Just read this morning that World War 3 has been declared by a Russian news anchor, but very few seem to be aware of it.
Oh, it’s not that Russia invading Ukraine hasn’t been in the news repeatedly ever since it took up the task.
One could hardly miss that, since the lamestream press seems intent on making sure that everyone is riveted or paralyzed by the latest happenings with Putin and Zelensky.
What it really reminds me of are Jesus’ words that prior to his return there would be “wars and rumors of wars” and that nations and kingdoms would rise against each other leading to worldwide chaos, famine, and death (Mt 24:6-7).
But, what causes wars and conflicts?
James, the half-brother of Jesus, asked the very same question and provided an answer in his letter “To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (James 1:1). He wrote,
What causes wars and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? (James 4:1-3)
In other words, mankind’s inherent selfishness rooted in the sin nature inherited from the beginning, when Adam and Eve fell, is the cause of wars and conflicts between human beings.
We want and lust after a whole variety of things—money, sex, property, maybe another country—and we think we deserve whatever our heart’s desire might be.
And if we don’t get our lusty object, we go to battle to get it, not caring, or perhaps realizing, that the object we assume will satisfy our passionate longing will be to our detriment.
Or in the case of Russia and the Ukraine, to the detriment of the world by dragging it into possibly a nuclear exchange.
But, be of good cheer, if the world is on the verge of World War 3, then Jesus said, “All these things are but the beginning of the birth pains” (Mt 24:8).
So, if you’re hurting or worried now about current events, you might want to consider getting on the Jesus train, because it’s going to be difficult enough for a few to persevere to the end, rather than the whole, and it’s not going to get better.
