Elizabeth Barnes
Columnist
President Zelenskyy’s video appeal to the United States Congress, and to the world, on March 16, concluded with the urgent plea, “close the sky over Ukraine.” Skewed logic of why that cannot be done is given by NATO’s member countries’ leaders in questionable forms. All are related to a fear of unleashing World War III, they plead.
How do they know that covering the sky would ignite World War III? Will those same leaders back away from covering their own skies, if Russian missiles fall over their countries? Will they do less effective things, instead? These questions are wrenching matters to consider, and no sane person is advocating nuclear war, under any circumstances. But covering Ukraine’s sky with a no-fly zone might not inevitably start nuclear warfare. It would, however, save lives.
Will NATO countries turn to God for deliverance and submit to the Will of God? Will they implore God’s wise Providence and powerful Will? Does God even cross their minds? I ask that in both doubt and sincerity.
Zelenskyy appealed to President Biden to lead the world in being a “leader for peace.” Let us pray with Zelenskyy for that peace. Let us urge all our leaders to pray for guidance and for strength to seek God’s Will, and to follow it. Only so, will there be lasting peace.
At least one Ukrainian pastor of a Christian church in Lviv, and his congregation, have opened their church doors, and the doors of their homes, to refugees needing shelter. That same pastor, when asked by the reporter interviewing him what he wanted the world to help Ukraine with, answered, “stop the bombs from falling from the sky.” There must be many other Ukrainian pastors whose urgent plea is the same. Ukraine’s cities lie in smoking, crumbled rubble from the brutal bombing of Putin’s “scorched earth” siege.
Richard Engel, who daily risks his own life to report on Putin’s indiscriminate attacks and slaughter of defenseless civilians, has expressed no hope of an end to this war apart from Putin’s own decision to end it. A star ballerina of Russia’s renowned Bolshoi Ballet has sacrificed living in her home country and spoken out forcefully against the war; now a member of the Dutch National Ballet, she has said, “I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia.” Likewise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, highly regarded in his native Russia, has spoken out strongly against Putin’s war and called on the dictator to end the war he started.
Reports of sexual exploitation, and human trafficking, of refugee women and children who have fled Ukraine to Romania expose the extent of evil this war has brought upon them. “The war in Ukraine is bringing out the worst in humanity in so many different ways,” one commentator said.
Echoes of Churchill’s warning to those who advocated compromise with Hitler in 1940 reverberate now. “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in his mouth!” Churchill shouted. Does anyone, more than 80 years hence, object that Churchill was alarmist in shouting that to the British Parliament? Is Putin less the vicious tiger, now, than Hitler was, then? And is it only Ukraine’s head that is in the tiger’s mouth?
Zelenskyy has issued a chilling warning, like Churchill’s. Should the world reject and dismiss this young leader’s warning as debilitating sleep-deprivation and exhaustion? Does anyone believe he has over-reacted to the bombing and devastation of his homeland, and the slaughter of his people?
The Russian tiger holds the world in thrall to his threats of nuclear annihilation. NATO is bullied. But we are commanded by God to seek God’s Will, above all competing influences. Faithfulness impels us to obey what the Sovereign Lord ordains, and Scripture gives us guidance for our preparation for our call to stand:
“… put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand …. against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
“… take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” — Ephesians 6:10-16
Let us trust the Lord. And stand.
Thanks be to God.