In this thought-provoking episode, we revisit historical insights on war and peace, particularly the chilling reality of nuclear proliferation in a world that seems more chaotic than ever. By exploring the perspective of those advocating for unilateral disarmament and weighing it against the stark potential of nuclear catastrophe, this discussion raises crucial questions about the delicate balance between freedom and security. With reflections on historical movements and the nature of human aggression, we confront the sobering possibility of nuclear terrorism in our cities, urging a more profound understanding of the issues at hand.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 02 :
Years ago, while living in England, I saw some graffiti on an overpass that declared, War is Obsolete. This was in the glory days of the Ban the Bomb movement. There were well-intentioned people who favored unilateral nuclear disarmament. The British could afford to think that way because the American bombs could be counted on to keep the Russians from dropping any of their bombs. And so the British loved to march in Ban the Bomb movements. At the time, I wrote a magazine article that opined that war was far from obsolete. that history told us man had never developed a weapon he did not eventually use. And I was really profoundly impressed with the fact that sooner or later somebody was going to use one of those things. Well, time passed, and so did my opinion. In fact, it’s been 60 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and no one has been killed by a nuclear weapon in all that time. After all, no one could hope to win a nuclear war, so there was no reason why any sane person or nation would start one. In all those intervening years, the only nations that had any nuclear weapons were, allegedly, sane. Well, more time has passed, and now we have to deal with powers that show very clear signs of not being very sane. And the insanity has allowed nuclear materials and technology to leak out of their tightly sealed boxes and into the hands of people who are certifiably insane. Mutually assured destruction was a reasonable doctrine in a world where we were dealing with reasonable people who loved life. Now, we’re dealing with unreasonable people who care nothing for life not even their own. You could even say that they love death. I don’t think we yet understand the religion or the psychology of the 9-11 hijackers who brought down the World Trade Center. But with the advent and spread of the suicide bomber, everyone is now thinking that we will ultimately have to deal with nuclear suicide bombers, and that is truly unimaginable. 9-11 brought a serious economic and emotional shock to this country. What kind of shock would it have been if the destruction in Manhattan had been nuclear? And what if the terrorists were able to hit New York, Washington, and Chicago with nuclear weapons all on the same day, even smallish suitcase nuclear bombs? What would be the economic loss and the emotional cost of such a catastrophe, of not even being able to go into Manhattan, not even be able to approach the nation’s capital because of lingering radiation? Well, I have no idea what the loss and the cost would be, but you can bet there are economists in government who do know. But I seriously doubt that there is anyone who has any clear idea what to do about it. We love our freedom so much, we don’t want the FBI looking at our library cards. There’s a childishness, frankly, about some of this. We want our freedoms, no matter what that cost is. We’re as bad as a teenage girl who wants her freedom to go out with any boy she chooses under all circumstances at any hour of the day or night and doesn’t understand at all why her parents would be concerned. She wants her freedom even when it can cost her everything, even her life. We don’t want the FBI to be able to go to a judge and get a warrant to listen in on our phone calls. Frankly, for a while after the Patriot Act passed, I was putting a little signature line on all my emails. It said, to the FBI agent who is reading my email, keep up the good work. This country is so open, so free, that we have no way of defending ourselves against this threat. And if you believe, as many do, that the war in Iraq is unwinnable and it will go on indefinitely, you have made the best case for letting it go on and continuing to fight it there. It is better to fight there than here and on the face of it. That’s what’s happening. Our troops in Iraq are calling in foreign fighters, and not just our troops in Iraq. It’s the mere fact that Iraq is a bit unstable, and they think they can cause more chaos there. They can operate more freely there than they can in other places. It is a perfectly good place to go and blow themselves up with a lot of innocent civilians. And so they’re going there. And if they weren’t going there, they might well be coming here. I’m one of those who believe it’s better to fight there than here. The fools on the other side of this war are unable themselves to see that they can’t win this war of attrition. They keep killing civilians while we’re killing terrorists. And nobody over there has ever taken a look at that and said, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, we’re killing the wrong people. We’re killing civilians, women, children, while the Americans are killing terrorists. And while they may be able to recruit more killers indefinitely, they can never win unless we give up and go home. And they are such fools, they think someday we will. They don’t realize that the best way to get us to go home is to just stop killing people. If they really wanted our soldiers home, they just, no more suicide bombings, no more car bombings, no more killing people, just go to ground. It will not be very long at all before the American people and Congress say, bring our boys home. And then they can come back and kill all the people they want. They could also come to this country and blow up American civilians, perhaps even with nuclear weapons. And I’m confident that if there is any way on earth that they can do it, they will. And can anyone doubt that if we don’t watch ourselves, we could be having the latest suicide and car bombings on the evening news in Detroit? We could hear a news item that says there were severe thunderstorms with hail and tornadoes in Oklahoma this evening and three suicide bombers hit Tulsa malls. Israel is building a wall to keep suicide bombers out. Can you see us doing that? Well, in a few years, not so very many, it may seem entirely reasonable to you for us to put up fences. You may see walls, fences, and minefields all along the Mexican and Canadian borders. Maybe you will see the internment of all Islamic Americans. You know, it’s absolutely unthinkable in the world that we have now. But in a world where someone has detonated a nuclear device in downtown Chicago, it will become very thinkable. It is hard to see any possibility of armistice in this war. Consider the mullahs in Iran. The good news is that the U.S. has first-strike capability to destroy any possibility of Iran using their nuclear weapons on their neighbors. The bad news? Oh, well, the bad news is that the leadership of Iran doesn’t care. And that’s what’s different about the world since my original assessment of the possibility of nuclear war. Then the enemy cared whether they lived or died. We have a new enemy now that just simply does not care. And all the old calculations are obsolete. Anything is possible. And now? Now we might want to dust off all the old predictions of apocalypse that we thought we might not have to look at again. Do the prophets of the Bible foretell a nuclear Armageddon? Some people really expected that back in the days of the Cold War. They thought perhaps we would have nuclear weapons raining down around our heads. It was possible. It was not only possible, it was possible to bring it on by accident without really meaning to do it. Between the great powers, there were enough nuclear weapons to erase life from off the planet. There were enough to actually bring about something that Jesus said during his earthly ministry. What was that? Well, I’ll tell you what he said when I come back. But first, grab a pencil and a piece of paper. You may want to jot down this phone number and this address for the offer that we have for you.
SPEAKER 01 :
The book of Revelation. What are the seven trumpets of Revelation? Who can open the seven seals? Will all life be destroyed from planet Earth? For a free introductory cassette and information on the entire Revelation series, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44.
SPEAKER 02 :
At one point, in a rather long discourse on prophecies about the end time, Jesus made a really astonishing statement. He said, And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved alive. But for the elect’s sake, those days will be shortened. Now, religious and church-going types love to argue back and forth about different technicalities of this time called the Great Tribulation. But this is no technicality. This is a statement by Jesus that we are headed toward a time when we’ll be the worst one the world has ever seen or ever will see again. And he is saying… that mankind, left to himself, will walk right up to the brink of the destruction of all life. It seems so unthinkable. No sane person would go that way, would they? No one wants to die, do they? Well, there might have been a time when you and I could think that way, but those days are gone forever. Now, as long as we’re talking about what Jesus said about the last days, what else did he say? There was a day when he and his disciples were looking at the temple and all of its buildings. The disciples were, after all, country boys, and the temple, its environments impressed them enormously. But Jesus, as he walked along with them, brought them all right back down to earth when he said, you see these things? I’ll tell you the truth. There is not going to be left one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Now, I can’t think of anything Jesus might have said that would have shocked them more. although all of them knew that this had happened before. This wasn’t Solomon’s temple they were looking at. That temple was destroyed just like that a long, long time ago, and this one was a pale shade of it that had been rebuilt much later. Well, they were speechless until they reached the Mount of Olives, and they sat looking back over the city, and they came to Jesus privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the world? Now that was an idea that used to make me shudder. The end of the world. I was just a boy when I heard that expression the first time. And I thought, no, no, I like the world. I don’t want to have any end to this world. It was not an idea I wanted much to consider. But I suppose we should. We all know this world can’t last forever. But we really thought it would outlast all of us. Well, maybe not. Jesus had much more to say about this. You’ll find it in Matthew chapter 24. He answered and said, “…take he that no man deceive you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many.” And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you be not troubled. All these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet. I remember hearing my parents back in World War II talking about wars and rumors of wars being a sign of the time of the end. No. Jesus said they’ll all happen, but the end is not yet. Nations shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and pestilence and earthquakes in diverse places. But folks, these are just the beginning of sorrows. It’s almost like saying, you haven’t seen anything yet. Now, it’s long since been observed that Jesus in this little passage mentions four categories of very bad things. The first is religious deception focusing on a Christ-like figure. The second is wars and rumors of wars. The third is famine. And the fourth is pestilence. And, as he said, this is just the beginning. And if you’ve been paying attention, you realize these things have been going on ever since Jesus said that. Nevertheless, what Jesus said here is suggestive of something else that really does seem to point to the last days. You’ve probably heard of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, haven’t you? What you may not have realized is the four horsemen of the apocalypse are a match to these four things Jesus spoke about. The four horsemen are introduced in the book of Revelation. In Revelation, we are shown into the throne room of the universe where God arrives, accompanied by lightning and thunder and holding a scroll in his hand. The scroll is sealed with seven seals, and no one in heaven or earth is able to open the scroll. And poor John, who wrote all this down in vision, is weeping uncontrollably because no one can open these seals. And one of the elders came to John, Revelation 5, verse 5. He said to him, Don’t cry. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And John looked, and there, right in the middle of everything, there stood a lamb, as it had been slain. From what follows comes the great chorus at the climax of Handel’s Messiah, Worthy is the Lamb, which just moves me to the core of my being. But then follow the same four things that Jesus spoke of on the Mount of Olives that day. You’ll find it right in the beginning of Revelation 6. I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, and one of the four creatures said, Come, see. And I saw, and behold, a white horse. He that sat upon him had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. Most commentators see this as an icon of the Antichrist. Now, when Christ returns, he will also be riding a white horse. Hence the idea this is an imposter who pretends to be a Christ. This one carries a bow, while Christ will carry a sword. Also, in the ancient world, horses were engines of war, not peace, not ceremony. Anytime you see a horse, it is for the purpose of fighting. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second creature say, Come and look. And there went out another horse that was red. And power was given to him that sat on it to take peace from the earth, that they should kill one another. And there was given to him a great sword. Now there’s an interesting aside in this passage. It’s there in the English, but it’s even more so in the Greek. The horseman is not merely given a sword. He is given a mega sword. The Greek word mega has entered our language, and we know what it means. He was not initially carrying this mega weapon. It was given to him. This is the second horseman of the apocalypse, the second thing that Jesus mentioned, war. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo, a black horse. And he that sat upon him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four animals say, A measure of wheat for a penny, three measures of barley for a penny, and see you don’t damage the oil and the wine. A poetic way of saying this is a time of famine. There isn’t much wheat. There isn’t much barley. There is very little oil and probably no wine. This is a time of famine. And while most don’t realize this, Historically, the prime cause of famine is war. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth creature say, Come and look. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death. Hell followed with him, and power was given over them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth. So on the heels of war and famine comes pestilence and disease. It’s a very ugly vision that John saw. And the four items that Jesus mentioned in the sermon, the Olivet Sermon, are in play. False Christs and false prophets. Wars and rumors of wars with a mega weapon. Famine, pestilence, and disease epidemics. Perhaps you can see why some preachers look at these goings-on in the world and sound an alarm. For while these things have been long with us, they seem to be heading toward some kind of terrible climax.
SPEAKER 01 :
We’ll talk more on this issue right after this important message. For a free cassette tape of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled Standing at the Brink. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-877-7000. 888-BIBLE-44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 02 :
In a way, the nation of Iraq serves as a microcosm of what could happen to the rest of us. Iraq could descend into civil war and chaos. And there are forces that seem determined to bring that about. The Iraqi people want peace as much as we do. And our men and women alongside their forces are fighting this battle to preserve order and to head off the four horsemen in Iraq. Because they would bring that country to the brink of complete chaos and destruction. Do the prophecies of Jesus on the Mount of Olives in the book of Revelation tell us that this is the fate of the whole world? You know, how you see this is determined in large part by your worldview. If you believe that the history of the world has already been written, then you believe that Jesus looked ahead and is telling us what is actually written, what is inevitable, what is absolutely going to happen. But prophecy in the Bible serves another purpose as well. I’m often asked, why should God bother to tell us anything at all about the future? What’s the point? If it’s inevitable, if it is written, if it’s going to happen, what good does it do us to know? Well, there is one very important reason why he would tell us, and that is so that we can change the future, so we can change the outcome, so that we can perhaps not die like the rest of mankind seems determined to die. And there have been times in history where men have repented and changed the course of the river of time. A prophet showed up one day on the streets of Nineveh saying, 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And word came to the king of Nineveh. He declared a fast, made the animals fast, put sackcloth on animals and man and beast and everybody else around. And God looked down and said, well, would you look at that? And he relented. And the prophecy against Nineveh didn’t happen. So there have been times when men repented and changed the course of history. There have been times when good men and women have stood up against evil and with God’s help have turned it back. But in the pattern of human events, according to Jesus, Man will sooner or later run down this course to destruction if men do not turn to God. And if we are to be honest, we have to doubt that short of terrible calamity, men are just not very likely to turn to God. I think that what is often overlooked about the last days and about the return of Christ is that his return is a rescue operation. We will, sooner or later, take ourselves to the brink of destruction. And the returning Lord will save us at the brink. Not before. Now, we no longer face a nuclear Armageddon like we thought we did, with missiles raining down on all of our cities. And it’s a curious quirk of history that we are more likely to face nuclear disasters now than than we were at the height of the Cold War. Will we see a day when a nuclear device is detonated simultaneously in New York City, our nation’s capital, in Chicago, and in Houston? Frankly, it’s more likely in our lifetime than it ever was in the 60 years of the Cold War. But that said, I don’t know. And neither does anyone else. The big question is how we as a people are prepared to handle it. To pull back into our shell, perhaps, to build walls along northern and southern borders, to pull in all of our people from overseas and live in Fortress America here at home. We’ve never done that. We probably will never be able to do that. And in the past, we as a people have done better in time of disaster and in war than in time of peace. Because in times of trouble, we turn to God. In times of peace, we turn away. It’s a dangerous pattern we have going here. And it’s a small wonder that Jesus warned us where it would finally take us. We can make a difference, you and I. We each have to grab hold where we are and lift. I’ll try to do my part. You try to do your part, because after all, we were born to win.
SPEAKER 01 :
Ronald Dart will be right back. If you would like more information, or if you have any questions, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. In the U.S. and Canada, call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. And tell us the call letters of this station.
SPEAKER 02 :
Once again, I need your help. So if you haven’t already grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper, this would be a good time. This program is paid for by contributions from our listening audience from people just like you. And we’re always evaluating our radio stations, and we need to hear from you to know that you are listening and that you care whether we’re on the air on this station or not. Just give us a call and drop us a line. Give us the call letters of this radio station. That’s how we will know. And while you’re doing it, be sure and request one or both of the free offers we’ve made on this program. If you’re online, look in our website at www.rondart.com and also on cemnetwork.com. Click on the link that says Contact Us, and you can write that way. Otherwise, write to us at Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas, 75791. We’ll get the letter. If you get that zip code right, that’s Born to Win, White House, Texas, 75791. And if you’d rather, give us a call at 1-888-BIBLE44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. Thanks for listening, and please tune in again next time. We’re here every week at the same time, daily on many stations. And when you call, be sure and request a radio log because then you’ll know where you can get us. And by the way, if you’re online, you can listen to the program every day on your computer and you can download to your iPod. Soon, we’re going to be podcasting as well as broadcasting. Until next time, I’m Ronald Dart. And remember, you were born to win.
