Hello, my friend, Max Lucato here.

Israel's under attack, but just that announcement was enough to heavy our hearts.

I wonder if you, like I, have been unable to turn away from the news reports.

At this recording, well over 1200 Jews are dead, a similar number of fatalities among

the Palestinians, and what about those barbaric acts against children and elderly?

And then over 100 people taken hostage, innocent Palestinians are trapped and siege weary Gaza,

skirmishes are breaking out in northern Israel with Ezbalah, missiles are still streaking the Israeli

sky. Iran is suspected as complicit in the attacks, and then add to this the ongoing conflict

between Ukraine and Russia, and doesn't the world feel so fragile, so wounded, so worried,

so weary. How are we supposed to process this? How are we supposed to respond?

How do we cope with all this chaos? Well, Jesus told us this would happen.

In Matthew 24, he said, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you're not

troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. And then he said,

nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, verses 6 and 7 of 24.

Did you know of the past 3400 years of recorded history? Humans have been war-free for only 8%

of them, 268 years. Kane was violent first, but we're violent still. In the last few decades,

the world has seen violence escalate to new levels, in this phrase that Jesus used nation against

nation, kingdom against kingdom. Well, let's suggest a unique kind of war. It's a Hebrew idiom

for a world war. And Jesus' statement here is that when world wars begin happening instead of

just local wars, that's a signal that the end of the age has begun. And we've seen this twice

in the last century. The conflict was so universal that it earned the phrase world war.

You know more people died from war in the 20th century than in all the other centuries combined.

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