North New South Wales Conference

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Justin Torossian

Is the War Bigger Than You Think?

A hospital near the front lines is filled with moans and groans of agony, coming from patients with terrible wounds and missing limbs.

A plane flies overhead and little children dive onto the grass, ducking for cover, praying that bombs won't drop.

A husband kisses his weeping wife and children goodbye as he leaves them at the border of their neighboring country before returning to help and defend their homeland.

These heartbreaking tragedies and myriads more are all due to 1 thing, war.

♪♪♪ History Down through history, it seems to be nearly the only constant.

Yes, there are times of peace, but it's always only a matter of time before conflict comes and peace and prosperity give way to the woes of war.

Right now, at the time of the recording of this video, we're seeing it.

Soldiers and civilians are losing their lives.

People are being displaced from their homes.

When I was in university, I actually had the privilege of living in eastern Ukraine for 3 months, teaching English through teaching the Bible.

And I made some wonderful friends and met some beautifully kind and hospitable people in the time that I was there.

The post-Soviet nation that Ukraine is, people tend to be more stoic.

In fact, at least in the eastern part of the country, if you smile at a stranger on the bus or in public, they think that you're crazy.

He said, we may be cold on the outside but we're warm on the inside once you get to know us.

And unlike Americans, he added with a smile, when we're friendly you know it's because we actually like you.

All eyes around the world right now are on this conflict, but most don't realize that it's a fulfillment of the words of Jesus.

Not that Jesus desired it, but that He warned us that it would come.

In describing the signs and way markers that would alert us to the nearness of Jesus' return, He said this in Matthew 24, verse 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.

You probably know there are a lot of rumors out there about what's really happening, and just what news is fake news and what news is real is often near impossible to discern.

Jesus goes on in verse 7 and he says this, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There'll be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places.

So international war and natural disasters, that's floods, fires, famines, pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, and so on, these would all be things revealing to us that Jesus' coming is near.

But wait a minute, you must be thinking, haven't these things been happening over the last 2, 000 years, ever since Jesus spoke these words?

How can they be signs of the nearness of his second coming when they've been happening all along?

It's a great question and Jesus actually answered it before you even asked.

It says, all these are the beginnings of birth pains.

Your Bible may say sorrows, most translations do, but it's the word in Greek, odinone, which means birth pains.

So just like a pregnant woman's contractions increase in frequency and intensity, the closer they get to giving birth, Jesus said that these things, natural disasters, pandemics, wars, and rumors of wars would increase in their frequency and in their intensity.

And if you wanna hear some mind-blowing statistics on the increase in earthquakes, false Christs and false prophets, and all the things in this chapter that Jesus talked about that we don't have time to cover now, we're gonna put a link to another video in the description below.

But we're gonna look together now at war.

Has there been an increase in war all around the world over the last 150 years compared to previously?

The 20th century has been labeled by historians as the bloodiest century in history, with the first ever world war starting in 1914.

A few decades later in 1941, an even larger and longer world war broke out, World War II.

To put this in perspective just a bit, World War I led to about 20 million deaths and World War II more than double that with 50 million lives lost.

But tragically, these world wars weren't the end of the conflicts of last century, but really in a sense kind of the beginning.

Just to name a few of the many, the world saw bloody revolutions and civil wars in China, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Sudan, and Iran.

We saw wars like Vietnam, the Korean War, the French-Algerian War, the Soviet-Afghan War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf Wars, the Balkan War, the Indochina Wars.

And intermixed with these wars were genocides like the Armenian genocide where 2000000 people were slaughtered, the Holocaust in World War II, the Cambodian Genocide, and more recently, the Rwandan Genocide.

All in all, at least 108, at least 108 million people died in wars and conflicts in the 20th century.

Estimates of how many people have died in war throughout human history range from 150 million up to 1 billion.

And I'm not saying that it is 1 billion but if the number 1 billion is correct 1 billion people have ever died in war on planet Earth then that means more than 1 tenth of the people who have ever died in a war died last century.

Talk about the bloodiest century in history.

Historians know what they're talking about.

Has there been an increase in war in the last 150 years?

And this increase is another indicator that Jesus' return is near.

In war, there's always a much bigger picture than what's happening on the ground.

In 1 form or another, war is a battle over territory.

Decisions made by some, often at the top, affect all.

And there's a power struggle at the top, and often the true details are shrouded in mystery and inaccessible to the common folk like you and me.

We, that is all of us on planet earth, are in the midst of a war.

A war bigger than any picture Hollywood's wildest sci-fi movie has ever painted.

We didn't choose to be in this war but here we are right in the middle of it.

There's a power struggle at the top but unlike the wars of this world through the Bible our king pulls back the veil and gives us insights into the details of this cosmic war between good and evil, between God and Satan.

Revelation chapter 12 verse 7 gives us a glimpse into this cosmic history, and it says this.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought Wow so the first war ever recorded in the universe actually took place in heaven the passage goes on good news it says in verse 8 but they did not prevail nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So God won the battle against the dragon, Satan, this once perfect angel who chose to start a revolution against God.

Verse 9 goes on and it says, so the dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

Fast forward to the creation of the first humans ever, Adam and Eve.

Like the angels in heaven, they were given a choice.

They could choose to love and serve God, their compassionate creator and king, or they could choose to join Satan and his angels in their rebellion against God.

Just a side note to say, God never works by force.

He always works by choice, because God is love, and his creatures can only love him back if we can freely choose to do so or choose not to do so.

Follow God's instruction and avoid eating from 1 tree in all of the Garden of Eden.

Or eat the piece of forbidden fruit from the tree and be aligned with the evil rebellion.

Sadly, they bought into the lies of Satan through the serpent and plunged planet earth with all their future descendants into a war.

Our first parents witnessed for the first time in the universe things actually dying.

This would have been absolutely devastating to them because never had they imagined would this ever happen.

Through sin, death had barged into planet Earth and it's been an unwelcome guest ever since.

Now the human race was caught up in the midst of a war, this war between God and Satan, between light and darkness, between good and evil.

We can thank God that through the cross Jesus conquered Satan and the powers of darkness.

He guaranteed a way for humans to dwell again in a perfect world.

And the devil's future destruction is as good as done.

Jesus will return to rescue his people by airlifting them up off planet Earth and taking them home to heaven.

But in the meantime, the war wages on around us.

In writing to the Christian believers in the city of Ephesus, Paul wrote this in Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 10.

Amazing, Goes on and he says this in verse 12, the highlight of this passage, For we do not battle, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.

Lyle Southwell

Is Peace Really Possible?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome to the N.Dot Digital.

I'm Lyle Southwell and I'm here with Justin Terosian.

We're going to dig into the subject of wars and rumors of wars.

We've spent our last 2 presentations looking at this subject from a great controversy perspective, from a religious perspective, but we get to discuss it today.

Justin, where are we going to start this discussion?

You know, I wanted to ask you, in your presentations you talked about the history of religion in war and their connectivity.

I mean, most religions in the world these days preach, and back in history even, preach peace.

So why is there so much war connected to religion as we look at history?

Yeah, and really, you know, when I study history, I would challenge you as a listener to find me an example of a war where religion wasn't in some way central to that conflict.

Or if not religion, an ideology of say atheism that's pretty much the same as religion.

Now of course when we look at religion, religion probably nothing affects the human heart and the emotions more than our faith in God.

And so what I see taking place here Justin is people using that to motivate people in military conflict.

Napoleon once said that morale was worth 3 times what equipment was worth when it came to warfare.

And 1 of the ways that people have discovered of motivating and raising the morale of the troops is to inspire them with religion.

We see the same thing happening, you know, in our current conflicts right now, such as the Ukraine, where the different groups are seeing this as a religious war, a holy war, and they're looking at their religious differences as a way of inciting that extra level, inflaming that extra level of motivation to go and fight.

It's the complete contrast to everything that the Bible teaches and so much of what religion teaches.

It's amazing that it's able to be used in this way, but sadly throughout history, history repeats itself.

And if you go back through history, you're going to find religion at the centerpiece of war over and over and over and over and over again.

And I guess you could say false religion, right?

Because like you just mentioned, God's ways are not ways where war comes about, God is a God of peace.

And of course, he's the defender of his people.

And there are times where God is portrayed as a warrior in the Bible, right?

But by and large, false religion and misconstrued and twisted versions of the truth have been used to motivate people in the wrong way, haven't they?

Even in the name of God, like you mentioned in your presentation.

We go to the Gospel of John in John chapter 18 and verse 36.

Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews.

Jesus told us very plainly, we're not to be fighting over religion.

We're not to be fighting over Christianity.

We're not to be fighting over being a follower of Jesus.

When religion is injected into warfare, it is never true religion.

If this is the case, and if we should not be fighting here in the name of religion, if we shouldn't be fighting in the name of Jesus Christ, if He is the Prince of Peace, war started in heaven.

Doesn't that mean that God is the 1 who invented war in the first place?

Revelation chapter 12 we saw in the first presentation it says, and war broke out in heaven.

Notice it doesn't say God started a war in heaven nor does he created war but it says war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon.

And it says, and the dragon and his angels fought.

Verse 9 tells us the dragon is the devil and Satan.

And the fascinating thing about this to me is that the word here for war is not physical warfare.

And I mean, it would have turned physical because verse 9 tells us that the devil and his angels were cast out.

So there came a physical element at least at the end.

But the word here in verse 7 for war, translated war in English, is polemia.

From which we get the English word polemics, which means debate or argumentation.

So this was not primarily a physical war, this was a war of ideas.

And it was, you know, the devil convincing the angels that God was wrong, God was a tyrant, and that, you know, He was the 1 that really should deserve praise.

Which takes us back to another verse, Isaiah chapter 14, gives us an insight into who really started this war and what it was about.

And God pulls back the veil in this verse, so to speak.

And he actually tells us what was happening in the heart and mind of Lucifer, who was Satan before he chose to become evil or essentially go his own way, rebel against God and become Satan.

So Isaiah 14, verse 12, actually going on into verse 13.

For you have said in your heart, that is Lucifer, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mount of the congregation on the farther sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high.

So really we see here that the motivation of this war was that Satan wanted to organize a coup to take the throne of God himself.

And so we see that war broke out, it was the result, and eventually, After God bore long with Lucifer, no doubt, as he bore long with the angels, trying to win them back and get them to choose him and to choose truth, they rather were eventually cast out of heaven.

So Satan is actually the instigator of this war.

Yes, and now, of course, it's on planet Earth, and the wars that we see are a reflection of that, in a sense.

And as the wars that we see here on this earth are a reflection of the war in heaven, the war in heaven was a religious war.

It's no wonder that Satan injects religion into warfare on earth whenever he can.

So, you know, sometimes people try to say, well, Jesus said of the signs of the times, wars and rumors of wars would be 1 of them, pointing us to the reality that His coming is near.

But people say at times, you know, over the last 2000 years since Jesus said that, there have been wars and rumors of wars.

So how are we any closer in the last 150 years than we were in the 18th centuries before that.

Well Justin, you know I love history and studying history and so I thought I'd bring a picture speaks a thousand words I thought I'd bring something to illustrate this point for you all today.

And what I've got here is a rifle from the era of the American Civil War.

So that's some history, Justin, that you would know.

This is an 1863 Enfield that I've got right here.

And when you look at the technology that is involved here, it's fairly primitive.

This is technology that existed for around 400 years with very, very little change.

So as a weapons system, you've got a little bit of change that takes place here.

And that's pretty much all that changes here.

And the rest of it really doesn't change over a 400 year period.

So a musket with a ball that you tamp down, you know, you push down with the gunpowder.

Powder and ball down the barrel, push it down, cock it back.

You have an ignition system here, and it goes bang.

Now what's interesting about this is that it's actually a relatively inefficient weapon.

In fact, if you go back to the time of, say, Cyrus the Persian, who's fighting against, you know, Belshazzar and Nabonidus, you know, back in the Babylonian era, the Persians were renowned for their archers, and their archers had a higher rate of fire, a vastly higher rate of fire than this right here, and an equivalent range.

So as a projectile weapon, the bow was actually much more efficient than what this weapon was.

So in the United States of America, the Native Americans battling, you know, the early colonists would have been fairly even, which makes sense why they went back and forth at times.

Well, for a long time, until of course, you had a weapon that was using this kind of technology that could begin to match the rate of fire that you could get from a bow.

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

Revelation 16 has a fascinating prophecy.

In verse 13 the Bible says, "...and I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

They are the spirits of devils working miracles which go forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather the world together for the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

Notice that we have here religious powers, dragon, beast, false prophet, going out to political powers, the kings of the world, to gather the world together at the end of time.

That indicates that what we have is religion behind the scenes driving politics.

Or we could say we have prophesied a religious power that will work behind the scenes to incite the political leaders of the world to go to war.

So we must ask ourselves, what has been the involvement of religion in war throughout history?

You can find the full video on our YouTube channel.

It's called, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 508, Clovis, King of the Franks, converted to Christianity during a desperate encounter on the battlefield.

And then he bequeathed his army to the service of the Church, using it to fight the theological enemies of the Church, specifically people who rejected the Godhead.

In 538, the Roman general Belisarius drove the Ostrogoths from Rome to depose the Ostrogoth appointed Pope and replace him with 1 appointed by the Eastern Roman Empire.

The church in the wilderness, a term used to describe many groups of Bible-believing, peace-loving Christians in many parts of the world faced nearly a millennia of crusades before the period of the Reformation.

Rising in the 6th century, Islam proclaimed an Abrahamic religion free of idolatry.

It went on to be an aggressive religion that also faced the great crusades brought upon it by the Western Church.

In the 16th century, the Great Reformation produced Protestantism and yet more crusades.

In fact, some historians estimate that 150 million people died as a direct result of war and persecution instigated just by the Vatican during this era.

But today let's talk about what we call the Northern Crusades, a history less well known to us in the West than the Crusades in the Holy Land.

And to understand these conflicts, we must understand the history of Russia and Ukraine.

When we think of the Vikings, we typically think of the Norsemen from Scandinavia moving out across the sea in their powerful, clink-constructed Viking ships, either under the power of wind or banks of rowers.

We think of them raiding the coasts of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, forming colonies as far south as Italy.

We remember their exploration and colonization of Iceland, Greenland and Canada.

However, we don't always think of their eastward expansion.

The Viking ship, with its rows of oars and shallow draft, was perfectly fitted for raiding up the greatest rivers of Europe that now flow through modern day Russia.

What red-blooded, golden-haired Viking would resist the opportunity to raid the wealth of the East?

The Norse raiders in the east, rather than being called Vikings by the Slavic population, were called Rus, which means rowers or the men who row.

In 862, a Rus warrior by the name of Rurik became the leader of the most significant state in the region at the time, the Novgorod Republic.

His son Ivar, or Igor, raided further south and conquered Kiev and formed what became known as Kievan Rus'.

Kievan Rus' grew so much in power that at its height it rivaled and even attempted to conquer both the Byzantine and Persian Empires.

In 988, A Viking by the name of Vladimir the Great was ruling Kievan Rus and decided that it was time to change his religion.

Up until this point, the Eastern Vikings had served the Baltic Slavic god Perun, who was essentially a northern version of Baal.

Vladimir investigated the major religions of the day, Latin-Rite Christians or Roman Catholicism, Greek-Rite Christians, Orthodoxy, Islam, and Judaism.

He bypassed the local church in the wilderness already in existence within his own region as lacking in political influence.

He was initially attracted to the 72 virgins of Islam, but was not prepared to give up pork and alcohol.

Judaism placed great emphasis on their land but had lost that land for many centuries so that it just didn't look right.

Roman Catholicism made the boldest claims of being the only authoritative religion but was far away and idolatrous with its many images.

Greek Orthodoxy was a larger denomination and was geographically close and made for a natural alliance with Byzantium.

The deal was sweetened with a marriage to the 27-year-old sister of the Byzantine Emperor, Basil II.

This was the first time a Byzantine imperial princess had been married to a barbarian ruler despite the strenuous efforts of Christian kings in Germany, France and other places.

Back to Menu

Series

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Is Peace Really Possible?

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Is the War Bigger Than You Think?

15m

Is Peace Really Possible?

19m

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

24m

Sound Doctrine