8-23-23 Why Would You Make Such a Thing?

Nearing Midnight: Why Would You Make Such a Thing? – Todd Strandberg - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/ For hundreds of years, nations have been seeking out ways that will advance their ability to wage warfare. A great deal of research and development has been in the areas of conventional, chemical, nuclear, and biological weaponry. It was all fine when mankind was working on making a cannonball fly faster and farther. When we reached the point where we had bombs that could destroy an entire city, we needed to ask ourselves why are we going down this path. The Cold War arms race was pointless because no side could win in a nuclear war. If the USSR had managed to knock out 90% of the US nuclear bombs in a surprise attack, our military would still have had enough nukes to devastate the USSR. For decades, each side continued to add more and more nuclear weapons to their stockpile. By 1991, the US and the USSR had 65,000 nuclear bombs. The power of the bombs has increased over the years. The atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima had the explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT. The first hydrogen bomb had the power of 10 million tons of TNT. In 1961, the USSR tested a bomb that had a yield equal to 60 million tons of TNT. Luckily, President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev managed to negotiate a massive drawdown with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Both sides now have around 10,000 nuclear bombs. We’ve gone from being able to destroy the world 100 times over to just 20 times over. The world has spent $5.5 trillion on nukes. Vast areas of the world are contaminated by nuclear tests and the development of bombs. The US government has spent over $40 billion so far just trying to clean up the decommissioned Hanford nuclear production complex in Washington state. We may have fewer nuclear bombs, but the development of nuclear technology goes on. The Russians are constantly upgrading their ability to strike targets. They have just developed a missile that is known as “Satan II.” It can carry up to 15 warheads and has several countermeasures against anti-ballistic missile systems. The biggest concern in nuclear technology is hypersonic weapons. These are missiles and projectiles which travel at between 5 and 25 times the speed of sound – about 1 to 5 miles per second. Russia and China claim to have a hypersonic system in the development stage. If deployed, they would be very hard to shoot down, and the reaction time would be greatly reduced because they would avoid radar by flying much lower than a conventional missile. Scientists at Boston University recently came under fire for an experiment in which they tinkered with the Covid virus. Breathless headlines claimed they had created a deadly new strain, and the National Institutes of Health rebuked the university for not seeking the government’s permission. Several liberal media news outlets say the 80% death rate in mice was just clickbait headlines for social media sites and the manipulated virus strain was actually less lethal than the original. The key word in all news stories about the Boston University virus is “created.” I don’t see why we would want to make a new strain of any virus that causes death. I can see that knowledge can be gained by seeing how a virus might spread, but research like this carries great risks, foremost among them the chance that an accidental lab leak could create a new pandemic, killing millions of people. It is possible that COVID-19 was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. It would be the crime of the century if it turns out Wuhan was the source of the virus. Over 7 million people died during the pandemic, and the world spent $10 trillion on COVID-19 relief. There are government labs that could have developed a virus that is many times more deadly than COVID-19. The Nazis and the Japanese tested all types of viruses on inmates during World War II. Our ability to redesign the workings of the virus ensures that someone will eventually build a bio-weapon. I was shocked at how quickly COVID-19 swept around the world, and it did this three times. President Biden has declared the pandemic to be over, but we could easily see round four. China is still fighting the virus. Lockdowns in key port cities have greatly hampered supply chains. President Xi’s zero-Covid policy is putting a massive strain on the Chinese economy. Until Jesus returns to rule with a rod of iron, mankind’s evil nature will compel him to seek to develop weapons of warfare. Once our Lord takes over, no nation will need weapons. The Prince of Peace will make conflict a distant memory for a thousand years. “And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).