in all of them through the Koran.