North New South Wales Conference

Justin Torossian

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Is the War Bigger Than You Think?

Lyle Southwell

Is Peace Really Possible?

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

Welcome to the end. Digital I'm Lyle Southwell. And I'm here with Justin Tero. We're going to dig into the subject of wars and rumors of wars. We've spent our last two presentations looking at the subject from a great controversy perspective from a religious perspective, but we get to discuss it today. Justin, where are we gonna 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, we find it everywhere. Or if not, religion and 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 three times what equipment was worth when it came to warfare. And one of the ways that people have discovered of motivating and raising the moral 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 they, 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, you know, it's able to be used in this way, but sadly throughout history, history repeats. 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 God of peace. And of course, he's the defender of his people. He's the defender of the week. And there are times where God has portrayed as a warrior in the Bible, right? But by and large false religion ends misconstrued and twisted versions of the truth have been used to motivate people in the wrong way. Haven't they? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you look at the words of Jesus, The name of God, like you mentioned your presentation. Yes. We go to the gospel of John in John chapter 18 in verse 36. Jesus answer. 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. But my kingdom is not of this world. 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. Don't ever be confused when religion is injected into warfare, it is never true. Religion Well said. Yeah, really well said. So Justin, here's a question for you 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. That's Right. Doesn't that mean that God is the one who invented war in the first place? Hmm. Yeah. Some might try to suggest that let's look at that verse together. 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 it say he created war, but it says war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon. Michael is a code name for Jesus. And it says, and the dragon and his angels fought verse nine, tells us the dragon is the devil UN Satan. So war broke out in heaven. And the fascinating thing about this to me is that the word here for war is not physical warfare. And I mean, it would've turned physical because verse nine tells us that the devil in his angels were cast out. They were cast down to the earth. So there came a physical element, at least at the end. But the word here in verse seven for war translated, war in English is polyA from which we get the English word Polyx, which means debate or argumentation. So this was not primarily a physical war. This was a war of ideas, a war of ideologies, a war of words. 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 one 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 far 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, you know, 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. Absolutely. The instigator of a coup in heaven. 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, And, 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. That's right. Is no wonder that Satan injects religion into warfare on earth whenever he can. Very True. Yeah. It's where he started. Very true. LA, another question for you. So, you know, sometimes people try to say, well, Jesus said of the signs of the times wars and rumors of wars would be one 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 starting 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. Wow. So that's some history, Justin, you would know that, that you would know this is an 1863 infield 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 weapon system, you know, you've got a little bit of change that takes place. Here you go from a match to a Flint, to a cap. And that's pretty much all that, all that changes here and the rest of it really doesn't change over a 400 year period. So must get with a ball that you temp down. You know, you push down with the gun powder 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, be Shaza and Naber, you know, back in the Babylonian era, the Persians were renowned for their arches and their arches 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've been fairly even, which makes sense why they went back and forth at Time. Well, for a long time, until of course, you know, you had a weapon that was using this kind of technology that could, you know, begin to match the rate of fire that you could get from a bow. But if you, if you consider this is, this is a system that's, you know, it's been there for four, 500 years with very, very little change taking place to it. And the reason why this overtook the bow and did away with archery was not because it was a more efficient weapon, but because it was easier to train. So to, you know, Hardly any skill to aim and, and Fire, very, very little skill, and you didn't need to build up the muscle required to draw, say for instance, a British long bow, it took a long time to build up the muscle in your right shoulder or your left shoulder. If you were left handed, to be able to actually draw that bow and use it effectively. That's fascinating. And so, you know, you could train a soldier to use this in six weeks. Hmm. And so it became very efficient for training and that's why it overtook, you know, a weapon that is just, you know, truly ancient and been around for a very, very long time. And so if you'd had taken Cyrus, the Persian or Alexander the great and pitched them against the duke of Wellington, you know, at, at the battle of Waterloo, they could have won that battle. Hmm. True. You know, and that's a two and a half thousand year gap where there has been very, very little change. Even with this system, you've got four or 500 years with very little change in technology, but that's that, then we move to this one. So this one you can fire about three aimed shots at 100 meters at a 300 millimeter diameter target. With that, the record for this one is 30 aimed shots at the same size target at 300 meters. Wow. So triple that's triple the distance, triple the distance and a lot more firepower. And that's continuous rate of fire that we are talking about. Number of Fires as well. Yes. Now this is a little bit later model, but this system that we are looking at right here at charger fed magazine rifle, the difference between this one and this one is 21 years. Hmm. Wow. And by the time this one comes out, Revolutionize things. Absolutely. It revolutionizes things by the time this one comes out, what you've now beginning to see is things like the maximum gun in the maximum gun is pumping up 600 rounds per minute. Wow. That's a massive escalation. And I use that to illustrate A point 10 per second. That's right. 10 fire per second. Wow. Absolutely. So I use this to illustrate a point. And the point is this, that when Jesus says there will be wars and rumors of wars, he goes on to say, as you pointed out that it will be like the birth pains birth pains. When they start, they're kind of mild, they're far apart, but they escalate in a J curve. And what you've got here in the space of 21 years is a massive escalation in the ability to be able to kill people, which is why you are sharing some shocking statistics with us. That in the, was the 21st century, we had more people died as a result of war than all previous centuries combined. That's Right. The 20th century. Why was that? Because we invented the means to be able to do so. And so you can take a, a rifle company from the first world war could defeat the duke of Wellington at Waterloo. You can take a bomber crew, just a single 11 man bomber crew from the second world war could defeat all of the armies in one day. Wow. In the first world War crazy. And I mean, you've got, also got the invention of the airplane. So you went from, you know, hot air balloons in the civil war. You were mentioning, you felt before that yes. Hot Air balloon balloons was the first time anything Aeriel was used. That's fixed Way airplane in world war. I that's era this era here, we now have fighter planes and bombers. And you go from, you know, when, when you look at the beginning of the first world war, the fastest thing on the battlefield at the beginning of the first world war was a horse. Hmm. At the end of the first world war, you've got aircraft that are flying at over 200 kilometers an hour. Wow. 25 years later, you've got the beginning of the second world war. And at the end of the second world war, you have jet aircraft. You know, that is a massive escalation. And look where we've gone from there. Look at how we fight wars. Now we fight wars sitting in an office desk with joysticks flying drones that are literally on the other side of the planet. Wow. You know, when Jesus said it would be like the birth pains that it would escalate like a J curve. We can see it right here in a simple illustration. That, that is exactly what has taken place in the last 150 years. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. You know, I've just, as we were reflecting on war, down through history, just the gravity and the, the, just the, how shall I say the, I guess you could say the, the, the sadness of the destruction and the pain that it causes just came to me. And I don't know about you, but oh, I do know about you. You feel the same, but man, I, I just long for the day where God will end all wars. Oh, you know, absolutely where it'll be a thing of the past a brokenness, the death, the injury, the pain that it causes will be a thing of the past. You look at those pictures coming out of the Ukraine of families being broken up and torn apart. And those are some of the most heart rendering pictures. And of course you're getting the same pictures on the other side of the, of the border with Russian families being pulled apart as well. That's right. You know, they're sending their husbands and fathers and sons off to die. Why war is so senseless and Jesus, you know, he is the prince of peace, all of this technology that we have right here, amazing technology. It blows our mind. Imagine if we had used our brain power to create things for good, rather than things for destruction, absolutely imagine where our world would be at right now. So true. Hadn't been so sidetracked by war. Mm, Very true. Well, I wonder if just, you know, before we close together, if we might be able to say a prayer for all of those, not only who are affected by war right now, here on planet earth in some corner of the planet, but also those who are traumatized, they have PTSD from being on the front lines or maybe, you know, being attacked in war. What if we just said a special prayer for those who are affected by war in a special way right now what's happening in Eastern Europe as well. We can pray for that. And then also wars In Eastern Europe that we care about and the wars in other parts of the World that we're not hearing about, That we don't really care about. Yeah. And I just, as damaging to people that Absolutely, and let's pray as well that Jesus would return to put an end to all war. Absolutely. You wanna pray For us? Sure. Let's go ahead. Let's pray father in heaven. We long for that day, when you will return and establish a kingdom of peace that will R last forever. Amen. A kingdom of love father. We pray that you'll come back to this earth and put an end to the war and the conflict and the bloodshed and the families being taught apart. And the heartache that we see father, we see it on our, on our TV screens, on our computer screens on YouTube and so many other places right now, coming to us from the Ukraine. And you know, we know that it's taking place in so many other parts of the world as well. Father, we pray for the situation in Ukraine. We pray for the situation elsewhere. We pray that you will bring peace to these nations. We pray that you will touch the hearts of the leaders, that they will find a solution and a way through father. We commit them to you at this time. And we pray that you'll be with the families that have lost loved ones. We pray that you'll give them comfort. At this time, we pray that you'll give them healing. We pray for the, for the, for the servicemen and the service women who are being impacted and will carry the emotional scars with them. Even when they survive this conflict, we pray that you'll bring them healing. We pray for those that have been wounded, that you'll bring them healing and bring them back to full health and strength father. This is a terrible, there are terrible conflicts that are taking place in our world right now. And we pray that you will do whatever you can at this time in a world that is broken and destroyed by sin and evil. We pray that you'll intervene and above all. We pray that you'll come back. Soon. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Well friends, thanks for joining us. We hope that you enjoyed our discussion half as much as we did. It was educational, informational, and most of all, inspirational. So Lyle, we have something we wanna share with you guys as an offer and Lyle take it away. Tell him about it. Sure. Justin, thank you so much. If you have enjoyed Justin's discussion of the great controversy, the war in heaven and the war for the souls and, and hearts of, of men and women. Then we have this book here, the great controversy that details that war from the standpoint of Bible prophecy, while talking about the history of Christianity and the wars that have been fought in the name of Christianity down through the centuries, we would love to give you a copy entirely for free. And so for you to receive your free copy, simply text the word peace to the number that you see on your screen right now. Again, simply text the word peace to the number on your screen right now, and may the peace of Jesus Christ be with you all.

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Wars and Rumors of Wars

Is Peace Really Possible?

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Other Teachings in Series

Is the War Bigger Than You Think?

15m

Is Peace Really Possible?

19m

Is Christianity the Religion of War?

24m

Sound Doctrine