As it gets later tonight I can see that as this war with Iraq is not going to be a super fast adventure in world domination.
This is sad for a lot of people and there is a lot of angst around the world.
I don’t think this is too much of a surprise because there are a lot of angry people out there anyway.
But as this war is now here I’d like to make a few observations, most of which I hope you already know.
If not, hopefully they’re useful.
Jihad
I have had some recent conversations with family and friends regarding the absolutely asinine
view that this war is political.
The US says that it is political: defending the US from missiles and terrorism.
Both of those reasons are legitimate politically, except that it ignores the religious reasons
that the Iraqis and the Al Quaeda members are doing what they’re doing.
Because the western thought process generally involves the splitting of the spiritual from the
physical and furthermore makes the spiritual purely subject opinion we don’t recognize that
someone else who holds a religious belief could not have this dichotomy.
In fact, ignoring the fact that Fundamentalist Islam
1 hates infadels
(non-Islam) makes the US and the rest of the world more succeptable to terrorist attacks
and missing the point of any Islamic military action.
Mohammad taught Jihad (Holy War against the infadels), Saddam Husein is only living out Jihad, he is
a religious zealot.
While this could be an over-simplification I would point out that he is also a dictator, and he does
have obvious other motivations, but none overshadow Islam.
Saddam is at the very least playing that card to motivate his leaders, soldiers, civilians and most
importantly sympathetic Arabic governments.
Be wary of this man because he is engaged in Holy War.
In fact this Holy War goes all the way back to Abraham’s sons Isaac and Ishmael.
Isaac, being the chosen one (through whom the seed and blessing would come (Read Genesis chapters 15-22 for more)), and Ishmael being the son of the maid-servant (the rejected older child) were the fathers of the two battling ethnicities.
Isaac was father to Jacob who was later renamed Israel (father of the nation now known as Israel) and Ishamel was promised that God would bless his sons as a strong nation as well.
Recognize that there has been bitterness between the two groups that far back!
Back the Red, White & Blue
Further on this subject some while back (1 month or so) I received a chain email
suggesting that due to Romans 12:20 we not go to war with Iraq.
Romans 12:20
20 ?But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so
doing you will heap burning coals on his head.?
2
This is a good verse that, in context, is quite applicable to personal situations wherein if one
person (or small party) finds conflict that the believer should behave in this manner.
However, trying to make Romans 12:20 say that we should not defend the safety of our country and
that we should tell the president to not go to war misses the point of the verse and ignores a verse later on in the passage.
Romans 12:21 talks about overcoming “…evil with good.” and that seems more along the lines of
what the US government is trying to do!
One should not take one verse out of its surrounding context.
In fact Romans 13:1-2 (the very two verses after 12:20-21) talk about subjecting yourself to the
authority of the government because God established them and put them there in the first place.
This of course does not mean we should blindly do what Uncle Sam says to do, but it does mean that
we should not look lightly at what God is doing through them.
Conclusion
Pray.
Pray a lot.
Pray so much that you wear holes in the knees of your pants (or skirts or dresses or robes), but
remember that in what you pray you have an intercessor.
And your relationship with that intercessor is what is powerful, not the prayers by themselves.
While there is physical war remember that there is also Spiritual Warfare (Ephesians 6), but
remember also that the war has already been won.
We know the outcome – Victory was won at the Cross.
Maranatha (Come Lord, return for your bride, the church)!
Randy Peterman
Footnotes
1)
I recognize that there are more moderate/liberal forms of Islamic teaching, but because there
are more liberal forms does not mean that you can lump all of Islam together.
You cannot say that because you know (or heard on Oprah) someone who embraces a more peaceful
form of Islam that no Muslims are really that intense, only a few extremists exist.
Likewise it would be silly to say that all people who claim to be Muslim are extremists.
Fundamenalists (Muslim or Christian) almost always tend to be extreme, they hold to the orthodox
(traditional) teachings of their religion – they take it literally and don’t allegorize like
more liberal practicioners do.
That means that when Christ says that those who don’t receive Him as their savior will go to hell
Christian fundamentalists take it at face value.
This also means that if Mohammad tells Muslims to kill the infadels (Non-Islam) to save them from
worse terror that fundamentalists take it at face value.
Neither view is friendly to the non-believer – but both views are intellectually honest to the point
of obedience and taking something at face value.
2) The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, (La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation) 1996.