Radio Broadcast for 7 August 2005 Talking Points
Is Freedom Christian? Series

CW – Welcome to the third and final broadcast on the
subject War is Biblical.
Dr. Ford, you have offered four points on the subject
that war is biblical:
1. God is not opposed to war when it suits His
purpose.
2. God is the commander of armies of His own.
3. There are principles on which the going to war is
based or justified.
4. The wars of men can serve God’s eternal purposes.
Talk for a minute on the subject of when God sends men
into war.

Ford – The Old Testament is full of incidences of when
God sent people into war. The conquest of Canaan by
the Children of Israel was to be made through war.
There is evidence that when Moses led Israel out of
Egypt, Joshua who would be Moses successor, had
already received training in the art of war. Of course
he honed his skills during the wilderness wanderings.

CW – That is interesting. Joshua as you know is the
Hebrew form of the Greek word Jesus.

Ford – Yes, and Joshua is often pointed to as an Old
Testament “type of Christ” by theologians. One of the
reasons for that is his obedience to the commands of
God, and then he is also a type as the ruler of
armies. The battle for Jericho fought in Canaan, in a
sense is a type of the final battle where the forces
of God gather and Jesus wins the battle alone. In the
siege of Jericho all the people did was march around
the city and blow trumpets. God won the battle.

CW – People are often critical of God for often
telling the children of Israel to kill everyone, even
the animals were destroyed, and not even to take the
goods of cities. Would you care to explain why God
would do such a thing?

Ford – It was for the good of the Children of Israel.
You see the people were disease infected. They had
disease in their bodies because of their sins and
disease in their minds because of their corrupt ideas.
The Jewish people did not need to be afflicted with
either. Some of the animals had been used in the
sinful practice of bestiality and many had been
dedicated to their demonic gods. Instead of trying to
sort out which was which, God had them all destroyed.
Then there was the matter of their gold and silver.
These possessions were often held in the form of
idols. Even the decorations on their garments were
idolatrous. God did not want those things perverting
Israel.

CW – Interesting. Does that have a connection with
today?

Ford – Most definitely. Total war involves the
destruction or massive alteration of societies. The
first modern total war was fought right here in the
United States. It was called the Civil War. It was the
first modern total war because it was heavily
dependent on industrialization. European observers
took the lessons learned during the Civil War back to
Europe and applied the lessons there. But modern total
war had a failing in common with what happened in
Israel so long ago. That is, the evils of other
societies managed to creep into the minds of people
who were fundamentally influenced by Christianity. One
of the world war era songs asks the question “How will
you keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen
Paris?”

CW – Seeing Paris was a corrupting influence?

Ford – It was a corrupting influence because it was a
hotbed of vice and sin. And, it was a hotbed of vice
and sin because the French had rejected the
fundamental Christian faith for intellectual reasoning
and skeptical so called “higher criticism” of the word
of God. German theologians were right behind them so
that by the time World War I took place much of the
people who had control of society in Europe were in
pretty sad shape spiritually. By the time World War II
took place England was very much as they were, and
after that war, by the time President Eisenhower was
in office the United States had entered the final
church age spoken of in Scripture, the age of
Laodicea.

CW – Now what is the age of Laodicea.

Ford – That is a prophetic understanding that comes
out of the belief that the entire history of the
church will be divided into seven distinct ages before
the return of Christ. The last of these ages is the
Age of Laodicea. That is when people see their
situation as rich and in need of nothing, but in
reality they are spiritually naked before God.

CW – So you are saying that the seven ages of the
church has a connected with war? To follow your logic
then the wars of these days are connected to the
spiritual condition of the church?

Ford – That is right. But the point I am making is
different than the indictment the Islamic terrorists
are trying to serve up as their justification for
making war on us. They come from a depraved religion
that is not on a par with Christianity. Some of the
suicide terrorists were known to have drank whiskey
and read Playboys as they prepared to give their lives
for Allah. The people who are dying to attack the West
are not any kind of moral paragons by any means. They
are morally sick people that come from a pagan system
of belief.
CW – But you have said that fact will not necessarily
save us in this worldwide war with terrorism.

Ford – That is correct. God could very well use Islam
as His instrument of retribution on us for our own
spiritual shortcomings. As I have said before God
expects those identified with Him to live in a
righteous way.

CW – So if the terrorists are hypocrites what are
their true motivations?

Ford – Some people have theorized they act as they do
because of the practice of polygamy throughout Islamic
societies. They believe what differentiates Islam from
the world’s other religions such as Christianity,
Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confuscianism is that
Islam sanctions and practices polygamy. Monogamy’s
principle advantage is that monogamy guarantees every
man an equal chance of having a wife.. If a dominant
male took more than one wife while others were left
with none people are left without hope for a heritage
in this world.
	Polygamy probably arose out of either relative
prosperity or strength of arms on the part of certain
people. The “brideprice”—a payment the wife’s family
demands of the husband’s family—is universal in
polygamous societies. As the accumulation of wealth
grew unevenly, wealthier men took more wives while
poorer men were left with none. 
Polygamy is still practiced widely in West Africa,
where leading men sometimes take as many as 30-50
wives. This leaves a huge residue of unattached men.
It is probably the principle reason why so many
African countries are beset by “revolutionary armies”
living in the bush and raiding rural villages to rape
or steal women.  
	By the fifth century B.C., most of the world’s major
religions had been established and had rejected
polygamy as part of their social contract. When
Mohammad founded Islam in the seventh century, he
inherited the polygamy that was still being practiced
by desert tribes. Although Mohammed limited each man
to four wives, he did not abolish polygamy. That
decision has had a tremendous impact on history.
	Today polygamy is not practiced as widely in Islamic
countries, and only accounts for about ten percent of
all marriages. But I have seen statistics that claim
some million people are living in “white slavery” in
Islamic countries, and every year Muslims buy brides
in places like India, take them into neighboring
countries, divorce them, and sell them into slavery.
The country where the distribution of wives is most
unequal—Saudi Arabia—seems to be the best at producing
roving jihadists who roam the world in search of
conflict.
 	The absence of a norm of a “man for every woman, a
woman for every man” also creates an entirely
different male psychology. At one extreme, men
consider their own lives to be worthless and
expendable because they will not have the chance to
reproduce. At the other extreme, they are promised “72
virgins in heaven.” Sometimes the extremes converge. -
Polygamy creates dysfunctional societies. Jihad, with
its perpetual social unrest, is unlikely to disappear
until polygamy is eliminated

CW – But we have seen suicide bombers who were married
with families. Surely this fact works against the idea
polygamy is the problem?

Ford – Yes. But polygamy coupled with the devaluing of
women; Their hypocritical practices of having sex with
young boys while proclaiming hatred for
homosexuality…a practice which has led to an increase
in aids in some Moslem dominated regions of Africa by
the way…are all symptoms of the problem, not the root
cause.

CW – Well, what is the problem?

Ford – To get to the problem it is better to establish
there are a lot of influences rooted in the past. For
instance on March 3, 1924, Turkish nationalists
abolished the Caliphate, the position of supreme
leadership handed down from the time of the Prophet
Muhammad's first successors in the 7th century. Muslim
fanatics who blow themselves up in the name of Islam
believe their "jihad" will ultimately defeat the
infidel West and restore a Caliph to rule the
billion-strong Islamic nation, or umma, according to
Islamic law, or sharia.
	In 1917Chaim Weizmann, a chemist had produced a
formula for the manufacture of explosives. Partly, as
a reward by the British government, Lord Balfour
issued the declaration that England was in favor of
Palestine becoming a national home for the Jewish
people. In that same year General Allenby captured
Palestine from the control of Turkey. Jerusalem fell
in fulfillment of prophecy contained in the Bible. The
League of Nations, forerunner to the United Nations,
gave England the mandate over Palestine in 1920.
During both World Wars I & II, much Arab leadership
sided with Germany, and there was great resentment
when after World War II the nation of Israel was
established.
The tiny state of Israel was restored with a
population of about 650,000 Jews. They were surrounded
by seven hostile Arab countries with a total
population of forty million people. These enemy
nations vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. The
whole world seemed convinced that the fate of Israel
would be settled within a few days. However, miracle
after miracle took place to preserve the Jewish
people. The country was opened freely to Jewish
immigration from anywhere, and they came by the
thousands. In only forty months 673,000 Jews entered
the new nation. By the year 1959, two million Jews
from practically every continent and country in the
world had come in. 
The greatest transfer of population in history was
accomplished by one of the smallest countries. At the
same time that they were busy settling thousands of
new immigrants into the country, they also were busy
waging war with their surrounding enemies. That they
could stave off their enemies was miraculous; however,
much about the new nation was miraculous. They adopted
a constitution, printed postage stamps, built houses,
irrigated and reclaimed the desert, and built
factories and schools. Almost overnight they turned
the country into a land flowing with "milk and honey."
Not the least of the miracles was the revival of
Hebrew as the official language. Very few immigrants
spoke Hebrew upon their arrival, but today it is
spoken throughout Israel. In Zephaniah 3:9 God
promised to the people a pure language, that they may
all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with
one consent.

CW – And where does Osama bin Laden and his terrorists
fit into all this?

Ford - 	For Osama bin Laden and his followers the end
of the Caliphate was the moment of historic rupture.
Even though the caliphate had been in decline for
hundreds of years, they considered foreigners
responsible for the breakup of the Ottoman Empire at
the end of the First World War. Even after
independence, the new regimes were secular and they
chafed as they saw foreigners intervening in what they
considered to be “Muslim affairs.”
The history of American conflict with Islam goes back
at least to the 1780s but the current problem of
suicide bombers has its roots in the first Islamist
mass movement, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, founded in
1928. It initially emphasized personal piety and
educational work, but quickly became a political force
under the slogan - still current today - that "Islam
is our Constitution.” But it was not until the 1970s
that Islamists came to the fore through a combination
of factors: 
Israel's defeat of Arab armies in 1967 which broke the
prestige of Arab nationalists; 
Saudi Arabia's petro-dollars gave Islamists the means
to proselytise around the Muslim world; 
and Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution which
overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. 
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the same year was
the rallying cause for Sunni Arab Islamists, including
bin Laden, who waged a jihad against the Soviet Union
with the help of Saudi money and American weapons, and
the co-operation of Pakistan's secret services.
	
CW – So America was involved in helping the Muslims
defeat the USSR in Afghanistan?

Ford – Yes, there were even American mercenaries hired
to go over there and fight. Some of them were without
a doubt being financed by the CIA, even as the USA
supplied weapons to the Islamics. The articles and
advertisements being published in such magazines as
Soldier of Fortune during that era were very
interesting. We put a lot of material into that area
in the early 80’s. When we took Afghanistan from the
Taliban we discovered stockpiles of American weapons
from that time that still had not been used.

CW – I think a lot of people do not know about the
things you are saying.

Ford – No a good many people live with their heads in
the sand hoping the problems will all go away.

CW – But they wont go away. They have organized
themselves to make war.

Ford - al Qaeda is engaging in the terrorist
equivalent of a Tet Offensive: launching a series of
attacks -- some significant, others mere psyops acting
in an effort to bring their war into the homes of the
“far away enemy,” you and me, countries that are not
part of the Middle East. They consider these lands
they must ultimately conquer anyway.
	The July 7 attacks in London were jarring to
Westerners because most of the suicide bombers were
British-born citizens attacking on their home soil. In
fact, most al Qaeda attacks -- ranging from the 1998
embassy bombings in East Africa to the Khobar Towers
attacks, to the 1993 World Trade Center strike to the
Bali nightclubs -- have been carried out by locals,
with the help of an al Qaeda operational leader. The
Tet-like offensive, obviously, is meant to help the
group regain credibility and some of its earlier
momentum, which eventually could lead to growth or
regeneration.
	It is useful to think of al Qaeda in terms of a
pyramid. The apex of its leadership -- Osama bin
Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and others known to the world
are believed to be hiding in Pakistan or adjacent
areas of southwest Asia. The middle layer is populated
by tactical commanders, couriers and logistical
planners -- connected, knowledgeable, well-trained and
high-value operatives, small in number in order to
maintain operational security for the group. It is
this layer that has been heavily targeted by covert
intelligence and security agencies, for obvious
reasons: Getting these operatives are the key to
reducing both the numbers of attacks and the worst of
the carnage.
	At the bottom of the pyramid are al Qaeda's foot
soldiers. These are local sympathizers and militants
with rudimentary training, who waste themselves in
suicide attacks and can be cut loose if arrested and
questioned, with little impact to the rest of the
organization. This is a finite but still significant
sea of potential suspects, through which move the
likes of Mohammed Sidique Khan -- the apparent
ringleader of the July 7 suicide cell – These types
may have attracted the notice of authorities in the
past, but then been dismissed as a potential threat.
It also likely there are many who live completely
below the radar -- nameless, to the wider world, until
after the bombs detonate.

CW – I see. No doubt some people believe this is the
end of the world.

Ford – What is going on is perfectly consistent with
the overview of Biblical prophecy we have in the
Bible. While we are not there yet we are rapidly
headed toward the end of the age and a time of chaos
and tribulation that precedes the coming of Christ.
Nobody wants to face the End Time but in 2002 a CNN
poll revealed that 59% of Americans believed the
prophecies outlined in the Book of Revelation, which
includes some of the most graphic end time narrative
is true.
	Last year a Newsweek poll revealed 17% of Americans
believed that the world was going to end in their
lifetime and 36% believed that the prophecies of the
Apocalypse in the Bible were true. If you doubt that
the polls might have a degree of accuracy you only
have to consider that the Left Behind series of books
have sold over 50 million copies. People are buying
those books because they know they represent a
fictional interpretation of Biblical prophecy and they
are too lazy to study the real thing and think for
themselves.
	It does not take much observation of the things going
on in the world to realize something is happening.
Unfortunately many pastors today are steering clear of
the teaching and preaching of Biblical prophecy. So
the people are perishing for lack of knowledge.

CW – How much time do you think we have got?

Ford – I think the return of the Lord Jesus Christ is
likely to happen in my lifetime if I am not martyred
for my faith or die of infirmity before hand. But the
world will not end with the return of Christ. After
that we can look forward to a thousand years of His
Kingdom rule on earth after the period of
Tribulation..

CW – Of course the antichrist will show up before
Jesus comes.

Ford – That’s right and he will be thought to be Jesus
by many, and he will be able to make war and win. But
he will be defeated by the true Lord of Hosts when He
returns. In the early church the people would often
say a word. Maranatha! It got rather popular a few
years ago then you it fell out of popularity. But it
reminds us the Lord is coming, and I say, surely Lord
Jesus come quickly.

CW – Dedicates radio program to memory of Bill Ramey.
Vietnam Veteran and friend of Dr. Ford for 36 years.