Proverbs 1 - A Message from Jesus to the United States (Part 3)
Proverbs 1 - A Message from Jesus to the United States (Part 1)
Proverbs 1 - A Message from Jesus to the United States (Part 2)
Many Christians might consider the following verses from Proverbs 1 to be an accurate description of the war in Iraq:
10 My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; (make war)
let us ambush the innocent without reason; (warrantless wire taps)
12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit; (prisoners with no constitutional rights)
13 we shall find all precious goods, (oil)
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
14 throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse”— (rebuilding contracts, Haliburton)
15 my son, do not walk in the way with them;
hold back your foot from their paths,
16 for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
If this is indeed a message for us to heed, then we must heed these verses in all wars.
In World War II, we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, set up prison camps in our country and put innocent Japanese in them, took control of Germany and Japan, and rebuilt them both. One could have made the case that we accepted the invitation of sinners to make war, that the soldiers of our armed services accepted the invitation (not just invitation, but direction) of our president to participate, and that we were wrong for doing so. On the other hand, we ended the Holocaust. We put a stop to Germany’s quest for world domination. Japan’s, too. And Israel eventually became a nation because of our victory. I dare say that Proverbs 1 was not a warning against us going into World War II. Or is it merely evidence that God uses all things for good? No, we were doing God’s work in that war.
Of course, one just view the wars of the United States as all evil, but then what of the Civil War?
In the Civil war, the North made war with the South, to prevent it from leaving the union. In this war, the black slaves (many of them Christian) of the South (and what slaves there were in the North) were invited to join the cause of the North, through the promise of freedom. They were asked to kill soldiers of the South, many of whom were just defending themselves and their homes. They helped take American prisoners (from the South), who were held until the war was over. The South failed in its bid to cecede. They lost their slaves… part of the plunder of the North. And the slaves were promised a part of the American dream, a promise manifested today in the Presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. And yet, if one were a Christian slave alive in the South, one could have made the case that this Proverb was a warning to them not to participate, that their freedom was not worth it. But I would not make this case. We are a better people today (with room for more improvement!) because of the victory of the Civil War, and WWII… and arguably our other wars, too. So then, what of the Iraq war?
I think the key lies in Israel.