Series

The war in Iraq is just getting bloodier and bloodier, even following the death of the most wanted terrorist in the country. The insurgency in Afghanistan is starting to heat up, and more lives are lost every day. Time Magazine had a cover story a week ago on the war in the Congo, calling it the deadliest war in the world, in which over 4 million people have died. Two million people have been displaced and at least 180,000 have died in just the last eighteen months in the Darfur region of Sudan.[1] It sounds like Jesus was right when He said that in the time leading up to His return, Matthew 24:6, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars…7 “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” The world is getting deadlier, not better.

So how do we understand this prophecy in Isaiah 2 that the time will come when “[God] will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore”? How do we understand that today? That’s what I want to explore with you this morning.

Isaiah says that these things will happen in “the last days”.[2] The immediate fulfillment of this prophecy probably began with the return of the exiles from Babylon (cf. Micah 4:1-7), when the Israelites settled in their own land and knew a time of peace. But it is often true that Old Testament prophecies had immediate fulfillments in their historical context, and later, more complete fulfillments related to Christ and the Christian church. The New Testament says the “last days” began with Christ’s first advent (Heb 11:1) and end with His second coming (1 Pet 1:5), so we are dealing with the time period between the two advents of Christ, the time in which we now live.

But the New Testament has a more pressing concern than fixing the exact time of these “last days”. The more important question is, How should we live during these days? Jesus spoke often during His final week about the last days and His second coming, and the point was always, “be ready”, “be alert”. For example: Matthew 24:44, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. [45] Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? [46] It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.”

We are living in the last days, so we should constantly be aware of the fact that Jesus may return at any time. Jesus warns us to be busy about the job He has given us to do until then. We have a major role to play in bringing this prophecy about peace on earth to fulfillment, as we will see.

Isaiah 2:2, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills...” A little cultural background will help us understand this. In those days, mountains and hills were often used as places of worship for idols. You may recall all the times the prophets denounced the people of Israel for worshiping at the “high places”.[3]

So when it says, “the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills,” the point is that the one true God, Yahweh, will be seen as supreme above all the others. Judaism was criticized in the ancient world for being monotheistic, for insisting that there is only one true God. Christianity comes under the same censure because of our insistence that there is only one way to a saving relationship with God, and that’s through faith in Jesus Christ. But here, 700 years before Christ, Isaiah was saying much the same thing. There are many religions in the world, and today, with everybody making up their own, there are many more than there used to be. But only one is them is completely true; one of them is supreme; and the Lord is in the process, in these “last days”, of bringing people from all over the world to see the truth of His Word.

This does not mean that everyone in the world will finally worship Jesus Christ. But it does mean that people from every nation, every ethnic group on earth, will fall at His feet and call Him Lord. Representative people from every nation will stream to the Lord’s temple to worship Him, thereby proving that Jesus Christ is indeed the Savior for all nations. Isaiah 2:2, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. [3] Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

The picture is all the nations coming together from all over the world like streams join to form a mighty river, and this river of many different peoples flows into the mountain of the Lord’s temple, so they can worship Him. The image of the river of people flowing uphill implies that there is something supernatural about the attraction God has for people. The word translated temple here is literally “house”, suggesting that God will draw people not only to worship Him, but into an intimate fellowship with Him.

This is really what we are asking for when we pray for revival: that God would draw so many people to Himself that it would be obvious that a supernatural power is at work. Isaiah says that sort of thing will happen in the last days, and indeed it has, in many different places and times, and we pray for it to happen in our day, in our city. We want to see people streaming to worship Jesus Christ in such numbers and in such devotion that it will be obvious this is God’s work, not the result of some slick marketing, or an engaging program, or even the attraction of a charismatic leader.

· This is also our agenda when we pray for our missionaries. As a church, we support people in the Middle East, in Asia, in Europe, and in all those places, there are nations, peoples, whom God loves and longs to draw to Himself. Let’s pray that the nations where our missionaries live and minister will stream to the house of the Lord to worship Him, that there would be great people-movements, where whole groups of people recognize the truth and decide to follow Christ. STOP AND PRAY here for the people in Loveland and the people which a missionary you know is trying to reach. Suggestions on screen. Pray that they will stream to the lord as it says here in Isaiah.

Isaiah 2:2, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. [3] Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.’” We have witnessed the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy in the history of the Church. Christianity started among the Jews, and the first 5,000 Christians were all Jews. But then it spread to Gentiles from many different people groups around the Mediterranean, including present day Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and north Africa. For much of the next 2,000 years, Christianity was centered in the west – Europe and America; but that is no longer true. The geographical center of Christianity has shifted from the northern and western hemispheres, to the southern and eastern hemispheres. Just last week, we participated in the Global Day of Prayer which originated in South Africa. The Christian Church is growing much faster in Latin America and Asia than in North America and Europe. This is all part of God’s sovereign plan, which He enunciated through Isaiah. The very thing He says here in this passage is happening in our time, to a degree and at a pace never before seen. All nations are streaming to the Lord. We are nearing the end of the last days.

This, of course, has been God’s plan from the very beginning, when He called Abraham out of sun-worship into a covenant relationship with Himself. The prophet Habakkuk announced, 2:14, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” God’s glory is everywhere. The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1) for all to see (Rom 1:20). But the knowledge of His glory is not as wide as the display of His glory. There are still billions of people, literally, who do not recognize the glory of the great and awesome God who made and governs the universe. From our secular neighbors who continue to insist in the face of the facts that life began and developed on its own, to eastern mystics who seek to lose themselves in the “nothing”, to animists who are convinced that the spirits of ancestors govern life on earth, there are so many who do not yet know the glory of the Lord. God’s plan is for the whole world to know that He is God, and to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:11).

The New Testament tells us how that is going to happen, and it’s not the way any Jew up to that time would have guessed. The Jewish mentality up to that time was expressed clearly in Psalm 67:7, “God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.” The way they thought it would work was that they were just supposed to worship God, and live the way He taught them, He would bless them for that, and that would attract other peoples to the Lord. They didn’t think they had any real responsibility for going out and reaching those people. But then Jesus came, telling His disciples to “get out of town”, to go into the whole world and make disciples of every ethnic group on earth. What a shock. But that’s the plan that God had in mind way back when He said through Isaiah that the nations would stream to worship Him.

And that, my friends, is the plan of God for us. Jesus’ Great Commission to His disciples is also meant for us as His followers: He tells us—He commands us—to go. Go to where the people are. And as you are going, make disciples (followers of Christ) of all nations. As Paul says in Romans 10:13-14, “‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ [14] How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” How will they come to recognize God as the one true God, and stream to worship Him, if no one tells them about Him? How will your neighbor, or your co-worker, or your friend know how great and glorious God is if you don’t tell him or her? If we don’t speak, they’ll be left with the caricatures of God that our culture presents them with, and that is not very attractive—or accurate. They’ll never be willing to recognize Him as their Lord if we don’t tell them who He is. It’s an enormous task, but fortunately, we are not left alone; we don’t have to do this in our own strength. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and (then) you will be my witnesses” …to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Certainly God cares for individuals. There’s no question about that. Jesus demonstrated that personal care and compassion over and over again. His parable about the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in the pen in order to go looking for the one lost one “until he finds it” is a powerful testimony to God’s concern for the individual. But He is also the Lord of the nations, and that theme runs throughout Isaiah.[4] The word “nations” appears 63 times in the NIV translation of Isaiah, and over 500 times in the whole Bible. Here are a couple of examples from Isaiah, to give us a feel of God’s involvement with the nations[5] of the world.

· Isaiah 5:26, “He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily!”

God is pictured as one who has the authority to whistle for the nations and they come to Him like a trained animal, quickly and obediently. God is not thwarted by rulers like the head of Iran, or the Hamas government in Palestine, or the corrupt heads of African nations. These people are all advancing His plans for the world, even though they don’t know it or acknowledge Him at all. I admit there is a lot that we don’t understand about this, because as we look at the world situation, it is easy to think that things are out of control. There is so much evil going on in the world, we sometimes think it can’t possibly be God’s will. But as we will see in Isaiah, God moves the nations of the world around like chess pieces, working out His sovereign purpose.

Here’s another quote from Isaiah that shows God’s greatness over the nations:

· Isaiah 40:15, “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.”

The people of Israel had seen some powerful nations, such as Egypt and Assyria, but they were all no more than a drop in the bucket, or as insignificant as dust on the scales to God. Great and powerful empires, like the Greek empire, the Roman empire, the Third Reich, and the British empire, have all given way to the will of God who is working His purposes out through the free will of national leaders who think they are the masters of their fate. Little do they know that there is a far greater, unseen Hand, guiding their every decision.

One practical application of that is that we can relax. We read the news, we watch the tv, and it can really make us anxious. It looks like everything is out of control, like the wheels have come off, and humanity is careening through history headed for self-destruction. We tremble for our kids and grandkids as we anticipate the kind of world they will grow up in. But then we read Isaiah: the nations of the earth are going to stream to God; He whistles for them like a pet, and they obediently come to Him; all the nations of the world together are like a drop in a bucket or dust on the scales in His sight. God is greater than the nations! And God is very much in charge. We can trust Him. We can relax our death-grip on world events that we cannot control anyway, and trust Him to work things out to His intended purposes during these last days.

What do all these nations and people groups want as they stream to the Lord? Why are they coming? Is 2:3, “Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

They come to learn of God’s ways so that they can walk in His paths. This is how we know that people’s worship is sincere: what they learn of God gets translated into the actions of their daily lives. Is that happening in your life? We have such a wealth of Christian resources in this country, but the lives of God’s people do not always conform to His ways. I’m especially concerned about this for our congregation. We are a pretty well educated group of people, who like to learn, and study; we tend to be fairly analytical, so we like to dig around in the details of Scripture. We also have a lot of opportunities to study and learn the Bible. But I’m afraid that all too often, we content ourselves with simply learning the facts, discovering some new “insight”, taking a concept away from a lesson or a sermon, and we don’t translate that into action. We see from this verse that God’s desire and concern for us is that we “walk in His paths.”

So I ask you, what are your going to do differently this week, or this month, because of what God is teaching you? I used to think that we should get something new from the Word every day, but I came to realize that I can’t apply something new to my life every day; that’s just unrealistic, and God doesn’t tend to work that way. While there may be something from His Word that just penetrates our hearts and we know we have to act on it right away, often He uses the slow drip method, where we notice the same theme cropping up over and over again in lots of different places in Scripture, and in different settings in our lives. God in His mercy usually doesn’t dump His whole agenda for our lives on us at once; He usually brings up one point, or one theme at a time, and just keeps bringing that back to us until we work it into our lives. Then He moves on to something else.

So what is God saying to you these days? What has He put on the front burner for you? What is God teaching you so that you may walk in His ways? If something comes to mind, jot it down on the sermon outline to fix it in your mind that this is definitely something God wants you to work on.

One commentator I read says, “the weapons of war are made into garden tools: Eden has returned.”[6] That’s the picture. All nations find their peace and unity in God. When we are brothers in Christ, we cannot be enemies as nations. The unity we have in Him transcends the divisions of politics and culture and geography. The final fulfillment of this will be after the second coming, during the millennial reign of Christ. But we have been privileged to see glimpses of God’s work among the nations, even in our recent history, that give us a hint of what it’s going to be like.

Consider, for example, the horrible practice of apartheid in South Africa that legally consigned the black majority of the population to a permanent status of poverty and oppression. Outside observers could not possibly see how this situation could be changed short of civil war. Time Magazine predicted a bloodbath, but God did it through His people.

In the early 1990s, the Christian churches of South Africa finally united in their opposition to apartheid, through the independent and low-key ministry of an organization called African Enterprise. This group of believers brought together 70 church leaders to begin to unify the churches; then 400 leaders from 40 denominations, black and white, including the Dutch Reformed Church met. Later 6,000 church leaders came together at one time. These church leaders asked African Enterprise to spearhead the National Initiative for Reconciliation. As part of that initiative, the churches called people in South Africa and around the world to pray. This was a huge part of what brought about the change in that country. Christian writers produced books on various issues in this extremely complex situation. When F.W. de Klerk took power, church leaders pled with him to dismantle apartheid. One of the first and most significant things he did was to legalize the previously banned black political parties. Then African Enterprise worked to get political leaders of all different races together to tell their stories to each other. As they heard how they had been treated, and what their backgrounds were, it led to much greater understanding and unity. When the election was held and blacks were allowed to vote for the first time, and it did not turn into a bloodbath, Time Magazine called it a miracle.[7] [i] [ii] [iii] [iv] God was fulfilling this prophecy in Isaiah, settling disputes for different peoples, teaching them to find peaceful solutions to their conflicts, and doing it all through His people.

In these last days, God is doing some amazing things. He is drawing people from every ethnic group on earth to worship His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is creating one new people that transcends race and language and culture and location – the people of God, who are united in their worship of Him. This process won’t be complete before the return of Christ, but one day, when Jesus reigns on earth,

Our job between now and then is to win as many as possible to be fully devoted followers of Christ. Let’s work and pray toward that day.

[2] Right here in this first phrase we see something distinctive about the Judeo-Christian faith. The Bible teaches that history is linear, it is going somewhere, it has an end in sight; it is not cyclical and eternal as some religions say. Some people believe life on earth will just go on and on forever, maybe with humanity getting better and wiser, maybe not. But the Bible tells us that God is in control, and history is literally His story.

[3]e.g., Leviticus 26:30; 1 Kings 12:31; 14:23; 2 Kings 23:5; 2 Chron. 21:11; 28:25; 33:3

[4] Here’s a good example of how our culture can predispose us to interpret Scripture in a certain way, which may not always be most accurate. As Americans, individualism is a very high value. We see the importance of individuals acting on their own, or doing things themselves, we honor the rugged independence of the frontier/pioneer spirit, where it was every man for himself, and only the tough survived. So when we come to the Scriptures, we tend to see them through this filter, and we think God is primarily interested in individuals. We may read the parts about God’s dealing with nations and people groups, but we are inclined to think that the real action is in the lives and hearts of individuals.

[5]The Hebrew word for nations, goyim, can refer to political entities, but also to ethnic groups, just like the Greek word ethnos. R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, Jr., Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), goy, #326e, p.153f. It’s any group of people who think of themselves as “us” and others as “them”.

[6] J. Alec Motyer, Isaiah (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p.52.

[7] Phone conversation with African Enterprise representative Malcolm Graham, 6/7/06.

[i] When Nelson Mandela made his 1990 tour of the United States following his release from a South African prison, he declared, during a stop at Riverside Church in New York, "Churches are in the first line of the struggle ... and they have been in the first line of the struggle ever since I can remember." That line never got much publicity, but it is one that the broad church community in the United States can take to heart and treasure. For it was church folks who, through more than 15 years of direct activism and annual shareholder resolutions, kept the issue of apartheid before the public. It was the persistence of church activists, ridiculed as naive and silly for taking on some of the largest corporations in the United States, that formed public opinion against racial inequality in South Africa. http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:15183773&ctrlInfo=Round20%3AMode20a%3ADocG%3AResult&ao

[ii] Case Study 3: People Power in the Philippines The Philippines were colonized by the Spanish and then by the United States. The U.S. installed and backed Ferdinand Marcos, a dictator, and his wife Imelda Marcos, a woman with a taste for expensive shoes. Marcos had accumulated billions of dollars and 3,500 pairs of shoes while half the country was unemployed and in poverty. Marcos’ chief political opponent was Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino, a Senator whose father was also a statesman. But in 1973, Marcos wanted to stay in office beyond his two-term limit, so he declared martial law and trumped up charges against Aquino. He threw Aquino into prison for 8 years. While in prison, Aquino, depressed and bitter, got a book from his mom. It was a book called Born Again by Chuck Colson about his conversion to Christ after Watergate. Aquino also read a Christian classic called The Imitation of Christ. He was very impacted. He gave his life to Jesus Christ and was transformed.

In 1983, Marcos called an election that he thought he’d win. Aquino decided to return to the Philippines from medical treatment in the U.S. Shortly before leaving, he testified before a Senate subcommittee. He said, “It is true, one can fight hatred with a greater hatred, but…it is more effective to fight hatred with greater Christian love…I have decided to pursue my freedom struggle through the path of nonviolence, fully cognizant that this may be the longer and the more arduous road…Only I will suffer solitary confinement once again, and possibly death…But by taking the road of revolution, how many lives, other than mine, will have to be sacrificed?” When he stepped off the plane in the Philippines, Aquino was assassinated, most likely by Marcos’ henchmen. When the accused agents were acquitted, his wife, Corazon Aquino, a homemaker and mother of five, said, “I will run for President!” Catholic Cardinal Jaime Sin threw his support in behind Aquino. For the Filipinos, many of whom were Catholic, this united the opposition against Marcos. The saying that circulated joyfully was, “Marcos has the guns but Aquino has the nuns.” Clergy and people locked arms and guarded ballot boxes. But Marcos and his supporters nevertheless stole ballot boxes at gunpoint all over the country. They purchased votes, etc. A week after the election, the Marcos dominated National Assembly proclaimed Marcos the winner. However, the minister of defense and a well-respected general declared the election rigged, stated their support for Cory Aquino, taking with them many officers and soldiers. Marcos came after them with tanks and gunmen. That’s when Cardinal Jaime Sin got on the radio and encouraged the people to fill the streets. About two million men, women, children, people in wheelchairs, nuns and priests blocked the tanks, put flowers in gun tips, and refused to move. They had no training in demonstrating, so they just sang hymns and prayed. The army gave up and Marcos fled the country. Cory Aquino became the first woman President of the country in a bloodless revolution. As her husband said, “It is more effective to fight hatred with greater Christian love.”

Case Study 4: Poland and Solidarity The fourth example is Solidarity in Poland. Much of Eastern Europe has been in turmoil this past century. Poland has arguably been a Catholic country since its beginning in 966. It is unusual in Europe because it welcomed (formally from 1573 under the Sejm) Jews fleeing from persecution in other countries. But in the 20th century, Poland became a pawn of colonial politics. First, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II in 1939. No nation suffered more under German occupation than Poland did. Under ordinary rules of warfare, the killing of non-combatants ends with surrender. In Poland the killing of unarmed civilians increased after they surrendered. About 6 million Polish people died in World War II. Half the total number of Jews who died in WWII were Polish Jews. As if that weren’t bad enough, the British, the Americans, and the Russians secretly agreed to let Russia invade and keep Poland. So the Polish Army fought with Russia against the Germans. But when they fought back the Nazi’s, the Russian army surrounded the Poles, disarmed them, and deported them to labor camps in Siberia. Can you imagine fighting with another army, and then being disarmed and deported by your allies?!? In 1948, Poland became a full Stalinist dictatorship. The Poles demonstrated and conducted strikes. The Soviets attacked them. Other demonstrations were suppressed with great bloodshed. But the resistance went on. The only institution not regulated by the Soviets was the Catholic Church, and the resistance movement developed within the Church. Catholics used printing presses to print the bulletins, newspapers, & journals of the resistance. They carried news from one city to another, organizing the movement. In October 1978, Karol Wojtyla, Cardinal of Krakow, was elected Pope John Paul II. At that time until now, roughly 95% of the country was (and still is) Catholic, and festivals and celebrations erupted everywhere in Poland. Two years later, a strike in a shipyard led to the formation of a trade union called Solidarity, and a Catholic man named Lech Walesa, an electrician without a high school diploma, became its leader. In 1981, the Soviets cracked down. They declared Solidarity to be illegal. The cost of living rose by over 100% in 1982. Lech Walesa was arrested. Priests were murdered by the Polish Secret Police (e.g. Father Jerzy Popieluzsko). In 1988, Lech Walesa organized another strike that lasted 80 days. Finally the Soviets held a national election and Solidarity swept it. In 1989, the Soviet occupation ended. Lech Walesa was elected President in 1990 and served for five years. Poland became a stable democracy almost overnight. Can you imagine Iraq turning into a stable democracy at the end of this year? That’s similar to what happened in Poland. It was a miracle on the social level. How did it happen? In large part to the teaching and the spiritual presence of Jesus, and the service of the Christian church.

Case Study 5: Apartheid in South Africa The last case study is the role of Christians and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in dismantling Apartheid in South Africa. At the age of 12, in 1943, he met and was later greatly influenced by Father Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican clergy in the Johannesburg township of Sophiatown and outspoken early critic of apartheid. In 1958, Tutu decided to enter the ministry. In 1972 he became the first black to hold the position of Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg. He led the South African Council of Churches in criticizing Apartheid, restraining violence and advocating reconciliation through Jesus. In 1984, Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of “the courage and heroism shown by black South Africans in their use of peaceful methods in the struggle against apartheid”. One day Bishop Tutu was walking by a construction site on a temporary sidewalk the width of one person. A white South African man appeared at the other end, recognized Tutu, and said, “I don’t give way to gorillas.” Can you feel the racial insult? Tutu stepped aside, swept his arm, and said, “Ah yes, but I do.” That shows the character and humor of the man saturated in the life and teaching of Jesus. In 1995, Tutu was selected by President Nelson Mandela to serve as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Though vengeance might have been understandable, it has worked towards amnesty, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Desmond Tutu’s latest book is called, No Future Without Forgiveness. The stamp of Jesus is all over this.

---“Jesus and Evil: The Role of Christianity in Colonial Oppression and Revolution”. Address given to the MIT- Asian Christian Fellowship April 9th, 2004 by Mako A. Nagasawa, InterVarsity Area Director. http://www.intervarsity.org/evangelism/download.php?article_id=2172&version_id=3339

[iii] …the immediate, demonstrable role of the Catholic Church, and especially Pope John Paul II, in inspiring, preparing, and mobilizing the Polish people to resist Communism. The main chapters of The Final Revolution explain the Church's evolving strategy of resistance, which both reflected and conditioned the changing international political environment. The "martyr cardinals," such as the Hungarian Jozsef Mindszenty and the Pole Stefan Wyszynski, were symbols of resistance to Stalinist oppression during the height of the Cold War. Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council initiated a period of dialogue with Communism based upon the view that movements could change, even if doctrines could not. Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Agostino Casaroli extended the policy of Ostpolitik in the hope of winning more "breathing space" for the Church in Eastern Europe. And then came the Polish Pope, John Paul II, whose election on October 16, 1978 marked the beginning of the end of Communism in Poland and in the rest of Eastern Europe.

The new Pope was Polish Communism's worst nightmare. As a Pole, he could address the entire Polish nation with a special power, arousing the deepest feelings of piety and patriotism and exploiting the vulnerabilities of a system he understood from the inside. He was also a modern intellectual who could challenge the Communist lie, a universalist who could expose a false universalism, and a democrat who could offer an alternative politics of human renewal and ethical clarity. Unlike his predecessor Paul VI, he rejected out of hand the Yalta system of a divided Europe, along with the assumption that Communism was a permanent fact of life in the modern world. John Paul II came to his new position not content to contain Communism but with a desire to assault its legitimacy, expose its bankruptcy, and ultimately to isolate it and assure its demise.

THE CHURCH HAD laid the groundwork for this final assault during the previous decades by fostering the recovery and reconstruction of a sense of Polish nationhood. Integral to this effort was the Great Novena, a nine-year program of national religious revival culminating in 1966 on the occasion of the millennium of Polish Catholicism. The effort also included the "Light and Life" movement of summer camps that reached hundreds of thousands of Polish youngsters

-- Books in Review: The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism Copyright (c) 1993 First Things 31 (March 1993): 42-45. After the Fall, THE FINAL REVOLUTION: THE RESISTANCE CHURCH AND THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM. By GEORGE WEIGEL. Oxford University Press. 255 pp. $25. Reviewed by Carl Gershman. http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9303/reviews/gershman.html

[iv] Philippines. During the martial law and post-martial law periods, the Catholic Church was the country's strongest and most independent nongovernmental institution. It traditionally had been conservative and aligned with the elites. Parish priests and nuns, however, witnessed the sufferings of the common people and often became involved in political, and even communist, activities. One of the best-known politicized clergy was Father Conrado Balweg, who led a New People's Army guerrilla unit in the tribal minority regions of northern Luzon. Although Pope John Paul II had admonished the clergy worldwide not to engage in active political struggle, the pope's commitment to human rights and social justice encouraged the Philippine hierarchy to criticize the Marcos regime's abuses in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Church-state relations deteriorated as the statecontrolled media accused the church of being infiltrated by communists. Following Aquino's assassination, Cardinal Jaime Sin, archbishop of Manila and a leader of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, gradually shifted the hierarchy's stance from one of "critical collaboration" to one of open opposition.

-- An Excerpt from Philippines-A Case Study Library of Congress “Marcos and the Road to Martial Law, 1965-72” http://www.seasite.niu.edu/TAGALog/Tagalog_Default_files/Philippine_Culture/marcos_era.htm