by Texe Marrs
We may very well be approaching the end time. The fateful battle of Armageddon (discussed more fully in Appendix I) may not be far off. But we have the promise that God and those who love him will prove victorious, and the evil that leads to war, oppression, and other ills will be brought to nothing. And we have Christ’s promise that we need never lose heart, for He has overcome the world and its sorrows (John 16:33).
Christ’s promise and his love for us provide the keys to what we, as concerned Christians, must do about abuses of science and technology and the suffering and injustice that exist in a world that refuses to yield to the pleadings and invitation of a loving Creator. We must, first of all, put God first in our own lives and trust in His holy Word, the Bible. Then, infused with the power of the Holy Spirit, we must witness to sinners of Christ’s reassuring promises and His love for them. To the best of our ability, even at the risk of our own lives and physical well-being, we must do what we can to make sure that technology and science are used for good and not for evil. Last, and most important, we must fervently pray that God’s will be done on earth, for this is the prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples.
APPENDIX I: DOES THE BIBLE PROPHESY A MILITARY ARMAGEDDON?
A few years ago at the University of Texas where I was teaching a course on defense policy and international affairs, one of my students, a dedicated young Christian man, asked my permission to present an “unusual speech” to the class. His topic was “What God Has to Say about the End Times.”
While the giving of a speech was a course requirement and the course did cover such topics as the balance of U.S./Soviet military power and the status of the Middle East, I was reluctant to permit a speech on biblical prophecy. After all, my officially assigned task was to teach the students an academic subject—American defense policy in the contemporary era—not what the Bible had to say. Just as our secular society deems it proper to keep prayer out of our elementary schools, so our society has judged it best to keep the teachings of the Bible out of university classrooms. According to the academic powers that be, mine was a university course, not a Bible study.
Thus it was unusual for the twenty-five students in my class to see and hear a fellow student speak of Isaiah and Revelation, Amos and Matthew. The young man spoke with sincerity and conviction. What he said was provocative, and afterward I asked the class what they thought of the speech and of biblical prophecy.
One student said that it was all “pure speculation;” another said that it was “irrelevant to the course.” And yet another student—one of the brightest in the class—complained that “no one can understand the Bible” and that “we should stick to the facts in class.”
“The Book of Revelation is all guesswork, anyway,” chimed in a fellow student, “and subject to varying interpretation. Also, it’s unscientific.”
“Unscientific... pure speculation... guesswork... subject to varying interpretation.” The words reverberated in my head. Is that what God’s prophecies are? And is it true that “no one can understand the Bible?” Should I have allowed the speech or, as one of the students had commented, was the Bible indeed “irrelevant” to a college course on defense policy and international affairs?
My students’ comments are typical, I believe, of the prevailing belief in America today. The Bible, people say, is not scientific; it is too complex to be understood, and it involves sheer guesswork because of differing interpretations. But these assertions are not correct. The fact is that the Bible is not that difficult to understand, and our comprehension involves more than mere guesswork. God is not the author of confusion, as Satan would lead modern man to believe.
THE PROBLEM OF INTERPRETATION
Consider the proposition that biblical prophecy is subject to differing interpretation. Actually, the problem of interpretation is minimized in the Bible by the reinforcement of Scripture. Different books in the Bible provide different data and images, and, taken together, the data and images reinforce each other and create a reasonably clear picture of God’s will for man. Regardless of what mistaken lay men and even a few misguided ministers may say, the Bible does not contradict itself. Instead, study of the Bible in its entirety shows how it is possible to build a stable and precise picture by the process of reinforcement.
For instance, in studying the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, we are aided by the various accounts—by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of the four Gospels provides a variety of rich details and a convincing documentation and proof of the other three.
Likewise, the Old Testament and New Testament again and again recount biblical prophecies which reinforce one another. Amos, Joel, Ezekiel, Matthew, Paul, Peter, John, and others demonstrate the consistency of Scripture in regard to prophecy. If we read Amos or Joel and fail to understand, we fortunately may compare the prophecies in those passages with those given elsewhere in the Bible. By doing this, the biblical student cannot fail to be astounded and gratified at the reinforcing nature of prophecy. By comparing the words of the prophets and the early Christian saints, we begin to understand the splendor and wisdom of God’s Word and its inerrant nature.
Still, there are prophetic messages in the Bible that are indeed difficult to comprehend. Learned theologians argue mightily over their interpretation. But often the problem of understanding lies in the foibles of man. Bible scholars often try to read into biblical passages things that simply aren’t there, or else they courageously attempt to force definitions and meaning from a passage that already is majestically clear.
Let me illustrate. In Luke 17:20, 21, Jesus answers those who ask him about the kingdom of God. Expecting to hear descriptions of when the kingdom would appear and what it would look like, the questioners were amazed to hear Jesus say, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
This response was probably so unexpected that it astounded the Jews of his day. Yet Jesus’ answer was profound. Like Jesus’ listeners then, modern man often evaluates God’s Word from his own limited perspective. And biblical understanding suffers as a result.
THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLISM
One of the areas where Bible readers confront the most difficulty is in the interpretation of symbolism. While the use of symbolism in prophecy admittedly hinders our understanding, this should not be a stumbling block for the Christian who truly desires to comprehend God’s message to our generation.
Again, turn to the pages of the Bible itself to receive a proper understanding of what a particular symbolic passage means and what the symbols represent. Note that symbols in the Bible are almost always followed by a biblical interpretation. For instance, the Old Testament prophet Daniel had a vision (Dan. 7) of four great beasts arising from the sea, one as a lion, the second like a leopard, the third resembling a bear, and the fourth radically different in that it had great iron teeth and ten horns. This fourth beast was ferocious and terrible, and devoured those in its path.
Daniel himself, one of the wisest men in the world at that time, was perplexed over this vision. However, in the same chapter we see that angels later interpreted to Daniel the dream of the four beasts (Dan. 7:15-27). The four beasts, an angel explained, were four great kings which would arise. And the fourth beast—the most dreadful—was a king (the Antichrist) who in the latter days would devour the whole earth and make war with the saints. Daniel was shown how the king would eventually be destroyed by God.
If we turn to other prophetic passages in the Bible (Rev. 13; 17:12-18; 19; Matt. 24:15; 2 Thess. 2:8-9; and others) the full meaning of the symbols in Daniel’s vision comes into focus. All provide reinforcement.
SYMBOLIC VERSUS LITERAL INTERPRETATION
It should be noted, however, that many of the events and things described in biblical prophecies which appear to be symbolic are in actuality descriptions of literal phenomena. There are many examples in the Bible where the prophets furnished a literal description of a vision or event which, to early Christians, must have appeared either symbolic or mysterious.<
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For example, the prophets describe in Revelation, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other books the workings of technological weapons of war which, before our current generation, were the province of dreamers and science fiction writers. The prophets naturally did not use twentieth-century terminology. Instead they described how these weapons looked to them and what their effects were.
The phenomenal descriptions of the Bible’s prophets are disparaged and given short shrift today, chiefly because of the prophets’ failure to use the modern terms employed by modern military scientists. It is a mistake to think that men who lived two thousand to three thousand years ago would cast their descriptions of weapon systems in modern terms. They used the only words they had to describe phenomena unfamiliar to them.
It is wise to keep in mind that the first telephones were called “mechanical talking devices,” that early automobiles were characterized as “horseless carriages” and that the airplane of the Wright brothers was called a “flying machine” in early press reports. In fact, the Smithsonian Institution placed a sign on an early aircraft which read: “First Heavier-than-Air Machine Capable of Flight.”
In 1965, while visiting a remote village in northeast Thailand, old men there told me through an interpreter of the first plane they ever saw. “It was during the war with Japan,” said one of the villagers. “I was in the rice fields and I heard a loud noise. When I looked overhead, I saw a large, iron bird with big wings. It shone in the sun and scared me.”
That comment was by an old man, unschooled in modern terminology, living in an isolated village that did not at that time have roads, motor vehicles, or even electricity. He referred to the plane as a bird because it was the only apt word in his vocabulary. In many ways his situation was like that of the prophets, for they likewise did not have a grounding in our technical terminology: missile, laser, airplane, tank, and so forth.
As progress continues to be made in twentieth-century tools of warfare, the incredible accuracy of the prophetic visions comes more clearly into focus. Our generation is privileged, for while earlier Christians accepted these prophecies on faith, we now see the evidence. Prophecy is being realized before our very eyes.
Thus in Revelation 9:17-19 John’s vision of a massive army of men advancing on “horses” which breathed fire, smoke, and brimstone was inexplicable until this century when the battle tank and the helicopter gunship were rushed into combat. Seemingly, these modern weapons with their powerful cannon and rockets fit John’s description.
If we had John’s prophecy only, we would not discount the possibility that the warfare he envisioned was fought with technologically advanced machines. But the Bible provides significant reinforcement in prophecies by Joel, Nahum, Isaiah, and other Old and New Testament prophets.
Nahum vividly described scenes of a latter-day conflict that would take place just prior to Jesus’ triumphant return:
He that dasheth in pieces is come up...the chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken. The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle against one another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. (Nah. 2:1,3,4)
It seems likely that Nahum’s prophetic vision was of modern-day battle tanks—powerful battle weapons resembling chariots with guns that “seem like torches” and the brute strength to bulldoze right through stands of fir trees. With speeds approaching those of automobiles, the M-1 can “run like the lightnings” with its rockets and guns ablaze.
For even more reinforcement, we should read from the Book of Joel:
The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble... They shall climb the wall like men of war;... and they shall not break their ranks... and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded... (Joel 2:4-8)
The prophets may not have been familiar with the terms tank and helicopter, but they certainly provided a working description of such machines. Furthermore, we see that, according to Joel 2:4, the objects have “the appearance of horses.” Note the word appearance! Here again we see the value of studying and evaluating all the prophecies of the Bible rather than selectively interpreting a single passage.
Some critics of biblical prophecy demand that if John and Joel used the term horse, we must assume they meant a living, breathing creature of four legs, bountiful hair, and flowing mane. The critics laugh, pointing out that in an age of high-technology machines, tanks, and motor vehicles it is highly unlikely that combat troops would ride real horses into battle.
Such critics and unbelievers bring to mind the Jews of Jesus’ time who were incapable of comprehending how the kingdom of God could be inside a person. Such narrow literalism makes the Bible smaller than it should be and an impediment to intelligent, thoughtful understanding.
Now it is true, of course, that God could bring forth the miracle of huge numbers of horses to be used by armies. After all, he is God and all things are possible with Him. However, He certainly will not perform such a miracle simply because of an unyielding and inflexible interpretation of the Bible by men here on earth. God is in charge of events; man isn’t.
Perhaps the solution here would be to seek to expand the boundaries of our own vision while praying and asking God to lend understanding to what we read. The difficulty of interpretation lies not in God’s Word, but in our own human frailty.
I do not wish to be dogmatic, but I am convinced that if we truly seek an understanding of God’s Word, we must admit the possibility that biblical authors prophesied about modern military weapons. In fact, biblical prophecy seems remarkably accurate in its descriptions of modern technological weapon systems. The figure below provides biblical references that often astonish with their clarity and detail.
PROPHECY AND THE WEAPONS OF ARMAGEDDON
In the ancient world of the Hebrew prophets, centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, warfare was simple and unfettered by sophisticated armaments. Men, horses, chariots, swords, bows and arrows, lances and, on occasion, battering rams and catapults—these were the mainstay of armies. Gunpowder was not invented until about A.D. 700, in China, so rifles, cannons, and other such weapons were nonexistent in the days of Daniel, Ezekiel, and the other prophets of God.
Isn’t it incredible, then, that over twenty-five hundred years ago, these inspired men would prophesy about a future war in which weapons would be employed that so closely resemble the workings of today’s high-tech instruments of warfare?
BIBLE PROPHECIES FORETELL A NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON
Does the Bible warn us of the effects of nuclear weapons to be unleashed in the last days? A compelling case can be made that the Bible prophesies a nuclear Armageddon. For example, Zephaniah described the great day of the Lord as “a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Zeph. 1: 15). Isaiah prophesied that in the latter days cities would be totally destroyed “even to the dust” following a blast of “heat with the shadow of a cloud” (Isa. 25:5, 12).
The prophecies of Zephaniah and Isaiah paint a picture of the reality of a future nuclear holocaust. Isaiah also tells future generations of the suddenness of nuclear strikes. The blast, he says, will be upon its victims quickly and without warning: “it shall be at an instant suddenly” (Isa. 29:5).
In his book Hiroshima, noted author John Hersey described the torrid aftereffects of the atomic blast on hapless human victims:
Their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks.
In Zechariah 14:12 we find a chilling prophecy that matches almost word for word Hersey’s description of nuclear effects on the bodies of victims:
And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusale
m; their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
There are many, many other Bible prophecies which seem to apply to the heat and raging infernos generated by nuclear blasts and the great destruction to come following a world nuclear conflict:
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire. (Isa. 1:7)
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be. (Matt. 24:21)
And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. (Joel 2:30)
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:29-30)
Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. (Isaiah 24:6)
And I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all round about him. (Jer. 50:32)
The mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. (Ezek. 38:20)
These prophetic images rival any description of the effects of nuclear weapons found in military textbooks. These references are not about a war of swords and lances or of hand-to-hand combat. It seems clear that the prophets of old were describing nuclear war—as revealed to them by God. If nothing else would cause a person to believe in God and the truth of his prophecies, this should.
