Wednesday, January 18, 2006

The Pirates Den

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

There’s been a lot of talk lately in the news media and on the talk shows about Iran and their drive to restart their nuclear enrichment program. Our government does have satellite photos of buildings being constructed for this very purpose. In the west there has mainly been talk about how they should end the program once and for all or there could be stiff sanctions from the U. N. You remember the United Nations. It’s that big building in New York that has so much power to enforce its will on member nations. If the offending nation doesn’t comply they pull out all the stops and a bunch of old men and women sit around and say bad things about you in 200 different languages, sometimes these mean words are actually put in print. This drastic measure is most likely responsible for the UN’s long and distinguished record of success. Even the French are upset with Iran and are considering taking direct action to force the Iranian government to dismantle the enrichment program. Rumors coming out of France indicate that the French government is going to give Iran 48 hours to dismantle the entire program before they take decisive action. Although no government official will confirm or deny it, some well placed individuals say that at precisely 4: 00 PM on the day following the expiration of the deadline, all French citizens will leave whatever buildings they are in, turn toward Tehran and stick out their tongues. The French have not taken such a drastic action in many years. The most recent example was in 1943 against the German occupiers. However, it should be noted that as determined as the French were, the decision to stick out their tongues in secret was considered acceptable.
The idea of the Iranian government starting a nuclear enrichment program and particularly the line up of nations decrying their actions put me to thinking of something I read in the fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah. The entire chapter is a prophesy outlining the destruction of the land of Babylon, which was partially located in the land we know today as Iran. Several of the verses speak directly to the time when Babylon will be destroyed, and I believe, bear looking at while keeping current events in mind. I want to make it clear I am making no predictions, no statements that should be considered an absolute as to what may or may not happen as a result of the world wide opposition to Iran’s renewed nuclear enrichment program. All I intend is to list some known facts and ask that you take time alone, some genuine quiet time to mull them over.
In verse one God (through Jeremiah) warns that he will send foreigners to “willow her and to devastate her land.” (see also Isaiah 13:9) If, and remember I am saying IF, anyone intervenes to put a stop to Iran’s nuclear program, it will be done by foreigners. This one verse is hardly conclusive but let’s continue through the rest of this rather lengthy dissertation. Verse nine says that “For her judgment reaches to the skies, it rises as high as the clouds” (see also Revelation 18: 1-8). Alone this is rather hard to envision and most liberal theologians today will say it should be understood as allegorical rather than descriptive. Just for fun though let’s keep in mind how Israel, England, and the United States like to use direct “surgical” air strikes to deal with problems within the borders of another nation. If, by some weird set of circumstances such a strike set off nuclear reaction, such an event could result in a genuine nuclear explosion that would produce a mushroom cloud that, just like in the pictures we’ve all seen, reaches to the clouds. Again, just something to think about.
Moving on through the chapter we come to verse twenty-six which says in part “for you will be desolate forever, declares the LORD.” If the nuclear explosion mentioned above did happen, there is no doubt that the resulting radiation would leave the land empty and desolate since nothing could live in a land that is contaminated with radioactivity. Even without the highly unlikely event of an accidental nuclear blast, there is still reason to be concerned with the idea of a “surgical” strike against any nuclear processing facility. This is particularly true when dealing with a nation like Iran where its leaders are more concerned with results than the safety of those producing the results.
I’m sure you are familiar with the concept of a “dirty bomb.” A dirty bomb consists of some type of conventional explosive such as dynamite and some type of nuclear material. The idea is for the explosion of the dynamite to spread the radioactive material over a wide area, killing or making seriously ill as many people as possible. In the various scenarios that the government web pages lay out for a dirty bomb, they set their parameters based on the person setting off the explosion using something along the line of waste material from some type of x-ray machine. As bad as this may be, possibly contaminating several city blocks, such a source is at the low end of the radioactive scale. The material Iran is working with, is working to make even more concentrated and deadly than it already is, is at the high end of the scale, which is of course, is an entirely different matter.
Let’s go back to those surgical air strikes again. Just suppose one of our nation’s more powerful conventional weapons struck the building where this enrichment program is being carried out. Our nation’s intelligence gathering sources tell us that when complete the building in question will contain fifty thousand centrifuges (that’s 50,000) working to enrich their plutonium. An explosion of such force, in the midst of such a massive amount of high yield plutonium could spread deadly nuclear material over a large area with the initial explosion, and then contaminate hundreds or even thousands of square miles as it is dispersed by the desert winds. A radioactive event of this nature would undoubtedly make the contaminated land impossible to live in, leaving it desolate and barren for thousands of years.
I’ve always noticed that when God repeats Himself, particularly in a short space such as one chapter of the Bible, it is something worth taking special notice of. Verse twenty-nine says “for the Lord’s purposes against Babylon stand – to lay waste the land of Babylon so that no one will live there.” In verse thirty-seven God says of Babylon “an object of horror and scorn, a place where no one lives” (see also Isaiah 13: 22). He continues in verse forty-three with “Her towns will be desolate, … a land where no one lives.” God raps up this declaration against Babylon with these words in verse sixty-two, “O Lord, you have said you will destroy this place, so that neither man nor animal will live in it; it will be desolate forever.” With the half life of this type of plutonium, the use of the word forever is not at all unreasonable.
Again I want to state that I am not saying that the end of the world is coming, that the sky is falling, that the rapture will occur at such and such a time. I am merely outlining some facts that have come to my attention. I am keeping in mind that Jesus said, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24: 36). I ask that you do the same as you consider the facts I have outlined.

All scriptural quotations are from
The Holy Bible,
The New International Version,
Cornerstone Bible Publishers,
Nashville, Tennessee