"Armageddon.................."

I’m reading an American Heritage book on WWII, discovering more than just history heretofore unknown to me, but revelation that, while the present political situation of this nation seems almost to the point of taking us into self-destruction, it would appear that we have been here before. Only the names have changed, although it can perhaps be said that modern technology has increased all the consequences. In 1940, though, this country was also divided. Hitler was steam-rolling over the European continent, Denmark taken in just a few hours, Holland, two days, and Belgium, eighteen. Norway required two weeks; and, within not much more than a month, British forces were driven back across the channel with France surrendering to the German invaders. It was interesting to me that, when the Nazis entered Paris, the one person with any governmental status who didn’t run from a face-to-face confrontation was the American ambassador. His report, upon returning here, would strengthen FDR’s determination to somehow bring us into the conflict despite an obvious looming threat on the other side of the world; and, when the leak of a top secret Rainbow Five Plan of war brought investigations into public knowledge, one has to wonder what might have happened had not Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Had not? What if? My own belief has long been firmly convinced that “things happen”. Call it luck, happenstance, whatever. I don’t see where any of it takes God out of a position of being “in control”; and I say that with no intention at all of finding Him responsible for natural disasters, tragedies, all the evil that we know in our existence. For me, the Creator takes a more “one-on-one” with mankind. Just as we, within the Body, look at Him as “the Pearl of Great Price”, even so he sees us as individuals, all of us, each of us, saved, lost, trying to make our way through this mess; and that means He is whispering, tugging, trying to speak some sense unto that whole bunch presently occupying positions of authority, whether it be in D.C., Moscow, or Outer Mongolia! In that there is peace; in that there is hope; and, if it all nonetheless goes down the drain, yet in Him I have promise……