The Final Move Beyond Iraq: The Final Solution While the World Sleeps

by mike Evans

  Why, then, has a largely Christian nation allowed the marketplace and the political arena to be stripped of everything godly? Why has abortion flourished? Why has God been taken out of schools, while the distribution of condoms is allowed? Everything anti-Christian is promoted, and Christians are ridiculed. The desire to fit in has reduced the average Christian to a spineless jellyfish, afraid to speak up for fear of derision.

  Many churches, once strongholds of everything good and right, have become just another club where people gather to socialize. They, too, have fallen prey to the corruption of the secular and have become watered-down versions of their former self, palatable to all and effective for none. Christians have become indistinguishable from the nonbeliever down the street. Researcher George Barna had this to say about Christianity today:

  If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think—our attitudes, beliefs, values and opinions. Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most Americans have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We’re often more concerned with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and significance.23

  Even so, the church remains America’s last hope in a hopeless world. And who, in this truth-challenged, politically correct world will dare to stand up and deliver the unadulterated truth according to God’s Word? As I ask this question, I’m reminded again of the scripture in Romans 1:25 kjv that speaks of those “who changed the truth of God into a lie.”

  A new translation of the Bible launched in 2004, called “Good as New” and endorsed by the British Archbishop of Canterbury, has done just that—changed the truth of God into a lie. Ruth Gledhill, a religious correspondent for the London Times, wrote, “Instead of condemning fornicators, adulterers and ‘abusers of themselves with mankind,’ the new version of his first letter to Corinth has St. Paul advising Christians not to go without sex for too long in case they get ‘frustrated.’”24 It further encourages everyone to have a “regular partner.”

  In the King James Version, the passage in 1 Corinthians 7:2 reads, “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” In the Good as New version, that verse reads, “My advice is for everyone to have a regular partner.”25

  In modern-day America, churches in general have moved more and more to the left, too often becoming not a lighthouse for the lost but a lobby for liberals. The church has become more a launching pad for numerous political candidates rather than a sacred sanctuary of redemption. Organizations such as the National Council of Churches cater to the secularist agenda rather than truly representing millions of evangelical Christians in America today.

  Perhaps most disturbing is that the National Council of Churches receives funding from a variety of leftist organizations such as:

  …$100,000 from the Ford Foundation [in 2000]; $149,400 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2000–2001; $150,000 from the Beldon Fund in 2001; $500,000 from the Lilly Endowment in 2002; $50,000 from the Rasmussen Foundation in 2003 and $75,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund that same year.

  …[Such support] has done little to counter the contention of critics that the NCC, far from doing God’s work, serves as little more than a vehicle to advance the left-wing interests of its leaders.26

  Another trademark of the NCC is its condemnation of Israel as an aggressor and violator of human rights. Little, if any, acknowledgement is given to Israel’s constant bombardment via missiles and suicide bombers from the countries that surround this strong American ally. In fact, members of the NCC have voted at various times to divest holdings associated with Israel in an attempt to cripple the economy of that tiny nation.

  THE EVANGELICAL RIGHT

  The evangelical Right in America has become, at various times, a scapegoat, the butt of jokes, a laughingstock, and a frequent target of the liberal media. Evangelicals are portrayed as trying to impose their outdated theology on an enlightened population. In response, the church has become paralyzed, hypnotized, and ostracized by the very people who most need to connect with it in order to hear the story of the saving grace of God.

  It sometimes seems that the church has given up and is content to sit idly by and watch a world doomed for hell, while placidly waiting for the remnant to be raptured. The church has abandoned the Great Commission in favor of “the Great Omission,” taking on many of the characteristics of the church in Laodicea as described by the apostle John:

  So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

  —REVELATION 3:16–17

  John W. Chalfant, author of Abandonment Theology, describes it this way:

  Clergy and their followers have been teaching, preaching, and saturating the media and their church members with the doctrine of surrender and political non-involvement. They are not teaching us to surrender to Christ through obedience to the commandment of God. Rather, they tell us that America is finished, that the collapse of our heritage and our freedoms has been predetermined within a definable near-future time frame and is therefore beyond our control.27

  The highly respected theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer penned a sobering book just before his death. In The Great Evangelical Disaster, Schaeffer issued a somber and concise overview of the twentieth-century church. He wrote:

  Here is the great evangelical disaster—the failure of the evangelical world to stand up for truth as truth…. The evangelical world has accommodated to the world spirit of the age…. To accommodate to the world spirit…is nothing less than the most gross form of worldliness…. We must say, with exceptions, the evangelical church is worldly and not faithful to the living Christ.28

  What a tragic indictment, yet how true.

  Rather than walking God’s way, many demand their own way, throwing tantrums like wayward children when challenged by what the Bible really says. True to Isaiah 53:6, “Each of us has turned to his own way.”

  The desire for acceptance has replaced the hunger to draw close to Christ. Doubt has replaced determination, fear has overcome faith, conformity to the Word has been replaced with conformity to the world, and the voice of one “crying in the wilderness” has been replaced by a cacophony of celebrity-seekers. Separation from the world has evolved into separation of church and state, and the consequences of removing God from the political process has had dire results for the true church.

  The good news is that there is a remnant. Not all Christians have bought into the secular, liberal leftist agenda. It is because of these men and women, unnamed giants of the faith, prayer warriors all, that there is still hope. It is because they firmly hold to the truth in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

  If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

  America doesn’t have to reap the whirlwind; we do not have to get what we deserve. God has graciously made a way of escape. The answer is in humility: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Pet. 5:6). We, like the apostle Peter after his denial of Christ, must become broken before the Lord in order to find forgiveness and restoration. Integrity must triumph over deception; the desire to do what is right must overcome the desire to conform to the mores of this world.

  The church must undergo the scrutiny of the light. No longer can the church tolerate the incursion of darkness; evil must be acknowledged a
nd defined as such. The church still has a choice. The words of Joshua ring in my spirit: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). The choice is yours.

  Epilogue

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2007, NORTHERN IRAQ

  As I sit here in Iraq, finishing the research for this book, my mind is spinning with memories of my time here during the Persian Gulf War. I think about how much has changed since that visit. Like a snake charmer, the fragrance of the untapped oil reserves beneath the fields of Kirkuk has seduced Turkey and Iran into an insane obsession.

  I reflect on the landscape around me. Iraq is a small country about the size of California, yet two-thirds of it is not inhabited; it is simply desert. The majority of the population lives in Central and Northern Iraq.

  I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about the events that unfolded throughout Iraq the day before my arrival.

  January 29, 2007, had begun like many others, with time slowly sifting away like the sands in an ancient, apocalyptic hourglass. Despite the familiarity, it was not just a normal day; it was Ashura, the holiest day on the Shiite calendar, commemorating the seventh-century death of the martyr-saint Imam Hussein, the son of Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin. Like dry leaves on the wind, millions of pilgrims had blown into Iraq from Iran and Muslim countries worldwide to honor this day.

  In al Najaf to the north, hundreds of thousands of men vowing to become martyrs had beaten themselves with chains and cut themselves with swords in an attempt to feel the pain of Imam Hussein—a common practice during Ashura. Their blood flowed like a river, mixing with the blood of hundreds of thousands throughout Iraq. With joy, they cried out to their fallen and martyred Imam.

  Suddenly, chaos had erupted as Sunni Arab gunmen and Shiite followers of Ahmed Hassani al-Yemeni, a vanguard of the Mahdi, attacked. The battle began as terrorists moved closer toward al Najaf with plans to kill Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful cleric in Iraq. His followers believe that he speaks for Allah. Sunni terrorists wearing the headbands of martyrdom that declared them to be “Soldiers of Heaven” opened fire on the pilgrims. It was the perfect storm—a conspiracy timed to coincide with the climax of Ashura.

  High-level Iraqi intelligence leaders later told me that it was an operation by Iran coordinated with the Mahdi army under the leadership of Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr in an attempt to drive the last nail in President George Bush’s coffin. The plan was to kill al-Sistani, since he is a moderate, and blame it on the Sunnis. Al-Sistani is the enemy of the radical al-Sadr, who believes al-Sistani to be a traitor to the Islamic revolution. Without a quick response from the U.S. and Iraqi military, the murder would have taken place.

  The day wore on with maniacal screams of “Bush, the infidel’s greatest Satan” reverberating through neighborhoods, interspersed with cries mocking Christians and Jews as monkeys, pigs, and infidels. As the daylong battle continued, many wondered if it would spark an Islamic revolution.

  Then U.S. troops rushed in and averted the holocaust that the murder of al-Sistani would have ignited. Red flames from U.S. Abrams tanks and Black Hawk helicopters lit up the dark sky near al Najaf. Suddenly, a burst of machine-gun fire hit its mark, and a trail of black smoke followed one of the helicopters as it crashed to the ground. The streets of Iraq were covered with more U.S. blood as ground troops and armored vehicles poured into the city. Some two hundred people were arrested and three hundred were killed during the attack.

  Today, in the wake of yesterday’s violence, we stopped in an Iraqi village. I looked into the eyes of Iraqi widows whose shy smiles are tinged with pain. The weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein killed every living thing in their village. These women in black mourn the deaths of their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. The pictures of their loved ones are their only link to the past.

  In tears, they told me, “We hear the American media asking, ‘Where are the weapons of mass destruction?’ Tell them to come here; we will show them. These weapons of mass destruction are in our blood and in our souls. We will take you to the mass graves.” Tomorrow, we will go with them. Many, however, do not even have a gravesite to visit. The bodies of their loved ones were completely destroyed, preventing the widows, young and old, from remarrying.

  While they spoke, I looked around at a countryside where entire villages had been exterminated, erased from the map as if they never existed. Every living thing was destroyed—dogs, cows, but especially the men. It mattered not whether they were six months old or sixty years old.

  I considered how this genocidal barbaric atrocity has been erased from the minds of the people and from the newspapers of the world. It is as if it never happened. But it did happen…as the world slept.

  Iraqi weapons of mass destruction killed more than one million Iranians and almost two hundred thousand Iraqi Kurds. Still, the antiwar liberals scream about an unjust war because the WMDs could not be found. Iraqi intelligence officials tell me that they were shipped to Syria. They also readily tell me that Saddam’s top leaders smuggled billions into Syria and are now working with Iran to defeat “the Great Satan” in Iraq.

  Earlier today, I met with the Speaker of the House in Kurdistan, Adnan Mufti. With us was U.S. Col. Harry Schutte. I asked Mufti to tell me about terrorist attacks in Erbil, one of Iraq’s largest cities and the city over which he presides.

  “Terrorist attacks?” smiled Mufti. “This city has not had a terrorist attack in over one and one-half years.”

  Colonel Schutte spoke up. “The U.S. media will not tell you that. [The city is so safe] our airport has over eighty flights per week.”

  “I read the Iraq Study Group Report that criticized your region for not flying the Iraqi flag,” I said.

  Mufti responded, “Yes, they did. This was the same flag planted in over five thousand villages that were gassed. We have a constitution, and our region is democratic. Why must we fly the Iraqi flag? Would the U.S. ask the Jews that suffered in the Holocaust to fly the Nazi flag? We refuse to honor the ‘Hitler’ who gassed our people; we want the new flag approved by our constitution.”

  Mufti also rejected the Iraq Study Group’s proposal that two terror states, Iran and Syria, “meddle in [their] affairs.”

  “Why,” he asked, “did no one from the Iraq Study Group come here? They ask where the proof is that the Bush policy is succeeding in Iraq. We are the proof. Your nation saved us from extermination. We are a stable region that is a model of everything the United States wants for Iraq. Why is it being kept hidden?”

  I was reminded as I looked into his eyes that he was the target of a bomb attack by fanatic Muslims because of his strong support for America and was poisoned by Saddam Hussein and almost died.

  Mufti placed a letter in my hands to deliver to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. He said, “I sent it through diplomatic channels via the U.S. ambassador but did not hear back.” I promised I would do my best to get it into the hands of the president.

  Now as I sit here writing, the final moments of Ashura have already passed into history. I reflect on the Kurdish people I have met so far on my trip. I found the Kurds to be very tolerant of other religions. They enjoyed telling me their history, which traces back to the Medes, from the story of Daniel in the lions’ den and the conversion of the Mede king, Darius, to the appeal of the Jewish orphan, Esther. They told me of the Magi, the wise men who followed the star and presented gifts to the Christ child, and of the Medes who were converted on the Day of Pentecost.

  They told me about Christians by the tens of thousands that had fled north out of Sunni and Shiite strongholds toward the Valley of Nineveh, a few miles from Erbil. The horrible story of a fourteen-year-old being crucified for sharing his faith broke my heart as I thought of the innocence of my own precious grandchildren. I heard of a pastor who was beheaded for sharing the gospel and of women having had acid thrown in
their faces for going to church. The church in Iraq is under siege, yet the world remains silent.

  I found it strange that the United States has no base in Erbil to fight the war on terror. The greatest success story in all of Iraq—a model to inspire true democracy—is being completely ignored. Kurdistan is where America needs to invest its money, rather than bleed money from Kurdistan into the coffers of the regimes that consider America the enemy. I also found it odd that four hundred billion dollars has been spent in Iraq, yet the Kurds have no U.S. military equipment with which to fight the war on terror. To see our allies using old Russian AK-47s is an embarrassment.

  In this book, I have given you a no-spin understanding of the problem, but also of the solution. The first step is to begin by rewarding our allies and to stop appeasing our enemies; what a novel approach.

  As an example, I believe the United States needs to move a major military base into Erbil and allow the Kurds to have 100 percent of the money they were promised. This is not happening. The United States needs to reward stable regimes economically. To do it, the United States must stand up to Turkey and Iran, both of which hate the Kurds. The Kirkuk oil fields should be turned over to the Kurds that have, in the past, controlled the Kirkuk region. Saddam killed them to get them out and moved pro-Saddam regimes in to protect his investment.