"Ain't Goin' to Study War No More"

How about a break from the inane kabuki theater that Washington politics has turned out to be? Besides, by the time you read this there is hope that some sort of political compromise will have been reached to deal decisively and realistically with the government shut down and debt ceiling limit. Consider instead this report from the engineering company Boston Dynamics. This is the company that invented the Cheetah, a quadrupedal robot able to run on a treadmill at over 28 mph (faster than Husain Bolt’s top speed of 27.78 mph!). A few days ago they unveiled their new creation, a robotic piece of machinery dubbed the Wildcat. While not as fast the Cheetah, this engineering marvel (watch a video of it in action: http://rt.com/usa/running-war-robot-darpa-754/) is able to rise, turn and run up to 16 mph on flat ground. Charles Osgood, in his syndicated daily radio column, The Osgood Report, explained this week that the new Wildcat advances the possibility of robotic machines fighting this nation’s future wars. What a happy thought! Instead of humans gunning and bombing each other to death, opposing armies could send their robots into action and let the outcome be determined by the best engineers. Scientists are warning, however, that such potential robot wars introduce the possibility of the computer brain one day outsmarting its human creators and turning on the human race. So much for a cheerful paradigm shift in fighting history. The only paradigm shift Holy Scripture predicts in the history of war is the eventual eradication of war from both this planet and this universe. After all, heaven itself was plunged into cosmic battle: “And there was war in heaven” (Revelation 12:7). A civil war raging still and still called “the great controversy.” No robots in this internecine fight to the death. Instead the brilliant minds of intelligent life forms that include the once celebrated but now fallen human race. And it is the latter that is this war’s quest—a desperate battle for the loyalty of every earth child. Which is why the Creator and King of the universe Himself has plunged into this deadly conflict between Light and darkness. “For God so loved the [fallen and wounded of this] world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16). And the stunning news is that He wins in the end! Not by a hair or through a negotiated truce—the predicted divine outcome to this cosmic rebellion is that God wins—totally, decisively, eternally. And then—and I love this line—“they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). No more war—not in Washington, not in our souls, not on earth, nowhere in the universe. The old spiritual is right: “Ain’t goin’ to study war no more.” No more war—the promise of Calvary—to which every battle fatigued heart can surely breath: Hallelujah and Amen.