MIDNIGHT RISING: Warning Signs for this Generation
Wm. Anderson Simpson
Middle East Update – May 18, 2011
One of the more interesting things about the killing of Osama bin Laden is the relative quiet in the Arab world. There was some protest locally in places, but the demonstrations were brief and not widespread. Within a matter of days, the protests died down altogether.
Interesting, because it speaks to the hearts of the peoples of the Middle East, who have rebelled against autocratic regimes in widespread protests recently, but who apparently also reject the autocratic rule of the Imams. The people of the Middle East want peace and safety. They want freedom, and to be treated with personal dignity. They want to join the modern world, earn a respectable living, and they want to choose the people who rule over them.
It was the heavy-handed rule of King George III that spawned the revolution on this continent. The people of this land chose democracy over monarchy as their form of government. The peoples of the Middle East see how much better we live, and they see how we are able generally to elect responsible leaders who are guided by wise counselors. They see our corporate might and our unassailable military superiority. They see the kind of United States that President Obama articulated so well during his presidential campaign, and they want that kind of government for themselves. Osama bin Laden’s day had already ended before he was killed. It ended in Tunisia.
We speak of closure relative to 9/11, referring to the families of the victims. And so it does bring a measure of bittersweet comfort to those families, knowing that the man who murdered their friends and loved ones has paid the ultimate penalty. But it also closes, or is beginning to close, the chapter of violence as a viable means of protest among those feuding tribes in the Middle East. There are radical elements aplenty who remain alive and active in terrorism, but it has become passé. The Arab Spring is warming, and the masses simply want to live in peace and safety, ruling themselves in the appointment of their leaders. War is costly, dangerous and avoidable.
This phenomenon that is ongoing is not about to lose steam. Assad will have to go in Syria. Yemen will have to yield to the will of the people. Once this democratic seed has sprouted, it will yield its fruit over the whole of the peoples of the Middle East. For, as one nation after another begins to rebuild after the overthrow of their leaders, and with new constitutions; as democracies begin to form and relative quiet is restored in the states where peaceful protest succeeded; as the new governing systems and economic systems become fully functional – the more will other nations desire the same for themselves. They want the American Dream in their own lands.
All their hopes are temporal. No thought is given to the Word of God, except in ridicule and scorn. No nation has ever been formed that was Utopian, nor will there be until our Lord Himself reigns in Jerusalem. If there had ever been a Utopian state, it would have survived. Revolutions happen when those in power exercise unjust practices, accept bribes, and use oppressive tactics to enlarge their own personal coffers on the backs of a growing class of poor. It has always been thus. When the people have had enough, they rise up and overwhelm the powers that be.
A new thing that has emerged on the geopolitical stage is the unwritten law that a government may not turn its military against its people. Governments have done that sort of thing from ancient times. The first responsibility of a government is to survive. Overthrows rightly follow, protracted civil rebellions.
Some national leaders even today are firing their weapons at their own citizens. There must be some point at which the world community can say to a despot, “Be gone!” and he leaves; but there is no way short of assassination in some cases in order to make the unjust ruler depart.
It may prove, for example, to be that Qaddafi will die before he will step down in Libya. That would be a grave miscalculation on his part. He claims to be a beloved leader, and he believes that it is so; even in the face of the bloody battles that his military is fighting against those who are expressing their displeasure with his regime. The tide is turning against him worldwide, with prominent national leaders around the world calling for him to step down.
It is likely that someone appointed by some government will take him out in order to stem the effusion of blood in Libya. If he is taken alive, he will face war crimes trials and be put to death or be imprisoned for life. He is grasping desperately at his fortune and his fame, but it is slipping away more and more every day. The same is true in Bahrain, but their leaders have not consented to go. Every nation in the Middle East wants the kind of civilization that President Obama described so eloquently in his campaign speeches.
Diplomacy almost always works at glacial speed. Glaciers are large and heavy, and they slide inexorably, albeit slowly. So the hearts of a people are turned slowly. This wave of Democracy that is sweeping aside leaders in the Middle East has only begun.
Now, the democracies of the world are warning unpopular leaders not to use their military against their own people. A new paradigm now exists that did not exist two years ago. It is as if a page has been turned among the Muslims. Their religious faith remains, but they want to join the civilized world and be able to lay claim to the universal rights of free people. What we are witnessing is the shifting of a whole region of the world. These truly are historic times.
More, however, these are prophetic times. These are the days that must precede any comprehensive covenant of peace in the Middle East. They are times of rapid change such as have never swept so broad a range so swiftly. Always, before great changes are great battles. But the end of every battle is peace, no matter how bloody it is. Battles do not go on forever. There are not that many nations named in the Bible in terms of prophecy, but every one of the named nations are doing precisely what they will be doing after the Church has left the earth at the translation of the saints. The stage is set for those things which follow the rapture. There need not be any realignment to bring the nations into compliance with the Scriptures.
The outcome of the civil unrest, even in Iran, will eventually be the will of the people. They see it in the Americas and in Europe, and they want it for themselves. The killing of bin Laden appears to have confirmed in the hearts of the Arab peoples that violence is not the answer to anything. At least, it is not the only answer, or the best answer. Tunisia and Egypt have already proven that. It is better to make money than war. It is far cheaper to wage peace than to be continually at war.
Before any comprehensive Middle East peace agreement is ratified, the Church will have been translated from mortal to immortal. Even those who sleep in Christ will be resurrected and bodily leave the earth. Then there will be an even greater urgency for peace and unity in the world. There already is, but it is as yet a simmering undercurrent.
As of this date, President Obama has called anew for a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He is increasingly frustrated with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. He has demonstrated America’s will and determination in the killing of Osama bin Laden, and has turned immediately to the feud which most fuels the fires of the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli peace process. Israel seems oblivious to the clear fact that the world is going to have its way, There is a narrow window in which Israel can reach a negotiated conclusion. After this window closes, Israel will be forced back into the pre-1967 borders that were granted her in 1948. Israel has made no appeal to the God of her fathers for peace, and they will know no true peace until they proclaim, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
