Something big is in the offing

"Beware, The Ides of March"  .In Shakespeare's
play, "Julius Caesar", a soothsayer confronts Caesar on his way to the
Senate and tells him, "Beware, the Ides of March," prophesying his
murder on that day. Caesar replies, "He is a dreamer, let us leave him.
Pass."  Later that day, March 15, BC 44, Caesar is assassinated in the
Pompey Theatre where the Roman Senate was meeting that day in the temple of
Venus.  The Ides of March are upon us. America is under stresses unlike
those in living memory. The Department of Homeland Security has just raised the
terror threat to high.  It worked. Most people I've spoken with are more
terrified than they were before. (I don't know if I'd call them 'highly
terrified, but their level went up with the pastel colour scheme). 

The Shuttle came down, the threat level went up, the Dow
dropped, deficits rose. We plan our attack on Iraq. Iraq plans its response.
al-Qaeda sits out there, somewhere, just out of sight. So does our military, on
aircraft carriers and dusty desert forward deployment areas somewhere in the
Persian Gulf. 

On the other side of the world, North Korea threatens us with
a pre-emptive nuclear strike, only hours after most of us found out that they
actually COULD, if they really wanted to. And we still aren't even sure WHY they
want to. 

Europe is dividing, like a cell in a microscope, as we watch
in amazement. There are now two Europes. The big, rich, 'Old Europe' of France
and Germany is now the Europe that stands in opposition to all things
American.  (Sixty years ago, both countries were in rubble and in danger of
becoming part of the socialist worker's paradise of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, but we rebuilt them and protected them until we spent the
Soviets out of existence).  Then there is the 'New' Europe, (the ones we
DIDN'T make into the biggest and richest countries on the Continent). That
Europe is largely made up out of the old Soviet Europe. They are the ones who
starved and scraped their way through the last half of the 20th century under
the heel of the Soviet conqueror.  Until we rescued them. Unlike the French
and Germans, they haven't had time to convince themselves that they did it on
their own.  When America asked for their aid, they remembered the world as
it was before the Americans. They looked around at the world AFTER they met the
Americans. 
They remembered how they were treated at the hands of the French and Germans as
they sought admission into the European Goodfellas Club.

Virtually all of New Europe remembered what it meant to live
under a dictatorship. 

And unlike old Europe's Germany and France, they aren't
demanding more time for 'inspections' (mainly because THEIR people aren't in
Baghdad helping to shred all the French and German documents associated with
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs). 

In the Middle East, Ariel Sharon is attempting to build a new
roadmap to 'peace' while his countrymen practice putting on chemical suits or
gas masks in the event of an Iraqi counter-attack.  His 'peace partners' --
who carry Saddam's picture in the streets, prepare to claim the spoils of war in
the hoped-for eventuality of Israel's destruction by avenging Iraqi Scud
missiles tipped with chemical or biological weapons. (They evidently think Arab
nerve gas only kills Jews).

Assessment: 

One gets the sense that 'Something Big is in the offing.'
Not that war with Iraq is something small, but this is more like the first game
of the playoffs than it is the days leading up to the Super Bowl.  Sixty
years ago, America learned it was Number One. That was reconfirmed on Christmas
Day, 1991, when the Soviet Union announced its dissolution.  Today, being
Number One conjures up more of a sense of shame than pride. 

For reasons unclear to me, those to whom America has given
the most, like the Hollywood actors who live like uncrowned royalty and the
liberals who believe America owes them a living, (paid for by the rich, as long
as it isn't THEM - they all have tax accountants - ever wonder why?) - the truly
blessed among the blessed, are the most vitriolic enemies of the system that
made them what they are.  And the people of that system who paid their way
FOR them with their money and their blood.  To this crowd of hypocrites,
the real heroes are the 'freedom fighters' who make war against freedom. To
them, the villains are George Bush and Ariel Sharon. They prefer the
anti-heroes, like Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden. The ones
who make war against America's 'evil' system. 

They see Israel's democracy as a threat to Middle East peace,
while they embrace the dictators who threaten it. They view America's liberation
of an Iraqi people under the thumb of Saddam Hussein as an aggression, claiming
that keeping the Iraqis in bondage is done out of 'love for the Iraqi people' --
and nobody questions their thinking. 

They are content to put America's security in the hands of an
unelected United Nations and say they are doing so in the name of
'democracy'.  It's like logic is turned upside down. 

Like Caesar, they see the threat in reverse, fearing the
dreamer more than the dream. 

In our hour of need, we find our friends have become our
enemies, as the Germans and French work actively to keep NATO from coming to our
aid, while our former enemies of the Warsaw Pact have become our staunchest
allies.  ("And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."
- Matthew 10:36) 

It's like waking up on the other side of Alice's Looking
Glass.  This is still the America that crushed the Nazis and pushed Japan
all the way back from Midway to the home island of Honshu.  The America who
stood for fifty years against the mighty power of the Soviet Union now cowers in
fear of a handful of terrorists and two nations that together couldn't defeat
New York State, let alone the United States of America.  Not because we are
afraid we'll lose. Rather, because we are afraid we might HURT somebody in a war
in which America is characterized by the rest of the world as an aggressor with
colonial designs.  (What other nation on earth has ever hesitated in war
because it feared it might hurt somebody in the process? And was universally
despised as a 'bully' for it?)  Nobody can quite nail down that Something
Big that everybody senses but can't quite articulate.  Because nothing
quite adds up.

Disassembled into its component parts, one can mount an
argument against a war with Iraq (not a good one, but the arguments are there),
or an argument in favour of supporting a Palestinian state (same qualifiers) or
even an argument that explains why al-Qaeda wants to kill us (because we support
Israel). 

The North Korean problem is our fault because we failed to
save them from the famine brought on by their refusal to accept our aid. It is
like a collective insanity (or maybe just a bi-polar illness).  In any
case, the American picnic is clearly short a couple of jars of pickles. 
The Something Big in the offing is a world war unlike any other. It is being
conducted in the name of peace and the villains in the whole thing are the only
two countries in the whole mess who truly want peace for the sake of peace -
America, and Israel. 

The world has turned that love of peace into an instrument of
war. ("and by peace shall destroy many" - Daniel 8:25)  France
and Germany oppose war with Iraq because it is unprofitable. China and Russia
oppose war with North Korea because they share in the profits of North Korea's
proliferation, since they are supplying the technology and spare parts. 
Hollywood stars oppose the war because they are stupid and think everybody lives
in the same world of make-believe that they do.

(As examples, I offer Martin Sheen as a spokesman for the
homeless or Liz Taylor as spokeswoman for AIDS - what next? Michael Jackson as
spokesperson for child abuse? On what level does this make sense?) 

It seems unnatural. That's because it is. It is supernatural.
We are living in the last days.  The prophecies of Scripture that foretold
the restoration of Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Gog Magog War, the
rise of the revived Roman Empire of antichrist, the development of the global
economic, religious and political systems of the last days - these things are
supernaturally divined, and therefore, supernaturally designed.  They
follow no logical, earthly pattern, because they are part of a supernatural,
unearthly plan. That fact alone establishes their authorship.  The Bible
says that in the last days, "Woe to the inhibiters of the earth and of the
sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth
that he hath but a short time." (Revelation 12:12).  We also know from
Scripture that "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace" (1
Corinthians 14:33).  We ARE living in the last days. What part of the following
sounds like it doesn't apply? What part of the following applies to any previous
generation that you can pinpoint? 

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon,
and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the
sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall
be shaken."(Luke 21-25-67) 
So why would anybody doubt the following verse? 

"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look
up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh". (Luke 21:28) 

The King IS coming. No kidding.