As the nations of the world seem to be racing toward greater conflict, even annihilation, what should Christians be doing in response? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah examines Jesus' prophecy that his followers would hear of wars and rumors of wars in Earth's final days. From the world of the end, here's David to introduce today's message. In a world of war, be calm.
And we are in a world of war. The Bible says there will be wars and rumors of wars. We got all of it. We got the wars and we got the rumors, too. And I have a little chart in this book that I wrote from which we are.
Gathering these thoughts for this series on the radio, and in this chart, I have a list of the countries with nuclear weapons. Interestingly enough, the United States has fifty four hundred, Russia has fifty nine hundred. and the next closest is China with three hundred and fifty.
So between Russia and us, we seem to be in this race to see who can have the most nuclear weapons. And I don't think the difference between four or five is going to make that much of a difference if there's a war. And even now, the war that we're fighting is a war to keep another country from getting nuclear weapons.
So war is an awful thing. I remember reading some years ago that war is a bad thing, but it's not the worst thing. The worst thing is to be somebody for whom nothing is worthy of fighting.
Some people don't care about anything, so they have to depend on better people than themselves to fight the wars that keep them free. And um I'm glad that we have a country that stands for the truth. We don't fight meaningless wars. We're in one now. Hopefully, it won't be long before we're free of it.
And today, we're going to talk about war from the Bible. Pretty interesting in light of today's experience.
So, be sure and stay tuned today and tomorrow as we talk about In a World of War, Be Calm. Hey, don't forget where you can get a copy of everything that I've been saying: all these truths about the future and how they affect us today. It's a book called The World of the End. And it is available to you for a gift of any size during the month of April. We have them available, this hardback.
Book is ready to be shipped as soon as we get your request.
So, when you send your gift, whatever the size of that gift may be, simply say, Please send me the world of the end, and it'll be on its way to you really quickly. Hey, let me just shout out for a moment to our Canadian friends. I've been trying to remind you periodically that we love you and we love the privilege of ministering to you. Our ministry in Canada has continued to grow over the years, and it's just important for me to say to you that when you give to Canada Radio, it stays in your hands so that we can continue to see the growth of radio in Canada. Thank you so much for your faithfulness, all of you who are Canadian partners.
Here is part one of In a World of War, Be Calm. Uh If you're able to visit the Karnak Temple Complex in central Egypt, You will view some of the oldest ruins in history decayed temples, chapels, and residences. On the wall of one of the temples, you'll see Egyptian hieroglyphics which have been translated. By linguists, and these ancient etchings provide a description of the first recorded war in the history of the world. This war wasn't really the first conflict in the history of the world.
It was the first recorded conflict. in the history of the world, written in enduring form. The battle took place on April the 16th back in 1457 between Pharaoh Tutmos III and a coalition of Canaanite tribes. Both armies boasted about 10,000 men. and they retreated into the walled city known as Megiddo.
The Egyptians lay siege to the city and took it in seven months. All of that's kind of interesting, but not as interesting to me as the location of this war. You see, I've given you some clues, so take a guess. Where did this battle happen? The battle between Egypt and the Canaanites, the first recorded battle in world history, occurred in the valley of Armageddon.
This conflict is commonly called the Battle of Megiddo. And I've visited the ruins of Megiddo many times when I've been in Israel. From the top of Telmegiddo, you can view the valley of Jezreel, known as the Valley of Armageddon. It's the breadbasket of Israel. a perfect agricultural plain that yields huge amounts of barley and wheat and oranges and others.
But throughout history, the Valley of Megiddo has been the scene of countless battles. As many as 200 different battles have been fought.
Some have said it's the perfect battleground. In all of the world. And it's here that the Antichrist will set up his forward operating base in the final war of history, which we all know as the Battle of Armageddon.
So interesting to me. Stop and think about it for a moment. Our planet has a land surface of more than 57 million square miles. And yet, the first and last recorded battles in history are fought. in the very same place.
These two wars are like bookends. In the history of warfare. Between them is volume after volume of the bloody battles that mar the human story. Our conflicts. In his message on the world of the end, Jesus warned that dissension would increase and global warfare would envelop the world in mounting measure.
Here's what he said in Matthew 24 as he gave the sermon to his four disciples on Mount Olivet. He said, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. I know that all of you believe, as I do, that war is a curse.
According to an article in the New York Times, the world has been at peace for only 268. out of the past 3,400 years. In other words, only 8% of our history has been peaceful. No one knows how many people have died in times of war. The Times speculated that at least 108 million people were killed in wars in the 20th century alone, and some believe that over a billion people have lost their lives during the military conflicts.
that have potmarked history like bomb craters. C.S. Lewis. who we quote often here. knew the curse of war.
During World War I, he was sent to the front lines in France. After a few weeks there, he was hospitalized with a bout of trench fever. When he was discharged from the hospital, he immediately returned to the front lines, where three months later he was wounded in three places. By an exploding shell that actually killed a sergeant who was standing next to him. Lewis carried those experiences with him for the rest of his life.
And when World War II arrived, he wrote these words: My memories of the last war haunted my dreams for years. Military service, to be plain, includes the threat of every temporal evil. pain and death. Which is what we fear from sickness, isolation from those we love, which is what we fear from exile, toil under arbitrary masters, which is what we fear from slavery, hunger, thirst, and exposure, which is what we fear from poverty. He said, I'm not a pacifist, but.
If it's got to be, it's got to be. The flesh is weak and selfish. And I think death would be much better than to live through another war. We have a lot of military people in our church, both in present service. and having served.
If you've experienced war at any level, you know exactly what C.S. Lewis is talking about. War is an awful thing. But war is not the worst thing. I will never forget the first time I read this statement.
War is an ugly thing. But not the ugliest of things. The decayed state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks nothing is worth a war. That's worse. A man who has nothing which he cares about more than his own personal safety is a miserable creature.
and has no chance of being free unless he's made free and kept so. by the exertions of better men than himself, And while war is awful, And war brings so much sadness and pain. If it had not been for those who were willing to fight, we would not be free. And we are grateful today. Nobody wants war.
But nobody wants a world That is not worth sacrifice. And freedom Doesn't come free. It comes at great expense. Because the curse of war is so great, philosophers have long searched for the reason for it. What is the cause of war?
Why do wars happen? The problem is in the human heart. And we can trace it back to the moment of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God. The vertical rupture created a horizontal rupture. between one person and another.
And from that day forward, history and the pages of the Bible have been marked. By war. In fact, the Old Testament It's full of war. The word for war occurs more than 300 times in the Old Testament scriptures. and more than 200 times in the Old Testament.
Jehovah God is called the Lord of hosts or the Lord of armies. After Moses and the children of Israel escaped the clutches of Pharaoh through the intervention of Jehovah, they sang this song. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name. And many of God's great servants were military men: Saul, David, Moses, Gideon, many of the kings of Israel.
This was the testimony of King David. He said, Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. I think this is really incredibly important because oftentimes I hear things being said about warriors, modern day warriors, that just aren't true. And sometimes in the culture in which you and I live, To be a military man is not to be honored as it once was. The Bible honors military men.
The Bible honors soldiers. It does not honor war, but it honors those who are willing to fight war.
so that good may happen. The point is often made that while in the Old Testament there's a lot of war, When you get to the New Testament and the time of Christ, war disappears, but that's not true. If you read the New Testament, you discover. But While war is not as prevalent as in the Old Testament, When a soldier appears on the pages of the New Testament scripture, he appears. with commendation and appreciation.
In fact, there are five Roman centurions whose lives are told in the New Testament. If you read all their stories, they're all positive. There's no negative connotation to war in the New Testament, as some would say. In fact, the apostles, if you remember, used the language of war on many occasions to illustrate the believer's sojourn. They spoke of lusts that war in your members.
They instructed their followers to abstain from fleshly lusts. They were Told that through Christ they could become conquerors and they could triumph. Timothy was encouraged by Paul to war a good warfare, and these are just a few. Of the uses of war as a picture of how we have to live every day. Could I just stop and say sometimes we just have to admit.
Every day is like a war. Yeah. Can I get a witness? I mean, in some aspect or another, perhaps more so than now, let's just say we're in an inflation war. All kinds of different wars, and we have to be soldiers, and we can't be timid, and we have to get up every day, whether we feel like it or not, and go fight the war.
I think it's safe to say that because of the conflict between good and evil that originated in the Garden of Eden, war has become a major theme in the human story. And James chapter 4. tells us where it all starts. Listen to these words. Where do wars and fights come from among you?
Do they not come from your desires? For pleasure that wore in your members, you lust. And you do not have You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
In other words, war comes from our human desire to have that which is not ours. See it. And say it again, it's true. War comes from the evil in a man's heart. in the heart of a person.
And the course of war Men and women is something to behold, and as we sit here today in comfort and safety, were it not for the provision of God, we would all. be in a war somewhere. Having looked at the curse and the cause of war, let's look at its course. It started with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, and throughout history the technology has increased until the world today has enough firepower to kill everyone on earth many times over. And that brings us to the words of Jesus again in Matthew 24.
This is what he said: and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. As the time comes for Jesus to return, there will be an escalation of verbiage about war. That's Jesus' statement. Remarkably, he spoke those words during a time of prolonged peace. If you've studied history, you've heard of Pax Romana, which is Roman peace.
And Jesus lived on this earth during a portion of that time when he spoke these words about the coming of war. He was living in a time of peace. Few people would have predicted the return and acceleration of international warfare. At a time like that, you usually don't talk about war when things are peaceful, but Jesus did because Jesus knew what was ahead. He unequivocally told his disciples, You will hear.
Of wars and rumors of wars. When the time comes for my return, get ready, because it will be introduced by the escalation of intensity and frequency. of Warspeak. And are we living in that day? We surely are.
Jesus was telling his disciples they would hear of actual wars and of reports of other wars. In other words, you will hear about wars far away, and you will hear the sound of wars close by, and the wars will come to you, to your gates, to your cities. One translation translates this phrase: You are going to hear the noise of battles close by, and the news of battles far away.
Some of the biblical scholars who have commented on the phrase wars and rumors of wars. have said that the earliest use of that phrase was a description of World War. In other words, when the writers wrote Wars and Rumors of Wars, they were talking about World War. if that's the meaning of the phrase. Jesus was telling us and His disciples that before He returned the second time.
There would be another world war. I've heard that. Spoken about just about more than ever I can remember. People are lining up the nations and talking about where they would be and what would happen if this took place. And the idea of a world war gets discussed.
I don't remember that until just recent times. Are we headed toward World War III?
Some military experts think so, and it's possible that Jesus said so.
So I don't know. In either case, the idea is there will be wars everywhere which will increase in intensity and scope and fearfulness. as we draw close to the time when Jesus comes back.
So where are we today? Today, the Russian invasion of Ukraine slogs on with heartbreaking images on television every night. Vladimir Putin has amassed the world's largest collection of nuclear weapons and threatens to use them if I have to. China is surrounding Taiwan with warships as the Communist government conducts war games and drills. China expert Evan Osnus argues that China is preparing to shape the 21st century like the United States shaped the 20th century.
Another China watcher, Rush Dashi, wrote: China now poses a challenge unlike any other. the United States has ever faced. Pakistan, India now possess nuclear weapons. And the wrong provocation at the wrong time could trigger it all. At this time, nine countries are known.
to possess nuclear weapons. And the global inventory is estimated at 13,000. The warheads on just one US nuclear armed submarine have seven times the destructive power of all the bombs dropped during World War two. You heard me. On just one submarine, and currently there are ten such American submarines prowling around the world's oceans, There's more firepower.
than all the bombs that were dropped, even the ones in Japan. And the oceans are filled with submarines from other nations carrying equal payloads. A new arms race has begun with nearly all nuclear powers working overtime to increase their arsenals. China has an estimated 350 nuclear warheads assigned to missiles. all of which are capable of reaching the United States.
The United Kingdom has 225. I could go on and give you the list. I'm just telling you that we live in a time when armament is like it has never been before.
Someone says, what about Israel? And the answer to that is, Israel never discusses its nuclear capabilities. But you can be sure. They're ready for whatever happens.
Now the Lord has given us a vision into the future in Matthew 24 and in the book of Revelation. And he says that at any moment Jesus is going to come for his church. And then the events of Matthew 24 that have been growing in intensity and frequency will give birth. to a series of war like nothing had ever happened before in human history. I'm not trying to be negative.
I'm not trying to scare you. What I'm trying to do is help you understand that we live in a perilous time. That's the context in which I want to give you the major message from this particular story. We have conflicts. But we have confidence.
I don't like war any more than you do. I wish there was something I could do. I wish I could do something. There isn't anything I can do to stop war. There's not anything you can do to stop war.
And there's no reason to worry about it because there's nothing you can do about it. But here's what you can do, and this is what this is all about, and this is what I hope you will get today. You can become the person of God that he created you to be so that no matter what happens, you're ready to stand up and be God's person. And our confidence becomes so powerful because Jesus summarized all that He wants us to know. In fact, I kind of skimmed over it because I didn't want to give it away too soon.
But I want you to hear what Jesus said. We would have expected him to say, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, so be prepared for trouble. Or we would have expected him to say, You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, keep an anxious eye on the times. Expect to feel uneasy and prepare for the many foes and the woes to come. But that is not what Jesus said.
Jesus said, You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled. Are you kidding me? I mean, I just gave you a pretty dire report. And Jesus is saying to us at the end of this report, Y'all don't be troubled.
Sometimes the scripture just Almost makes you laugh. The Greek word for troubled means to be terrified, means to cry loud, it means to scream. Jesus is telling us not to panic, even when we are surrounded by wars and rumors of wars. How is that possible? How can you live in a world like we live in today and not be troubled?
Well, here's the answer. It's all wrapped up in the peace that you find. in God's promise. In God's presence. and in God's plan.
Peace from God's promise. I feel grieved by the conflicts that harm and destroy so many people, especially so many innocent people. We may ask good questions about why these things happen, but here's what I want to tell you: here's God's promise. One day It's all going to end. Promise comes to us in Psalm 46:9, he makes wars to cease.
To the end of the earth. One day, King Jesus. It's going to stop war and it'll never happen again. Isaiah spoke of the days when the kingdom of Jesus will reign from Jerusalem and all the tribes of the earth will hear his teachings and learn his ways. And Isaiah says, They shall beat their swords in the plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. We've joked about it over the years. That there aren't going to be any preachers. preaching in heaven because we will know everything we should know.
So when I get to heaven, I'm out of work. But I'm not the only one. All you military guys sitting down here. All you military families that live every day in preparation for the defense of this nation, the Bible says one day. King Jesus is going to stop all war.
And you and I'll sit down and figure out what to do next. But there won't be any war. We'll have more discussion about this tomorrow when we get together for the Tuesday edition. I hope you'll be with us then as we finish up our discussion of In a World of War, Be Calm. In this series we are talking about How the prophecies of Jesus shaped the priorities today that we live by.
We're studying the Olivet Discourse, Matthew chapter 24, and we're finding so many applications. I hope you are following along. There is a study guide for this series and uh You can also get the audio material on C D's and D V D's. If you want this material, you just go to davidjeremiah.org. look up the current series and you'll know exactly what to do.
We prepared this material to be used and we hope you'll use it. and that God will help you share this with others, maybe as a facilitator of a small group or in a Sunday school class.
However you use it, we're grateful for the privilege of providing it. Have a great day, friends. We'll see you right here tomorrow for the next edition of Turning Point. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series The World of the End, please.
Please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's informative and inspiring book, The World of the End, with a special Be the Answer bookmark. Yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James Versions. complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we continue the series The World of the End on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
