The Fear In Their Eyes

THE FEAR IN THEIR EYES
David A. Rice

Lehigh Acres, Florida
Thursday, October 06, 2005

It is not the words they speak that bother me; the words are confident and reassuring. It is the fear in their eyes that disquiets my soul.

First Katrina, then Rita hit the Gulf coast and the oil industry. Even the best experts could not downplay the damage or make it seem insignificant. They could, however, avoid panic by downplaying the long-term effect on the economy and raising a unified voice proclaiming our ability to recover. For all their brave words, they could not hide the fear in their eyes or control their body language. Perhaps some were blinded but I saw the fear.

According to one recent poll, twenty five percent of Americans believe that the storms were a direct and calculated judgment from God. I am in that group; I believe that this was the Hand of God moving in judgment against an arrogant and unrepentant nation.

Some have pointed out the Gospel story where Jesus told of a tower that had fallen, killing some people. He said that the incident was not judgment and that those killed were no worse sinners than any one else. To be fair, not all catastrophes are judgment nor were those killed in the storms greater sinners than those spared. That story that Jesus told stands alone in the Bible against hundreds of passages that speak of the heavy hand of an Almighty God moving in judgment. Looking at those storms, many signs point back to the hand of God.

Oil is at the center of everything. I am glad that President Bush is against the Homosexual Agenda; I’ll vote for that. I am glad he’s against abortion; I’ll vote for that as well. Iraq is a different thing. Let no one deceive you, Iraq is about oil. Iraq is about a greedy super power trying to secure its future at the expense of others.

I’m no fan of Saddam Hussein, and I believe that Mohamed and Islam are responsible for the damming of more souls than any other single person or movement in history. The fact is that the government in the Sudan and a dozen other countries make Saddam look like a saint and the former Iraq look like paradise. If we were trying to liberate a people, Iraq was far down on the priority list. In an elaborately devised scheme, we were convinced that Iraq had or was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction. I am convinced that neither the President nor any of his people ever believed that story. Even if they believed that, Iraq is a strange target. North Korea, India, Pakistan and several other countries have nuclear weapons. Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons is well documented. Why, then, attack Iraq.

The answer is that, in words and in his attack of Kuwait, Saddam was a constant threat to our supply of petroleum. Without oil, it is not an overstatement to say, we would cease to be a superpower. If you stop the supply of oil, you reduce the United States to Third World status overnight. The President, with his connections to the oil industry, knows this all too well. It is this struggle for oil that will lead to Armageddon.

It must have looked easy to the powers in Washington, Superpower against Third World Dictatorship. Even the people of Iraq hated Saddam and his government. It would be a simple thing to walk in and replace the government with one more to our liking; one that would not threaten the flow of oil. They were blinded by greed and power. They were secure in their faith that Americans, as the smartest, bravest and most powerful people in the world, would quickly prevail.

They did not understand the spiritual side of the issue. They did not understand Islam. They could not comprehend that Muslims in Arabia see the worst of America and equate it with Christianity. How could they have known that the people of the Middle East would see the war as a Christian attack on Islam?

We are a secular nation. We have, with great purpose and determination, walked away from the God of our fathers. We have convinced ourselves that we are a nation of superheroes. We have come to believe that it was the ingenuity and intelligence of our founders that allowed them to bring forth this nation. We have believed that it is by our own strength that we have come this far. Unlike the generation of WW2, we are not right and just in our cause. Unlike that America, our leaders do not have divine guidance. We have come to believe that “might makes right”.

And so, we attacked Iraq. Now we are in a great war of religions. If it were truly Islam vs. Christianity, Christ would win. It is, instead, Islam against a secular nation they mistakenly believe to be Christian. They have the strongest demons in hell on their side. We stand alone and naked. We do not even begin to understand the war in the heavens being played out on the earth. The debacle in Iraq is a self-inflicted judgment against the United States.

God is neither on the side of Islam nor that of a secular United States. God does bring judgment on the strong who misuse their strength to rob the weak and defenseless. God also brings judgment on those who forget Him, not to destroy them but to cause them to seek Him. God’s judgment is specific, never random. First, we are losing in Iraq; second, we are hit by two sequential storms that strike at the heart of America’s oil production. Suddenly, our supply of oil is less than before we attacked Iraq. The consequences are yet to be seen but I see the fear in the eyes of the “experts”.

We cannot pay for the war in Iraq. We are borrowing money everyday to pay the bills. Saddam could not have cost us this much money if he had been able to cease all petroleum exports from Iraq and Kuwait. His terrorists would find it almost impossible to kill as many Americans as we have lost in the war we started. Now we must pay for Katrina and Rita with more borrowed money. Meanwhile, the economy is being hit with an oil shortage and the highest fuel prices in our history. I do see fear in their eyes.

End times prophecy places the center of power and money in Europe and the Middle East. In the end, there is an attack by forces from the North and the East. I don’t find America anywhere. Is it possible that America won’t repent? Could we be seeing a great nation reduced to nothing? Will it take one more blow or is this the start of a tailspin from which we can never recover? I can’t answer those questions. I believe that there is time and opportunity to repent. I know that the God who birthed this nation can rescue her now. Unfortunately, I cannot see repentance or deliverance in the near future. When I put this together with the lack of references to America in prophecy, I cannot predict a bright future for this nation.

I could speak of how Mississippi has moved from faith in God to faith in casinos and the obvious judgment that has fallen on those who put their trust in gambling but that is for another article. Needless to say, the judgment was swift and specific. They are already working to rebuild their fallen idol; that is frightening.

Many are predicting a return to the first century for the Church in America. It is already happening in Africa, in places where the suffering is unimaginable and the standard of life untenable. If you are a Christian looking for the power and miracles of the First Century Church, take heart, it’s on its way. Please understand that it will be accompanied by First Century suffering and persecution. A powerful Church will rise from the ashes of judgment, and with it persecution and trouble. “Let not your heart be troubled,” there is enough fear in the eyes of the godless. “American” Christians will suffer greatly. Christians who are “pilgrims and aliens in a foreign land” will fare much better. Now is not the time to confuse “American” with “Christian” Faith in America is faith misplaced. Those who trust in the Government have fear in their eyes.