The Third World War

We know that because God gave the first human ancestors the blessing to rule the universe, when Satan works through fallen people to create an unprincipled imitation of the world where this blessing is fulfilled, God has to allow it.

On the heels of Satan, God conducts His providence to claim back Satan’s world and its fruits. At the consummation of human history, Satan’s side and God’s side will strive until they each attain sovereignty over a world. This is why the democratic world and the communist world stand confronting each other. Consequently, it became inevitable that there be world wars, first to divide and then to unify these two worlds.

The First and Second World Wars had the providential purpose of dividing the globe into the communist world and the democratic world. Afterward, yet another war must take place to bring about their unification. This conflict is the Third World War. It is inevitable that the Third World War take place; however, there are two possible ways it may be fought.

One way to bring Satan’s side to surrender is through armed conflict. However, at the conclusion of the conflict, there should come an ideal world in which all humanity is to rejoice together. This can never be built merely by defeating enemies in battle.

Afterward, they must be brought to submission internally, that everyone may be reconciled and rejoice sincerely from the bottom of their hearts. To accomplish this, there must come a perfect ideology which can satisfy the desires of the original nature of all people.

The other way this war may be fought is as a wholly internal, ideological conflict, without the outbreak of armed hostilities, to bring Satan’s world to submission and unification in a short time. People are rational beings. Therefore, a perfect, unified world can be established only when people submit to one another and participate in unification through a profound reawakening. By which of these two ways will the Third World War actually be fought? It depends upon success or failure in carrying out the human portion of responsibility. From where will the ideology essential to the resolution of this conflict and the establishment of the new world come?

It surely cannot come out of the communist world, rooted in the Cain-type view of life, since the Cain-type view of life opposes the internal aspirations of the original human nature. Rather, this ideology must arise out of the democratic world, which is rooted in the Abel-type view of life.

Nonetheless, it is a fact of history that no conventional ideology among those prevailing in the democratic world can effectively defeat communist ideology.

Therefore, a hitherto unknown ideology will emerge from within the democratic world.

For the new ideology to be born, there must first arise a new expression of the truth. This new truth is the essence of the Abel-type view of life and the core of democracy. As has been the case in the past, when the new expression of truth appears, it may contradict the old expressions of truth in which many people have believed.

Hence, even the democratic world will be divided into two camps which, like Cain and Abel, will be pitted against each other. When the new truth secures a victorious foundation in the democratic world and then conquers communist ideology, the unification of the world will be achieved based on the one truth.

Satan knew God’s plan to unify the world through the one truth and presented a false imitation of the truth in order to unify humanity centering on himself. This false truth is dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism denies the existence of any spiritual reality, setting up an explanation of the universe based on a wholly materialistic logic. In denying the existence of God, it also denies the existence of Satan.

Thus, in promoting dialectical materialism, Satan was effectively denying his own reality, even risking his own demise. Satan understood what would unfold at the close of human history and knew well that he would surely perish.

Accepting that this was not the time to be worshipped, he rose in a monstrous denial of God, even at the sacrifice of himself. This is the spiritual root of dialectical materialism. As long as the democratic world lacks the truth which can overturn this evil doctrine, it will always be vulnerable and on the defensive. For this reason, someone on God’s side must proclaim the perfect truth.

The Third World War is the final conflict in the providence of restoration. Through this war, God intends that the democratic world bring the communist world to submission and build the ideal world.

Leading up to the First World War, the nations on God’s side had expanded their political and economic dominion by claiming colonies throughout the world, to be used by God for His providence. At the conclusion of the war, these nations laid the worldwide formation-stage foundation for democracy.

Through the Second World War, they laid the worldwide growth-stage foundation for democracy, thereby firmly consolidating the democratic world. During the Third World War, God’s side is to found the perfect Abel-type view of life based on the new truth and complete the worldwide completion-stage foundation for democracy.

God’s side is then to guide all of humanity into one unified world. In summary, the Third World War is the last great war at the close of history, when God’s side restores horizontally through indemnity all that was lost to Satan throughout the three stages of the prolonged providence.

As was explained above, whether the Third World War is waged by force of arms or as an ideological conflict depends upon the responsibility of the people who are serving the providence of God. Regardless, it is inescapable that this worldwide conflict take place. What are the internal, providential causes behind the Third World War?

First, the war has to take place to fulfill the worldwide indemnity condition at the completion stage to restore God’s three great blessings. When Jesus could accomplish the providence of restoration only spiritually due to the disbelief of the people, it became necessary that he return and restore the world of God’s ideal both spiritually and physically.

Yet, since Satan realizes in advance a defective form of God’s ideal, at the consummation of history there will emerge an unprincipled world with the pretense of having restored the three great blessings under the leadership of a satanic antitype of Christ at the Second Advent.

By prevailing over this satanic world, God’s side is responsible to fulfill the worldwide indemnity condition at the completion stage to restore the ideal world in which the three great blessings are fulfilled centering on God.

Stalin was the satanic antitype of Christ at the Second Advent. He was idolized as a perfect human being. By advocating the solidarity of farmers and workers in opposition to the democratic world, he mimicked the blessing of the multiplication of children, and by his policy of worldwide communist domination, he achieved the outward semblance of the blessing of dominion over the creation. Stalin thus created a vast communist world which realized defectively the outward form of the three great blessings.

We must understand that the communist world is the unprincipled and flawed imitation of the world of God’s ideal, which will be characterized by interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values founded in God.

Second, the Third World War has to take place to have the people on God’s side overcome Jesus’ third temptation on the world level. In light of the meaning of Jesus’ three temptations, we recognize that God’s side must prevail in the Third World War to fulfill the indemnity condition to restore worldwide God’s third blessing. As Jesus established the foundation to restore dominion over the creation by overcoming the third temptation in the wilderness, God’s side must win in the Third World War to restore human beings’ dominion over the entire universe.

Third, the Third World War has to take place to lay the completion-stage foundation for the restoration of God’s sovereignty. God’s side must be victorious in the war to destroy the communist world and return all sovereignty to God. Then the ideal world will be established based upon the principles of heaven and earth.

Long ago, God intended to conclude His providence of restoration in Adam’s family by working through Cain and Abel. Instead, Cain murdered Abel, commencing the sinful history of humanity.

God began the dispensation of dividing good and evil to restore the failure in Adam’s family on the individual level and developed it through the levels of family, clan, society, people and nation.

The time has come when God conducts this dispensation on the world level. God intends to restore through indemnity the entire providence, which was prolonged to the third stage, by winning victory in the three world wars, which belong to the final chapter of providential history.

In the beginning, the first human ancestors lost their connection of heart to God when they fell prey to the tempting words of Satan. Through the internal, spiritual fall and the external, physical fall, they inherited the lineage of Satan.

Therefore, the providence of restoration can be completed only after fallen people restore their heart toward God through God’s life-giving Word, are saved both spiritually and physically, and inherit God’s lineage (cf. Moses and Jesus 3.3.2).

The victories of God’s side in the three world wars will fully restore through indemnity all these aspects of the providence of restoration. They will make possible the realization of God’s ideal world, for which God has labored with unremitting tears over the centuries of human misery since the Fall.