GN Commentary: February 6, 2009 - Armageddon Games

Children in your neighborhood are being trained to be cold-blooded killers. How, you ask?

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Video Transcript

Children in your neighborhood are being trained to be cold-blooded killers. How, you ask?

Have your heard about the 19-year-old video gamer that controls unmanned Predator drones from the back of an unmarked military van in the Nevada desert? This "cubical warrior" kills targets (and innocent bystanders) half a world away, by watching a screen, moving a joy-stick, and pressing a button. Could this be the back drop of the war visions we read about in Revelation? "And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails" (Revelation 9:9).

It sounds like something out of a terrifying futuristic sci-fi flick—but it isn't science fiction, and it isn't future. The story about the 19-year-old is true. He is engaged in real war, killing real people. In his book Wired for War; P.W. Singer asserts that children who play video games today, may be training for future robot wars. Predator controllers are built just like computer joy sticks. Right now there are over 12,000 remote-controlled robots in service on war fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and several other locations.

There will soon be tens of thousands of robotic weapons and drones. Forty-two countries now have such weapons, and more frightening, anyone with enough money can buy one! Psychologists
have two major concerns—it's dehumanizing, and the proliferation of these weapons sets the stage for a new type of impersonal warfare. Christ tells us that just before he returns—humans will be on the verge of self destruction, but many won't realize it. "For as the days of Noah, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man, (but)…they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…" (Matthew 24:37-38) Armageddon in the morning; soccer in the afternoon.

But God tells us to watch and be ready and promises to save us from total destruction. He declares: "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved…as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:22, 27) The good news is Christ will return to save us from destroying ourselves! Only then, it seems, we will learn life is more than just a game!

For GN Magazine, I'm Dave Register.