It's looking like we are heading into another war, one with North Korea. They have publicly said they are preparing to test a long range missile...one that could be nuclear…one that could reach our shores. Our president has said repeatedly that the US will protect herself from any attack and has really not been specific as to he means by "protect herself". Many people are talking about a pre-emptive strike to take out their ability to launch anything, anywhere. North Korea vowed on Monday to respond with an "annihilating" nuclear strike if it is attacked preemptively by the United States.

Wow.

This is the year of our Lord, 2006. Are nations really still acting like this? After a century of enlightenment, dialog and tolerance it is amazing that we still hear of "wars and rumors of wars", isn't it? It's immature actually, if you think about it. It's nothing more than the bullies in the playground, except now the bullies have armies, navies and nukes. It's all nonsense, it's madness. Why in the world would North Korea, Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan ever want to provoke us to strike them? It's like all these piss ant dictators all have a death wish or something. What would drive these guys to the point of provoking the US to take up arms against them, resulting in being bombed into oblivion, losing their power, money and luxury...or losing their life? Sadaam went from palaces and riches to a freakin rat hole! Only God knows what hole Bin Laden has been sleeping in. Do these guys honestly think they can conquer us? I think the answer to the questions about why we still have war boils down to, like every other issue, the spiritual realities of life.

The reason why so many people are so shocked at the thought of war is because we simply have a misunderstanding of human nature. Mankind is selfish, egotistical and manipulative. We are sinners. Sin blinds the minds and hearts of men and women. Sin drives us into insanity, ultimately. What is more insane than spiting at the rule and reign of our Creator? Our sinful nature craves more sin, more sin, more sin. Our sinful nature drives us from sanity, from repentance and from the rule of Christ in our hearts. Apparently, the sinful craving for more power, more dominance, more more more in Sadaam, Bin Laden and probably now Kim Jong Il has blinded them to the reality of what their actions will bring upon them. They not only fight the US, but I can assure you, based upon how their regimes have treated God’s elect people, they are fighting with God Himself. It sure looks like God is using their insane lust for power to actually backfire on them and their craving for sin by sending the US in to bring His judgment against them.

We look at them and the hell they bring onto their own laps and we are totally amazed at their foolishness. Yet we allow our own lust for more sin to corrupt our judgment constantly…the only difference is that we don’t have armies and nukes, so our blindness and insanity is not nearly as pronounced or amplified as these dictators.

It's like the drunkard whose wife has given him the ultimatum: beer or your family, finding himself alone, drunk and depressed at the bar.

It's like the women who has gambled away all her savings and is about to lose her home to foreclosure finding herself driving to the casino one more time.

It's like the glutton who has eaten herself into all sorts of health problems finding herself getting up in the middle of the night to eat while her husband and kids are asleep.

Sin blinds us to reality. Stop and think about that statement. Sin blinds us to reality. Sin always pulls down, it always destroys and it always degrades. Kim Jong Il is a sinner. His sin is blinding him to the fact that when you sew the wind, you reap the whirl wind.

This world will never know peace until the Prince of Peace sits on His thrown, in the New Jerusalem, here on earth. Did you know that King Jesus is going to reign, physically, right here on earth? Yep. We often think that believers are going “up to heaven” and will live with Jesus “up there” in the “glory land” in “the clouds”, forever. That’s not true at all. There is going to come a day when He will come here and live with us, on earth, forever! Read it for yourself in at the end of this article. Until that day people will still be people. Some will sin more than others, but no mater what, there will still be kids pinching each other in the nursery, girls pulling hair in grade school, boys fighting in the restrooms in junior high, gang fights in high school and wars and rumors of wars all around the world until the King returns and ends all this bs.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Revelation 21:1-8 niv