I have a heavy feeling on Agreements and Oaths, but not the kind most people think about in one’s personal life. The kind I want to talk about today are the ones that are on the National stage, agreements between nations.
God honors agreements made between people, and people groups. He also has an issue when we break those agreements illegitimately. There are good agreements between nations and there are bad agreements between nations. An example of a good agreement is the one where the United States has agreed to ensure peace for South Koreans and defend them if they are invaded by North Korea or China. This is an agreement the United States has kept for over 60 years. An example of bad agreements between nations are all the agreements that were like a row of dominoes that helped to kickoff what became known as World War I. It seemed as though those agreements gave European nations an incentive to get involved in a fight than to help preserve peace and serve its people.
Regardless of what kind of agreements exist there are all kinds that exist for all kinds of reasons.
I believe the war in Ukraine has to do with agreements. In 1954 the Russian Soviet Union transferred control of the Crimean peninsula to Ukrainian control. Though both territories were part of the Soviet empire, this move was an effort to create a stronger bond between the Ukrainian and Russian nations. This agreement before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the invasion of Russia in 2014 was one of the last where the borders of Ukraine were solidified into what most believe belongs currently to Ukraine. Almost exactly 60 years after the Russian Soviet Union bestowed the Crimean Peninsula to the Ukrainian people they took it back with force and have been chipping away at the Ukrainian borders ever since.
If we go back even further, before Russia existed and people would refer to it as the Rus, all the way back to Early Medieval Europe. We find the people who were going to populate the territory that we today call Russia were first people of Kyiv in what is now called Ukraine. You could say that the territory that birthed the nation of Russia was in fact Ukrainian. If one country owed its existence to another, historically, it would certainly be Russia owing its existence to Ukraine. It would be accurate for Russians to refer to their nations’ mother as ‘Mother Kyiv.’
These two previous points are, I believe, the rails that guide the invisible part of this conflict. There are mistakes on both sides. There are problematic Ukrainians and problematic Russians. There are people in Ukraine near Russia’s border who think of themselves as Russians and there are Russians who would rather not deal with the state of Russia. The only thing for this conflict today is to save lives, stop the killing, and come to some type of amicable agreement between the two nations. I believe the conversation needs to go back to the ‘gift’ of the Crimean peninsula to the Ukrainian people and assertion that Russia and Ukraine are both brothers. Regardless of what you think, they are family. That reality needs to find itself in a room with the leaders of both nations. Neither nation belongs to the other. Neither nation should.
The only way forward is a show of respect from both nations and a manifest agreement showing their brotherhood. There must be forgiveness on both sides. There must be a great show of repentance for Russia’s actions in treating Ukraine with such hostility and disdain. Likewise Ukrainian leaders need to ensure that Russian speaking people’s within their nation are protected and that hostile entities are not given a home within their borders. Neither nation should wish the other harm nor allow entities that would cause harm to the other to have amnesty within their borders. A robust trade agreement between Ukraine and Russia would be a necessity with a time period of up to 50 or even 100 years ensuring Russia’s access to the Crimean Peninsula for their commerce and Navy.
Today Russia and Ukraine are enemies. Hopefully not far into the future they will once again act like brothers. Far, far into the future they will grow to protect each other.
The Iran war also has to do with agreements – and a lack of action on the world’s part.
What was Iran before this current version was a type of Monarchy that was backed by the United Kingdom and Russia originally in the 1920s. Between the 1920s and the 1960s there was a lot of foreign interference into the workings of the government that existed for the people of Iran. This is not good, simply because of the natural ‘gravity’ that pulls a leader to their duty of serving the people getting misconstrued into a duty to serve special foreign interests. Not saying that Russia, the UK, or whatever other foreign entity involved with ‘helping’ the government was bad. I am saying that that kind of endorsement can make a leader choose to not lead their people and focus mostly on their foreign stakeholders. It seemed that when the Iranian revolution came up in 1978-79 that there were good reasons for the people of that country to be angry. Both on liberal and conservative ideologies within that nation. At first it would seem that there was a consensus that a change was necessary. However, after the Iranian nation overthrew its monarch they replaced it with a government that kicked out any but the most hard line religious conservatives. This created the country of Iran that we see today and that has killed its own people for having differing ideas and sewed terror throughout the world for nearly 50 years.
There is an agreement that all leaders have with the people that they are there to lead. It’s invisible and exists within the fabric of God’s creation. God places everyone that is in power in their position. (Romans 13:1) If there is moral rot in a nation its leaders will soon be replaced. (Proverbs 28:2) – God removes and sets up leaders and kingdoms based on these things and provides wisdom for the wise and knowledge for those who seek it. (Daniel 2:20-21) It would seem over the last 50 years that there has been a great problem with the nation of Iran in the realm of moral rot and their leaders have led in such a way that the lives of the people in that nation are counted as nothing. Not only have they sponsored death to people from all over the world, but they have publicly proclaimed their moral superiority and effort to end all life that does not fit their ideals. This has made leaders of all countries from around the world realize that these people need to not have any Nuclear weaponry nor have enough power to destroy nations as they would probably do so if given the opportunity. Iran is a bad neighbor and it’s a bad caretaker of its people. It won’t be around in its current state for much longer. It should have never had the encouragement it had received for the last 50 years in the first place. The nations of the world, United States is front and center on this, have been trying to deal with this group and effectively work to charm this snake into not being a snake anymore. It is far time for this snake charming act to end.
Meanwhile the leaders of Iran are murdering their own people by the thousands. It’s like they are trying to create as much destruction as they can to God’s children (humans) before they are removed from power. We need to pray for those who live there today and for people around the world to realize that this war is not about oil but about lives. Unfortunately oil is the only factor of this conflict that makes it to the news cycle. A defunct government that is completely derelict in their duty to their people is what is really at stake here and what, I think, God really plans to deal with today. I believe it is important for foreign powers to put pressure on this illegitimate government. However, when it comes to a new government being created within its borders there should only be help from foreign countries that are asked for by the people of Iran as a whole and not for special interest or lining its government’s pocket. Pray for the freedom of Iran and the preparation of good leaders for this nation.
Pray for good leaders all over the world to be raised up and for every people group to honor their past, live in the present, and hope for their own futures.