Appeasement - PART 1 & 2

Appeasement (Part One) The Free Dictionary gives us a definition of appeasement: "The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace." An Internet search for examples of political appeasement brings up literally millions of returns about Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940, who usedappeasement with liberality to try to prevent the spread of war in Europe. He assented to Italy's authority in Ethiopia and kept England out of the Spanish Civil War. True to his character, he also sought to abandon British naval bases in Ireland. Three times in September 1938, Chamberlain met with the German Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler, to prevent the expansion of war in Europe. Hitler promised not to seek additional territory if the allies would return the Sudetenland to Germany. After WorldWar I, the victors had taken this mountainous region as part of the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Munich Agreement, Chamberlain and Premier Edouard Daladier of France surrendered to Hitler's demands, leaving Czechoslovakia vulnerable andunprotected. On Chamberlain's return to England, the crowds welcomed the Prime Minister with adulation as he waved the treaty and famously declared, "Peace in our time!" Yet, almost six months later, in March 1939, he was forced to renounce the agreementafter Hitler invaded the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain then rushed to assure the nations of Poland, Romania, and Greece that England would defend them militarily if the Third Reich also invaded them, and in the following month he began thefirst peacetime military draft in Britain's history. To his credit, when Hitler invaded Poland that September, Chamberlain declared war on Germany. But it was too little, too late, because, in this world, appeasement never works. We need not look far into the past to find other examples of the failure of appeasement. In late May 2020, following George Floyd's death in police custody, riots broke out in several cities across America and continued every night for morethan three months. Despite widespread lawlessness, local leadership gave in to the agitators' demands, choosing to ignore their sworn duties and legal responsibilities to serve and protect their constituents and their property. As an example, the protests in Portland, Oregon, began on May 28, 2020. Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese said that rioters smashed windows, started fires, and looted several businesses downtown in addition to assaulting officers with commercial-gradefireworks. According to Newsweek, the cost of the damage and cleanup to federal buildings alone was at least $2.3 million. Thousands of protestors showed up night after night, demanding a defunding of the police department. By June, the Portland City Commissioners attempted to placate them by voting 7-1 to reduce their police budget almost $16 million, but it wasnot enough for some. US News and World Report relates that some actually called for defunding the police by more than three times that amount—up to $50 million! The riots continued unabated through the summer and well into fall, before ceasing for a time then resuming on New Year's Eve. In a press conference, Portland's mayor appeared dismayed that his attempts to mollify the protestors failed, complaining to reporters, "My good faith efforts at de-escalation have been met with ongoing violence and even scorn from radical Antifa and anarchists." He later remarked, "Lawlessness and anarchy come at great expenseand great risk to the future of our community. It's time to push back harder against those who are set on destroying our community, and take more risks fighting lawlessness." Again, Mr. Mayor, too little, too late! Although the riots were ostensibly against the Trump administration, police brutality, and racial injustice, they continued even after President Joe Biden took office on January 20, 2021. Antifa marchers blasted the new president, and new anti-Bidengraffiti emerged. Rioters carrying stun guns, pepper ball guns, and fireworks scuffled with police, re-damaging the Immigration and Custom's Enforcement building. Video from the latter protests shows marchers carrying signs reading, "We don't want Biden—we want revenge!" Another reads, "We are ungovernable." A Twitter user summed it up very well: Referring to the continuing riots, he posted, "When you appease criminals to try to ‘get along', [sic] they see your weakness and take over." He closed by advising, "Peace through strength, notpeace through weakness." Yet, even as late as the end of February 2021, rioters once again smashed windows and damaged buildings. Yet this time, they did it because they were dissatisfied with the immigration policies of the new president. In this world, appeasement never works. In Part Two, we will consider an ongoing example of this truism in a major American city. - John Reiss Appeasement (Part Two) PartOne introduced the concept of appeasement�"granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace"�and provided a few examples of the policy at work before World War II and during the more recent Antifa riots in Portland, Oregon. Upon analyzingthe various examples, a notable conclusion is that appeasement never works. It often just emboldens the aggressors to take advantage of the weakness they perceive in those who appease them. In this vein, I present as Exhibit A my hometown of almost sixty years, the Windy City, Chicago, Illinois. Frankly, Chicago is broke�its bond rating is at Ba1, otherwise known as "junk status," which is only two steps above recently bankruptDetroit, Michigan, and its public school system, both of which rate at Ba3. Amazingly, Chicago Public Schools rank even lower, at B1. When Rahm Emanuel won Chicago's mayoral election in 2012, the city of Chicago had a $30 billion pension debt of its own, and Chicago Public Schools had a one-billion-dollar deficit. In addition, the city's teacher pension debt had recently balloonedto a breath-taking eight billion dollars. Mayor Emanuel had an opportunity to rein in some of those costs during negotiations with the Chicago Teacher's Union (CTU). It would be an understatement to say that the CTU has deep and serious problems. Besides its crushing debt load, the CTU has negotiated the shortest school day and year among large municipality school districts. It also has dozens of nearlyempty and underperforming schools. The CTU, however, did not care about rectifying these problems. Instead, the union went on strike for a week, and Mayor Emanuel's resolve buckled. He ended up acceding to their demands for higher pay, giving them a 17 percentraise over four years. Last year, a similar opportunity presented itself to current Mayor Lori Lightfoot in her first contract negotiations with the CTU. The unfunded liabilities of the Chicago Teachers' Fund had grown to at least $12 billion (and it may be much higher).The mayor could have called the union to task and demanded that it work with her to remedy the fiscal crisis confronting the city and its taxpayers. But she did not. Like her predecessor, she offered an extremely generous contract to the union. She herselfcalled it "the most generous" contract ever. The teachers thought differently, though, calling a strike, this time for eleven days. After the mayor capitulated, teachers' salaries would rise between 24 and 50 percent over the five-year agreement�and this is in a school system that hasshrunk by almost 28 percent over the last two decades. Their actions should not be surprising. According to the Chicago Tribune, the CTU struck eleven times between 1969 and 2019 and had threatened to strike eight other times. An article on this compromise at Wirepoints.org concludes, "It's unfortunate that Mayor Lightfoot apparently doesn't understand cause and effect. . . . If she had possessed more resolve a year ago, �we' [sic] wouldn't be here." We can only hope that the mayor is learning that in this world, appeasement never works. However, for Christians, the Bible shows a form of appeasement that always works. John the Baptist spoke of this kind of appeasement in John 1:29, "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, �Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Our Savior's death paid sin's penalty in full. But it does more: The Bible twice (IJohn 2:2; 4:10) refers to Jesus as the hilasmos, "the propitiation for our sins" (emphasis ours). This Greek word describes "a sacrifice that appeases the wrath of God and makes God propitious (favorable) toward human beings." A propitiation is an offering to appease or satisfy an angry, offended party. These two verses in I John both speak of Christ's blood as an atonement for all confessed sin that appeasesGod's wrath. In the Old Testament, the sin offering represents the just payment for sin, showing our need for a Savior. Like Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden of Eden after their sins (Genesis3:22-24), our sins have likewise cut us off from the Creator. The ultimate sin offering given by Christ, however, provides for our continued communication with God. Israel's priests burned the sin offering outside the camp (Leviticus4:12, 21). Although it appeased God's just requirement of a payment for sin, it was not a sweet-savor offering because of the presence of sin. God mercifully forgives the sin based on Christ's perfect sacrifice, but He takes no satisfaction in it becausesin is abominable, hateful, and evil to Him. Even so, our Savior's death satisfies the requirements for breaking God's law and appeases the Father's anger. He, too, died outside the camp (Hebrews13:11-12). However, the living sacrifices represented by the burnt, grain, and peace offerings are called fragrances of appeasement to the Lord. Notice Exodus 29:18 in the Lexham English Bible: "And you will turn into smoke on the altar all of the ram; it is a burnt offering for Yahweh; it is a smell of appeasement, an offering by fire for Yahweh." These "sweet aroma" offerings represent different aspects of the life of Christ. It is only because of our Savior's sinless life and death that we now have an opportunity to conduct ourselves in sacrificial love toward God and men in a way thatsatisfies our heavenly Father. In other words, Christ's propitiation provides the appeasing sacrifice, giving us the chance to live worthwhile lives of spiritual growth and service to and for God. In this world, the only appeasement that will ever truly work is our Savior's life and death. VISIT: PROPHECY WATCHER WEEKLY NEWS: HTTP://PROPHECY-WATCHER-WEEKLY-NEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM