Anyone who knows the history of war knows it was a common practice for an occupying army to set a city on fire when a stronger oppositional army was about to siege their stronghold. The reasoning was that it is better to leave your opponents with nothing than to flee and leave them with valuable resources. Some ancient armies even found it more bearable to set their own town ablaze rather than see it occupied by the enemy. To sum up the point, it was a desperation tactic to destroy the land that would be soon be forfeited to your opponent as a final gesture of defiance.

I can't help but look at our world today with horrendous catastrophes arising with the regularity of blinking. Earth itself is diseased with everything from pollution and global warming to earthquakes. And the weather is misbehaving through tantrums of hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, and drought. It seems indicative that certain powers, powers bent on destroying it, are spitting out desperation tactics.

Try to visualize this war scene with me: Satan and his kingdom of darkness respond to their knowledge of the coming of Christ with an all-out assault on the planet. The reasoning is simply this: if hell can't keep Christ from coming again, then in its venting fury, it will tear up everything in reach. Unfortunately, that means human lives lost through civilian warfare, disease, abnormal oceanic current patterns, irregular temperatures, and a billion other forms of destruction in a targeted premature burn-down—a desperation tactic from Satan.

Thankfully, I believe in the timeliness of God. I believe that He who built this world will intervene before it goes to irreparable demise. I believe that such an intervention has already taken place. Seeing a world hopelessly lost and burrowing in its own confusion, I am thankful God, in the greatest desperation tactic in the history of this world, put Himself in the way in order to pave the way. He bled to stop the bleeding. With thoughts like that, I can't help but find all the conspiracies, plots, and cruel intentions of the devil, scary though they are, to be without merit. I find them to be merely bee stings which burn for a moment and then are lost in the scars. So much is lost forever in scars. That bittersweet message has a whole lot of sweet.

Andre Weston is a senior English major at Andrews University.