An Analysis of the State of the World

Alright, nice to see everybody again. By the way, my wife is here, Cottie. She's doing much better now. She got over that summer cold, and she's translating for the Spanish brethren that are in the back. So that's why you don't see her here, but for the coffee social, she's looking forward to seeing all of you. So as you can see here, we're going to have a PowerPoint presentation, which is titled, An Analysis of the State of the World and What to Do to Prevail.

Certainly, the situation is pretty worrisome. If we go to the next slide, we'll see here. I have The Economist magazine, which is about the only news magazine that is not frivolous. Of course, if you go through it, it's as dry as parchment because it's the British way. They under-emphasize things, but it's a very serious magazine. It has basically 150 years that it has gone through, and they analyze the news every week.

I find it to be very helpful. According to this last Economist magazine, after the fall of Vietnam back in the early 70s, the Russians then thought that the U.S. was weak enough that they could invade Afghanistan and made incursions in Africa and Central America. You see there on the map how Russia felt that the U.S. had been weakened. Let me read to you what it says here. It says, Much as the present administration in the U.S. rejects comparisons to Vietnam, they are unavoidable.

What has happened is that the U.S. has had to leave now. As a matter of fact, someone mentioned that they had a relative that just told him one of the soldiers, and he was an officer, left the previous Thursday in Afghanistan before this bomb went off. So he had been two tours of duty, and he just got out in the nick of time. Others did not. So it goes on to say here, in other ways, the failure in Afghanistan is worse than it was in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army was a skilled and armored force, perhaps twice the size of the Taliban and backed by a superpower, which was Russia.

Yet the Taliban have taken a territory four times as large as South Vietnam. Many historians have concluded that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and expanded support for proxies, which means went into these other countries in Central America. That's Nicaragua and other places. Honduras was involved. El Salvador. A lot of things went into that area to undermine and also Africa. So that's when Russia went into East Africa and again trying to get them to go into their orbit of influence. It says, this was in part out of the belief that America had been weakened by Vietnam.

Now, China has already seized on the debacle in Afghanistan to celebrate America's retreat, if not decline. The Global Times, a magazine run by the Chinese Communist Party, crowed on August 16 that the withdrawal was a, quote, omen of Taiwan's future. So they see another situation where China will go in and the US will be helpless and so the invasion of Taiwan becomes even a greater possibility because of this.

It says, it suggested a war over Taiwan would mean unthinkable costs. If America was unwilling to absorb several thousand casualties in Afghanistan, how much less would they put up to defend Taiwan? That is a lesson to learn. Taiwan should depend on its own self-defenses instead of US support.

This comes from Andrew Yang, a former Taiwanese defense minister. He says that, of course, now they're very scared because how strong is the US support going to be for them? In India, which is very close to Afghanistan, many officials are troubled by a victory for Pakistan's proxy, which means ally, and the prospect of energized jihadism, which is this type of terrorist jihad.

The US withdrawal showed utter disregard of what it would unleash in its wake, argues Nirupama Rao, formerly India's most senior diplomat. It has devalued the worth and credibility of American power in the region. And then another one that's affected is Europe. They're fuming that America's withdrawal was presented to them as a fate complete, which means already an action already fulfilled. For one diplomat, it, quote, confirms a long-term trend of US disengagement.

Europeans, he said, must draw conclusions about America's reliability when it comes to crisis in places like the Middle East and the Sahel, which is northern Africa.

So here, there's all kinds of repercussions. Now Europe is less confident of America's support there in Europe, and they want to have a European army. They want to set up their own defenses because if the US is a fair-weather friend, that is there while the things are okay. But then when the weather gets bad, while it leaves, that's very worrisome.

Notice in the next slide that Afghanistan shares a border with China, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia is not that far away either.

Then tiny Israel, which is the one over there to your left, is more threatened with the Taliban in power. So this was also a threat that now has been raised for Israel because now they have another enemy in the Taliban. And they can bring in a lot of radical people. See, the US left all of those arms and weapons, and now they can train people with just about the best weapons in the world. So nobody expected something like this to go this bad, but it happened and, again, caught the administration by surprise. And it's very sad because, again, America's enemies are licking their chops. They're saying, now we can push further because there's not going to be that same resolute resistance. It was Lenin, the premier of Russia, when the Soviet Union was started, and he said the policy of the Soviet Union was sink the bayonet as far as it'll go until it meets resistance. And so what they're doing is they're probing and seeing the weaknesses of the US resolve because there are a lot of countries just like now Taiwan. If you show the next slide. See, you have Taiwan right next to China. That's the southern circle. And then you have South Korea in the north. And these are being threatened by Chinese communists and also North Korean communists. They would love to take over these areas of the world. And while the US stood strong, they were fearful. But here, again, the US is withdrawing its influence, and this is a world filled with very dangerous people. And we have to be aware of things. So this is the state of the world right now. There's a new change of momentum. The US has lost the momentum that it had previously. And now the momentum, just like it was mentioned, any type of a ball game where when the momentum is with you, it seems like everything is going your way. But you lose the momentum. It's very hard to gain it back. And this is what is happening in these past days. So we want to draw some conclusions from the biblical point of view. And here's the first lesson that we need to remember. Let's go to the next slide. The first lesson, remember God is in charge. In other words, whoever is threatening the world doesn't matter how powerful they think they are. God is in charge. Isaiah 64 verse 8, it says, we are the clay and you are the potter. We are all the works of your hands. So we are not the potter. We're not the ones that are going to question God. It says that clay shouldn't be saying, well, God, why have you allowed this? This is part of what God is permitting. And he said this was going to be a time of difficulty and trouble in the world as it descends more and more on that moral slide as things become more and more open and permissive. We've seen this in the past. This is eventually what destroyed the Roman Empire. This is what happened after the roaring twenties in the U.S. Well, then we came to the depression of the thirties, right? And here, again, we're spending money hand over fist, money that we don't have. Just printing paper money, but it doesn't really have backing. And we're making the same mistakes in the past. But God is in charge, and he's a loving God, and he is going to win in the end.

Next slide. God is carrying out his purposes.

Here we have the statue of these kingdoms that would appear until the time of the return of Jesus Christ. Let's go to Daniel chapter 2. This is a very important chapter to understand.

It says here about the kingdoms, because there would be successive kingdoms until the time of Jesus Christ's return. Let's go to verse 36 of Daniel 2. It says, This is the dream, and now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. This was Daniel talking to King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. He says, You, O king, are a king of kings, for the Lord of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. God is still in charge. He was the one that put Nebuchadnezzar on his throne. And wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are the head of gold. So here, these would be the four kingdoms that would extend out to the time of the coming of Jesus Christ. The first one was the Babylonian kingdom. Basically, the Babylonian kingdom started around 605, let's say 600 BC.

That's when it conquered Israel and also conquered Jerusalem. But in 536 BC, it was defeated by the Medo-Persian Empire. And so it says here, verse 39, But after you shall rise another kingdom, inferior to yours, not as glorious as the Babylonian. But this would be the Medo-Persian kingdom. And this would be from 536 BC, when King Cyrus invaded and conquered Babylon. And then he set up the Medo-Persian Empire, which are these two big countries that merged.

And this was the time of Cyrus the Great and all of his descendants. Basically, to around 313 or so BC, when the third kingdom would arise, which was the Greek kingdom of Alexander the Great. He conquered the Medo-Persian Empire. It says here, A third kingdom of bronze, which was the Greek empire, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything.

And like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush the others. Let's talk about the Roman Empire. Around the second century BC, that's when the Roman Empire defeated the Greek empire and took it over. But it's interesting that that Roman Empire, which was symbolic here of the legs of iron, it says here, verse 41, Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided. And so the Roman Empire was divided in two parts. You had the Eastern Empire with Constantinople, it's its capital, and you had the Western Empire with Rome as its capital, the two legs.

And this would go on until the time of Christ's return. But at that time, the Roman Empire would basically be in Europe, and there would be ten different groups of nations, because you're talking here about groups of nations, not just one country. For instance, the Germans are not the only German-speaking countries in Europe. You also have Austria, and you have other parts as well. You have other countries, for instance, the British country, Great Britain, also has Northern Ireland as part of their kingdom.

So anyways, it says here that verse 42, And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. It will be based on alliances, just like this European Union is based. It says, verse 43, And as you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, talking about the alliances that they've made, but they will not adhere to one another.

They're still separate. The French are still separate from the Germans, although they have a European Union, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to another people. In other words, when Christ comes back, there's not going to be another kingdom. That will be the final kingdom. That will be a reign of Jesus Christ over the earth.

It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, in other words, it was divine work, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God is made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. And so here we see the statue. When Christ comes back, the kingdoms of this earth will all be defeated and dissolved.

We won't have one kingdom here fighting another kingdom, as we presently have. In Revelation 17 and verse 17, I have it on the screen. It says, For God has put it into their hearts, talking about those ten kingdoms, at the end, to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind and to give their kingdom to the beast, which is this future leader that's going to rise from Europe until the words of God are fulfilled, until the prophecies are all carried out.

And so it not depends on us, but it's God's word that is going to be fulfilled. So that takes us to the next slide, and it's the second lesson we can learn, the lesson of the lilies of the field. Let's go to Matthew 6 and verse 24.

It's always good to remind ourselves of this promise by Jesus Christ. It actually starts in verse 24. It says, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. The term mammon has to do with the God of riches.

And we all need to provide for ourselves, but our ultimate goal is not riches. That is not what our life should be valued or judged by. Well, how much money do you have in your bank account? So many people, they think, well, as long as I'm rich, then everything is great, because that's what their goal is. But it says here, you must subordinate, you must put God first, and then income and wealth and whatever it is, and not put income and wealth first, and then God second.

That's what Christ is saying. And then He reminds us why this is the case. Who's in charge of all the wealth and riches on this earth? He says, therefore, as a consequence of what He just said, I say to you, do not worry about your life. This is the term here, anxious, concerned. It's don't get all tied up in a knot about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? So, yes, we should take care of ourselves, but it shouldn't be our principal goal.

There are people that just want a good life and just well-dressed and well-housed and a lot of toys available, adult toys in the sense of cars and everything else. And that's what they live for. But here it says, God called us for a greater purpose. It's not just to stuff ourselves. It's not just to dress ourselves.

It's just not having a roof. Those are basic things. But He called us and created us for a greater purpose. He says, verse 26, Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. I really haven't seen any birds starving to death. They look pretty healthy to me. But why? Because God creates the seeds.

He creates all of this vegetation and all the little earthworms so that they have plenty to eat. Are you not of more value than they? If God is so concerned about animals not starving, how much more is He concerned about us not starving?

He says, Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to His stature? We don't have the power to make ourselves grow any taller than genetically we have been established. So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not a raid like one of these. I have to look at the beautiful flowers and to realize they're much better than any clothing manufacturer there is out there.

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, don't let that anxiety build up the fear and concern, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He's concerned, He'll provide, but what is our part? But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these physical things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So again, focus on what we can do today. Don't worry about what happened yesterday. Don't be worried so much about tomorrow. See what we can do today to fill it properly.

Just being able to be here on this Sabbath day. That's a blessing for you that God gives you. That's something that God is pleased with, because this is the day that He set up to have a holy convocation. I was just commenting before services. One of the ideas that sometimes over the radio or television you hear about, well, we don't need to keep this Sabbath day because for Christ we worship Christ during all week long.

And my question is, oh, so now you're going to make all seven days holy? Is that what you're changing now? The fourth commandment, which makes the seventh day holy? Are you now saying all the days are holy? No. There's only one day that's holy during the week. Now, we certainly pray and worship God during the rest of the week, but there's one holy day. There's not seven. And it hasn't been changed to the first day of the week.

So continuing on, let's look at the following slide. What is Christ telling us? He's saying don't become over preoccupied about the future. Focus on what you can do to improve your day today. Just think of how modern ships are built with compartments or different sections. And they have these steel walls to separate so that if something happens and they ram an iceberg or if they get in a collision, see, the water will fill up only where the hole is because they can seal that and the rest of the ship continues to float.

So when problems occur, try to think about the compartments in your life. Put it in a compartment, but the rest of your life is still flowing well. Everything else is working. Don't let the water spill and sink the ship because you forgot to close the compartments.

Notice the next slide. The U.S. carrier Saratoga was hit by two torpedoes during World War II but did not sink. Two torpedoes in different times. And yet it didn't sink because they sealed the compartments and the rest of the ship could continue going forward. So we should also not let problems, difficulties, whatever happens, tragedies. It's only one compartment of a person's life. Just be able to close it and then operate. Work on improving, fixing whatever is not working, but the important thing is to shut it off. Close it so that it won't spill over to the rest. I remember years ago I was counseling a young... well, he was an adult at that time. His wife had died in a surgery. And of course, he was overwhelmed by that and he went into a depression that lasted for weeks. And then I was able to talk with him. I remember sitting down and saying, look, try to contain this. Put it in a compartment. All of this darkness that you are walking around, just like a big dark cloud over you. Try to put it in a place and see the rest of your life. Things that are working well. Well, he did it and he overcame depression. He was able to then marry another lady and he got out of the same thing. But don't let the containers of the ship just flood because it wasn't shut down on time. Let's go to the next lesson, lesson number three.

You know that studies have been made that most of the worries never happen. What people think is going to happen is a survey showed that 40% of the things we worry about never happen. 30% that we worry about are in the past and can't be helped. 12% concerns the affairs of others that aren't our business. We're all worried about something that we can't even control because it's not part of our life. It has to do with someone else. 10% are about sicknesses, real or imagined, and 8% are worth worrying about. So basically 92% of the time of things that one worries about never happen or you can't do anything about, only 8%. That's like tossing a coin 10 times and over 9 times you have a positive result. It's only 1 out of 10 that's not going to work out.

So don't let those worries overwhelm you because most of them are not going to happen. One of the reasons it's not going to happen is that once it becomes a reality, you really get on the ball and you start finding solutions that you hadn't done previously. And so many times you're able to solve and put away what was causing us not to go to sleep at night. Notice this serenity prayer. It has a lot of godly wisdom and it's important to take it into account. It says, God grant me the serenity or peace to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Because there are certain things that with all the effort we put into them it's not going to help. So help me focus on the things that I can resolve, accept the things I can't and give me the wisdom to determine which is which. It's very important. Now, the final lesson is don't worry about spilt milk. Have you had spilt milk lately? Has something fallen? Some people really make a fuss out of something like this. And remember, you can't put the milk back in the container. You have to accept the loss, learn the lesson, and then be determined to move on. What's the use of lamenting and all this anxiety? Oh, look what happened. But you have to go and say it's already a reality. And I accept it. Let me learn the lesson. What lessons can we learn to avoid repeating the same thing? And then be determined to move on with your life. Because you can't put the milk back in the carton, can you? So, talking about spilt milk, the next slide, remember to take your troubles to God for help. Philippians 4, verses 6 and 7. If something happens, we can't really change it. Let's go to God. He can make it work out for us. It says in verse 6, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So, instead of, again, being all worked up, let's go to God with it. He loves to solve our problems. He loves to find things that we forget. Have you ever had that? Where something important you lost. Have you had that happen where all of a sudden it appears? Almost like an angel was the one... How many times have you had that where you've looked in that drawer and nothing was there? And then you look back and there it was all the time. And all kinds of things happen.

There's an interesting story about Willis Carrier. Willis Carrier is the famous inventor of the air conditioner, of which we're very thankful that he exists and that he came up with that. But as he was building his business up, one time they contracted him for a big factory and he was working on filtering the air. And it was a big job. He was going to be paid $20,000. And so, this was an experimental model. And he set it up and it didn't work as well as he expected. And he was just so worried and he says, oh, I've lost this contract.

I've lost $20,000. How am I going to pay my men? What's going to happen to me? He couldn't sleep. And then he just said, I've got to cut this out and I've got to start thinking straight. And so, here are the three steps that he said he did. Analyze the situation honestly and figure out what is the worst possible thing that could happen. So, in his case, he said, well, the worst thing that can happen is that I would lose the business. I might lose my job, but I can get another job. The worst thing that can happen is they're not going to shoot me over the mistake, right?

So, at least I'm going to walk away alive. And so, that calmed him down. Okay, what's the worst thing? Well, I can lose the job. I can get myself into debt. The second thing is prepare yourself mentally to accept the worst, if necessary. So, he accepted, okay, suppose I get fired and then I lost, but I'm not going to be put in jail over this thing. I just lost this good contract and maybe I have to work somewhere else. And then thirdly, then calmly try to improve upon the worst, which you have already agreed mentally to do.

So, he said, I'm going to start working on it. And guess what? Finally, he let the anxiety out. All that burden came off his shoulders. He could think straight. And then he said, oh, I know what was going wrong. I know how I can fix this. And so, he told them, look, for another 5,000, we can fix this thing and get it going. And they gave him a chance. And so, he got 20,000. It worked. And these inventions led to the air conditioner, to the carrier name for air conditioning.

But if he would have let himself just drown in his depression over this failed experiment, he never would have gone forward. Notice what it says in 1 Peter, chapter 5. In verse 6 and 7, it says, Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him. For he cares for you. God does care for you. Trust him. Go to him.

And the last slide, as I finish here. There are, is there one more slide? I think there's, nope. Let's see. Was that the last one? I thought, oh yeah, that's, I thought that was the first one. So, it says, There are many concerns out there, and the world is clearly going from bad to worse. But here is important advice given from God to Paul.

In 2 Timothy 3, I'm just gonna read some of them. You can read the entire scripture back home. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1. This is happening in our days. It says, But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves. Is that what we see today? Lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, using foul language, disobedient to parents, the rebellion that we see with the youth, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanders, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

In other words, it might seem spiritual, but they don't want to do anything about assembling. And then he says, And from such people turn away, because they already have people like that in Paul's day. And then it goes on to say in verse 17, no, a little bit before this, verse 13. But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. So it tells us we know we have God's word, we have his way of life. So love God and don't worry.