Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-16-26

The Bible foretells of the End Times and signs of its imminence. We have discussed that here, as everyone should be discussing the matter – continually, not just during violent flare-ups as we find ourselves consumed these days.

I have my own views on this current war. God does too. Whether I am in agreement or not ultimately is His to judge, and my opinions are irrelevant in that regard. I remember Abraham Lincoln’s brilliant maxim that we dare not pray that God is on our side, but we should pray that we are on God’s side.

How do we know? Pray; study the Word; pray.

But in this time of frequent holocausts all over the world, on the nightly news, God keeps us on our toes. We know that wars, like the poor, we always have with us. Has there ever been a good war or a bad peace, as many have asked through the ages? I say yes; there might be just wars, and the willingness to do battle is irretrievably part of a nation’s soul.

“If I must choose between peace and righteousness,” Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “I choose righteousness.”

Nevertheless, lately I am persuaded to settle for a long wait if people want to find a war to be joined. And it is a bizarre time in the history of our nation and the world that some people, some nations, itch for war instead of striving for peace.

Humankind seems not to have “advanced” much through the centuries; and this is true of children on playgrounds and adults on battlefields that once were playgrounds; or in faraway, sterile command centers. We congratulate each other – that is, we fool ourselves – that “progress” is the hallmark of our times. Yet the bloodiest death toll from wars, in any century of the earth’s existence, was in the Twentieth Century: more than in all previous centuries combined.

We brag that we – “civilizations” – have finally ended the scourge of slavery; yet there are greater numbers of slaves today than ever in human history. The numbers now are not the faces that flash in our minds: bondservants in chains. But instead, all manner of children, women, minorities, homeless, voiceless, migrants, the anonymous.

As long as there are power elites; as long as greed outpaces love; as long as hypocrisy can always find a nicer name, humankind will be (in the Bible’s phrase, Proverbs 26:11; and II Peter 2:22) like dogs returning to their vomit.

I was in Europe during the “First Gulf War” and encountered passionate street protests demanding “No blood for oil.” Yet that war – those wars – continued. And oil seems to be the ignition switch time and time again. But some day it will be water that is the reason. Or rare earth minerals. Just as were fertile soil, and silk, and spices, and superstitious beliefs, in the past. Maybe it is all superstition; maybe it is all mere greed and bellicosity in our souls.

But… humankind is progressing, we are told. Congratulations. We are advancing.

Think about what changes have occurred, however, when science develops new ways to save lives… as it also invents new ways to end lives. At near-birth, at old age, and in between. What a spectacle, when people march to save baby seals and whales, and simultaneously march for the right to kill babies.

Now we watch children being shot by soldiers; churches being bombed indiscriminately, perhaps intentionally; cities being levelled; medicine, food, and electricity withheld. Toys like drones are weaponized to obliterate homes and hospitals. In the name of peace.

Technology relentlessly advances. The world’s cultural heritage is at our fingertips, but approximately one-third of internet traffic is on pornography sites. Progress? Food – history’s routinely treasured commodity – is no longer scarce in much of the world, and the result in America, at least, is epidemic-level morbid obesity. Progress?

Whether this current war ends suddenly by surrender or negotiation or more slaughter, we cannot tell, we cannot know. It might end in the twinkling of an eye, or drag on for years like a vortex drawing into itself countries and peoples from farther and farther places around the globe. Leaders and states justify their policies by citing their gods. Many states cloak their blood lust not only by misquoting their scriptures, but by daring their gods – trying to force their gods’ hands and write their own apocalyptic scripts for End Times.

From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace (Jeremiah 8:10-11).

They have misled my people, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and… when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash (Ezekiel 13:10).

Again: Peace vs righteousness. Remember that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Where does that leave the war-mongers?

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Grandpa Elliott of New Orleans, by the “miracle” of video fellowship, is joined by musicians and singers around the world:

Click: Down By the Riverside