Latest / The Daily Article / Iran has been at war with us longer than we have been at war with them

Transcript

Iran has been at war with us longer than we have been at war with them · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Tuesday, June the 16th, 2026.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the daily article podcast from Denison Forum.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, narrator, giving voice to today's daily article authored by Dr. Jim Denison Chief Vision Officer.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Note, breaking news is reporting that the FBI thwarted an explosive drone attack against Sunday's UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: As more is known, I will respond with an article on our website later today.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you know, the US and Iran announced an interim peace deal last Sunday, which remains to be known.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: What does the agreement actually say?
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Will Iran honor its commitments?
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about its nuclear program and materials?
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about Iran's proxies?
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about Israel?
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then the less any agreement that constrains Iran's aggression in the region and against the West would be welcome progress.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The researcher, ZvCon, has compiled a list of 45 Iranian and Iranian-backed attacks against Americans since 1979.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It shows that Iran has been at war with us, are longer than we think we've been at war with them.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was considering this fact when I read David's assertion in Psalm 145 verses 8 and 9, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding instead fast love.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: In light of all of the brutality and innocent suffering in the world, how can it be true that the Lord is good to all?
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: How can a God who is love established in First John 4 verse 8 also be sovereign over a world that is broken referenced in Psalm 115 verse 3 and Matthew 10 verse 29.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: This question has been debated over the millennia, of course.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have often written on it myself.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today, however, a new thought has emerged that I'd like to consider together.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin with my belief that God redeems all he allows.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, I have a back condition that limits my ability to speak in public as I once did.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe God caused my condition, but I do believe he's using it to focus me more fully on writing, a ministry which, by his grace,
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: is able to reach far more people than I could reach in person as a speaker.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: As Michael Coist observed, the Lord often leads through limitations.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: When my back hurts, I feel little resentment toward God for not healing me, since I can see his redemption in my circumstances.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I suppose some measure of good can be found in even the worse suffering.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The horrors of the Holocaust helped the U.S. and others to support the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hamas's brutal October 7 invasion led to and Israeli response that severely limited the terrorist ability to wage further terrorism.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Vaccines using MRNA technology developed in response to
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I would never suggest that any of this explains or outweighs the Holocaust, October 7th or the pandemic.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: How then am I to trust a God who allowed them?
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I understand that perpetrators of evil misused the free will that is indispensable to our being human and not automotons.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But God sometimes intervenes to prevent or limit innocent consequences of misuse freedom as in X-12 versus X-311 when he liberated Peter from Harid a grip of the first prison and then intervened to cause Harid's death noted in verses 23, 23.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: If King Harid in 8044, why not Ayatola Ruala Komeni in 1979?
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, if God intervened every time, then wrong choices would have no consequences, and thus not be true choices, removing the free will required for us to love him and others.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he did so only with the big issues, leaving others so as to respect our free will, who decides which issues the service intervention.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: the Holocaust and 9.11 were obvious choices, but what about my back condition and your personal challenges today?
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: In addition, we cannot know all the times God has intervened to spare us from threats we did not know existed.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know of no way to reason myself to a logical answer that I'm willing to accept.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can stop believing in God's existence or perfect character, or I can decide that he causes all that happens, including horrific suffering, for reasons I cannot fathom, and must not question.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Notably, the Bible does neither.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Its writers obviously do not reject God in the face of suffering, but neither do they simply accept all that happens.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They express very honestly their questions and struggles with God in his ways.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then however, they turn from seeking God's answers to seeking God himself.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now to my new thought, God redeems the first by using it to encourage the second.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: prayers expressing anger with God are still prayers, asking God why positions us sometimes to hear His answers, but always to experience His presence.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is one reason God invites us to reason together in the first part of Isaiah 1 verse 18, the Hebrew word means to argue it out.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we do, note what happens next in the latter part of verse 18 through verse 20.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are willing an obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: arguing with God positions us to experience God.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: When he hears our anger and feels our pain, he loves us and seeks to draw us to himself.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we respond in faith, he cleanses us and bless us.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we persist in rebellion, we forfeit his best and experience the consequences of our rejection.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's ask God our hardest questions as honestly as we can.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then let's sit with our father
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We may hear his voice through his scriptures and spirit.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We may see him respond in our circumstances.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There may be silence noted in Psalm 46 verse 10 and Psalm 62 verse 5.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But even in that silence, there is his presence.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in his presence is our peace.