WHAT’S IN PUTIN’S MIND? IT DOESN’T MATTER!

With the Bear on the move, the stock market crashing, the virus again spreading, it is easy to believe that things are out of control. It seems like an empty platitude merely to say “God is in control!” Isn’t that kind of like whistling in the dark? Not if it’s true. It is. God is in control! Often during this invasion of Ukraine by Russia, I have heard pundits puzzling over what “is going on in Putin’s malevolent mind.” “What are his plans, his goals, his purposes?” However, the real question is What is going on in God’s mind? In the end, it’s not the movements and purposes of nations and men that will triumph, but the purposes of God. Although the world often looks like out-of-control chaos, everything is happening according to the plan of God. This is not to say that Putin doesn’t have his own purposes. (There are religious underpinnings and designs to Putin’s plans and machinations that are not mentioned in the media—or barely mentioned.) It is not to say the Putin’s evil purposes are in fact God’s. That would make God culpable of evil. It is to say, that whatever Putin’s or any person’s purposes, God has a greater, overarching, controlling one. How can this be? If God is doing what He wants in the world, how can Putin be doing what he wants? If Putin is pursuing his purpose resultant in great evil, the tragic loss of civilian life, awful suffering, and horrible destruction, how can God be pursuing His purpose of good, righteousness, and peace for the world? A recent re-reading of Jeremiah impressed me that God has an overarching plan that encompasses and controls the movements of the nations and the leaders that instigate them: Babylon was the world power at the time. That empire was on the move. It had crushed countries and their leaders. Specifically, Babylon had destroyed Judah, Jerusalem, and God’s Holy Temple. It had led the people of God captive to exilic servitude. Yet, even as Babylon was doing so, God said it itself would be destroyed. Annihilated. Despite what it or any other nation did. Why such certainty? Because God had purposed it. He had plans for Babylon. Plans He would perform. (Jer 51:29). Plans to both use Babylon to judge other nations and then to use other nations to judge Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon, was on the move, invading nations to expand His empire. Much like Putin. Invading Judah, He thought the battle plans, his; the strategies, his; the invasions, his; the victory over other nations, his. God said, “Nope. I’m only using you as my hammer to crush other nations that I want to judge.” (Jer 51:20). Whatever Putin has in mind, it’s what is in God’s mind that will prevail. As indubitably as God employed Babylon to judge Judah, He would then use the Persian/Medes to judge Babylon. He would “stir them up” to do that very thing. Again, the Persians/Medes would believe that it was their own conceived and invented intentions to conquer Babylon, but it was God’s purposes prevailing. And so forth, until this present day. I’m not saying God is using Russia to judge Ukraine. Not only do I not know specifically what’s in Putin’s mind, I don’t know what’s in God’s mind—although He has revealed His larger plan. It is an eschatological one of a global government led by the Antichrist. There is more movement among the nations happening in our world today than Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or China’s intentions to do the same of Taiwan. The world’s nations are moving to adjust to a new world order without the USA playing the role of a superpower. Somehow, the movements of nations today are a re-arranging of the world for that last government that excludes Christ--whether a particular nation or its leader has this in mind or not. That’s what God says will happen. That’s what He has in mind. God’s purposes are not, ultimately, to bring about the Antichrist’s one-world government. No! They are the establishment of Christ’s Millennial Government of Peace and Righteousness. That is where things are headed. The Antichrist’s one-world government is but a pre-cursory rebellion that God will crush and, then, consequentially, inaugurate Christ’s Kingdom on earth. It may yet be bothering some that, if all that is happening in our world is doing so according to God’s plans and purposes, how is God not culpable for the evil? Does not Putin have a freewill? Does not anyone? These are pertinent and huge questions. I have space to offer only a simple analogy: If an amateur plays a master chess player, the amateur makes free choices of where and how he moves his pieces. But the master chess player controls the board. It doesn’t matter the free choice of each movement the amateur makes; the master player has a plan to control the game. The master’s victory is inevitable and according to his strategic plan. It doesn’t matter what the amateur has in mind, thinks, plans. The master player is in control. In his mind, he sees the whole board and what moves need made however the amateur moves, whatever is the amateur’s mind. Yes, Putin is the amateur here. What is Putin’s plan? His purpose? What’s in Putin’s mind? It doesn’t matter. In the end, it’s only what is in God’s mind that matters. --Pastor Clifford Hurst P.S. If any thinks that I’m saying that it doesn’t matter what Russia is doing to the Ukrainian people my point has been missed. Of course, that matters greatly