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Disarmament urged
in book of Revelation

In my understanding, the New Testament book of Revelation is an excellent teacher of the escalation of the cost of war in the past century. After almost a year of interpretation work, I saw that in a subtle way, each of the first nine chapters of Revelation seems to say something about the time in office of each of the nine presidents since Eisenhower with regard to war, peace or nuclear disarmament.

Here is what I see as the message of Revelation in a nutshell: Disarmament curbs the impulse to terror and war. Peace before it's too late!

George W. Bush is the ninth president since Eisenhower. In Chapter 9, I believe we see the prologue to the war in Iraq. At the close of the Gulf War in 1991, the retreating Iraqis torched the Kuwaiti oil fields. We often act as if oil comes from a "bottomless pit," words used in this chapter. Those oil fires lasted for months, and they darkened the sun and the air, just as the book describes.

Chapter 9 mentions locusts, which I see as being our forces in Iraq, commanded not to harm any "green thing," as we did in Vietnam to deny the cover of the forest to enemy, for Iraq is an arid country without much leafy vegetation. However, like locusts, our troops are more indiscriminate than in previous conflicts because of officially relaxed rules for the treatment of prisoners of war.

Our enemies are "those men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads." In my understanding of Scripture, the seal means placing God's laws or commandments first in their lives. Iraqi insurgents do not have God's seal because they are breaking the Koran's injunction against suicide.

Chapter 9 describes a sixth judgment when "the kings of the east," that is China and Russia, invade and take over the Middle Eastern oil fields. While the number -- 200 million -- of invading cavalry given in the Scripture is almost certainly overstated, there can be no doubt that it means that the prophesied force is overwhelming. By that time our only "hope" to force these monstrous foes to retreat will lie in the use of nuclear weapons. But, for at least two reasons that I can imagine, we initially refrain from using nuclear arms.

Later, in Chapter 17, the effects of the resulting oil shortage on our country are depicted. The United States is described as the "harlot" because of the morally illicit relationship among the military-industrial complex, the special interests and the federal government. The ruling faction becomes more and more dishonest, deceptive, militaristic and generally self-serving, with all that implies among themselves and for the rest of their world.

Our foreign oil-based economy is substantially idled, but not physically damaged, by the unavailability of Middle Eastern oil. However, the social order is becoming increasingly precarious as the economy is being brought to ruin.

Our efforts to negotiate terms for Middle Eastern oil continue to be rebuffed. The tension eventually becomes so great that a civilization-annihilating nuclear exchange is initiated. I see this gravest of developments described in later chapters of Revelation as the falling "upon men of the great hail out of heaven" and as "the angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was made bright with his glory."

Could the United States escape the judgment by beginning to negotiate nuclear disarmament before Bush leaves office? That could prepare us to enter the "kingdom age" described in later chapters as we not-too-gradually construct a world culture of peace.

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