Humanity and North Korea

By Hal Lindsey

 

In the last few days, the United States and North Korea have engaged in a battle of blazing rhetoric.  It’s been a cold war of hot words.

 

After the UN Security Council passed a sanctions resolution against North Korea last week, the rogue state promised a “thousands-fold” revenge against the United States.  They threatened to “turn the U.S. mainland into the theater of a nuclear war.”

 

President Trump said, “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.  They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

 

Acting as an accelerant on the blazing rhetoric was news that North Korea has now passed another milestone in its quest to make the U.S. mainland vulnerable to its nuclear weapons.  On Tuesday, major media outlets, starting with the Washington Post, began saying that the Defense Intelligence Agency now believes North Korea has the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons for use on ICBMs.

 

The report also says that the North Koreans have accumulated an astounding 60 nuclear weapons.  We don’t know how many of those are small and light enough to be carried on ICBMs.  But now that they have the ability, they should be able to convert their arsenal into missile-ready warheads with some speed.

 

Wired Magazine summarized the story, then wrote, “The worst-case North Korea hypotheticals, in other words, have suddenly become all too real….  The list of hurdles keeping the country from directly threatening the continental U.S. (or virtually any part of the world) with an intercontinental ballistic missile has dwindled significantly.”

 

One of the remaining hurdles may be the lower quality of North Korean missile guidance systems.  With missiles, as with guns, hitting a target at greater distance requires greater accuracy.  But that brings little comfort.  Suppose the North fires at Los Angeles.  They could miss widely and still hit Anaheim, Riverside, or Santa Barbara.  Even “a miss” would instantly become one of the greatest disasters in American history.

 

Later Tuesday, the Koreans threatened an attack on the U.S. territory of Guam.  Thursday, they said that it will be a warning shot that will hit in the water off the coast of Guam.  Why play such a dangerous game?  If they do anything nuclear, or if they hit Guam itself, it will almost certainly spell the end of North Korea in its current form.

 

U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, said, “The DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”  He reminded Kim that the U.S. and its allies have the most “precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth.”

 

This all seems like madness.  Why would North Korea want to put its people, as well as other nations, in such danger?

 

Here’s the thing about human beings.  As a species, we don’t change much.  Fashions and technology give the illusion of change from generation to generation.  But the fundamental human drives remain the same.  

 

In the 1978 episode of Columbo called “How to Dial a Murder,” a woman asks the detective why people murder.  The Columbo character’s answer pointed to base human motivations.  It could fit any generation of humanity.  He said, “Fear, jealousy, greed… all those things.”

 

From Cain killing his brother Abel, to Hitler murdering six million Jews, the motivations remain roughly the same.  We delude ourselves to think that humanity in 2017 is kinder or gentler than it was in World War II.

 

Human beings don’t change, but our weapons do.  They grow more powerful every year.  Technology relentlessly marches forward.  It has no conscience, no fear, and no self-control.  If one person doesn’t build the more powerful weapon, another one does.

 

Technology doesn’t just make big, expensive projects possible.  Over time, it makes those projects less expensive and more manageable.  It takes what was once available to an elite few, and brings down the costs so that they are available to everyone.  That’s great when the phone in your pocket has more computing power than a million-dollar supercomputer from a few decades ago.  It’s not so great when rogue nations get nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

 

Technology has not improved human character, but it has made us vastly more powerful.  I’m concerned about the people of our time — not because we are worse than previous generations, but because we are the same.

 

The Humanist Manifesto II from 1973 said, “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”  So, how’s that project coming along?

 

The situation in North Korea is just one of many examples of a world teetering on the edge of the abyss.  The situation will not go away on its own.  And we cannot save ourselves.  We must turn to God for salvation.

 

Nations need to turn to God, but I’m not speaking to nations right now.  I’m talking to you.  This is personal.  2 Corinthians 6:2 says, “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (NKJV)

 

In Acts 16:31, Paul and Silas said to the Philippian jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  (NKJV)

 

Friend, now is the time.  Now — before it’s too late.