Claiming God's Sovereignty Does Not Absolve Us of our Responsibility To Be Peacemakers

I had a brief – but infuriating – conversation on FB this morning.  I had shared an article calling for us to avoid falling into what seems to be our national pattern in times of world political crisis – we bomb the crap out it and then try to deal with the “unexpected” consequences.

An acquaintance of mine replied:

I don't think we will do anything. First I don't think Obama will do it (no guts) plus it’s the enemy killing each other. If he does bomb it will get us closer to the point of the Lord's return and that won't be so bad either. Either way God is in control and he knows what needs and will happen. So  not worried about it either way.

That is an absolutely deplorable eschatology. 

Do we accept that the world can just go to hell and not worry because we’ve got our rapture tickets out of here?  That killing is good – because, either 1) bad people die or 2) Jesus comes back?  Win / Win for everyone!

With this eschatology we can confidently ignore all human tragedy, because Jesus is coming soon and besides, God has everything under control.    

Claiming God's sovereignty does not absolve us of our responsibility to be peacemakers.