#472: The Power to Erase Human Life”

“Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth. Labor sweats to create—and turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet.”*

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*First Inaugural Address (20 January 1953)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (... October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. / During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, and achieved the rare five-star rank of General of the Army. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–1943 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–1945 from the Western Front. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower

#471: The Purpose of Propaganda

“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”*

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*Aldous Huxley "Words and Behaviour", The Olive Tree (1936)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Madison

Aldous Leonard Huxley (... 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher.[1][2][3][4]  His bibliography spans nearly 50 books,[5][6] including novels and non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley

#470: “Disposed Toward Evil”

“As a member of Parliament, William Wilberforce worked for twenty-six years to abolish the British slave trade, a goal that was achieved in 1807. His Christian faith undoubtedly provided strength for the battle. Wilberforce clearly understood the condition of the human heart:

“[Man] is indisposed toward the good, and disposed toward evil . . . . He is tainted with sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically, and to the very core of his being. Even though it may be humiliating to acknowledge these things, still this is the biblical account of man.”

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William Wilberforce as quoted in Blackaby, Henry; Blackaby, Richard. Being Still With God Every Day (p. 162). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, a philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an Evangelical Anglican, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

#469: Reality of the Kingdom of Darkness

“The NT is full of accounts of the reality of the kingdom of darkness. Our rationalistic age makes it difficult for us to see with the same eyes as the biblical writers, yet these same age-old forces are still very much at work (on which see, e.g., Eph. 6:10-17). Does part of their deception convey the notion that they do not exist? Do we really understand how to fight this activity of such forces? Do we sometimes fight only attitudes or actions they produce, rather than confronting the underlying reality? Our battle is not only against the world’s influence and the influence of our own indwelling sin and the detrimental influence of our old nature on us, but our “struggle is … against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).”

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NT observations by: Beale, G. K.; Campbell, David. Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (pp. 351-352). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition (bold emphasis added).

#467: Safeguards Against the Drive for Power

“Where God alone ought to be the ruler no man could, theoretically at least, claim more than a limited authority. In actuality, however, the drive for power and the readiness to submit to its glory knew no bounds. What were the safeguards that kept alive that attitude and prevented the king from ever assuming the mysterious nimbus that goes with the power of sovereignty?

“The answer may lie in the separation of powers and authority within the religious and social order: the separation of kingship, prophecy, and priesthood,* a fact of the highest importance for the understanding of the religion of Israel.”

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Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Prophets (p. 610). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition (Bold emphasis added).

Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Polish-American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, authored a number of widely read books on Jewish philosophy and was a leader in the civil rights movement. |  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Joshua_Heschel