In military terms, the Center of Gravity (COG) is a concept that links some central thing or idea, to whatever an army, a population, an enemy, a force, or a nation centers their strength upon. It could be national pride. It could be ethnic or tribal allegiances. It could be advanced technology, or perhaps a particular industry. It could be ideological, religious, or political. For example, America’s COG used to be defending freedom and promoting the American way of life across the world. As of late, however, I’m fairly certain our COG has been bought and paid for by the Military Industrial Complex.
Carl Von Clausewitz was a 19th-century Prussian General and about as famous a military theorist as you could get, made famous, the term Center of Gravity. To which, COG has been long debated by both scholars and generals as to how best to apply it in regard to military strategy. The thought was, that if you could identify and then attack an enemy’s Center of Gravity, you could effectively defeat said enemy by weakening them to the point of collapse.
Now, we live in a day and age in which everything is accelerating at a dizzying pace, and Christendom is trying really hard to make itself relevant by blending into a world that is continually changing. In fact, the only thing changing faster than our technological advancements is its rapidly declining cultural norms. Churches here in the 21st century are continually being pressured by society to compromise and replace their COG with that of the world by compromising on doctrinal truths.
Pete Garcia
The old saying goes, that the eyes are of no use, if the mind is blind. So it is come to this then, that we who live in the most transformative, prophetically active time since the days of Christ, see so little interest in what the Bible has to say about what will come to pass in these last days. Tragically, the disinterest comes as equally from those who profess Christ, as from those who don’t. The study today is over why this is.
“However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” – 1 Corinthians 2:6-9
The section of Bible Prophecy which speaks to the events of the last days, Eschatology, is not some fringe hobby that people dabble in with as the same seriousness as those who follow UFO’s or Big Foot. Eschatology is a major doctrinal study that consumes around 30% of your Bible. John F. Walvoord, the late President of the Dallas Theological Seminary, dubbed it the ‘capstone of Christian doctrine’, because your eschatological view determines how you hold to every other major doctrine…such as Soteriology, Ecclesiology, etc.) If you think about it for a second, your entire Bible, either centers around Christ’s first coming, or to His second. It only makes sense that in a book in which God is revealing Himself to mankind progressively, (i.e….not all at once), is a book that hinges around His own Incarnation and His return for His people.
Yet today more than ever, so-called Evangelicals are increasingly becoming dismissive of Bible Prophecy because they believe it is a fool’s errand, that Christ may never return, or that it impedes their ability to enact cultural change through the social gospel. This is promulgated in the Reformed Theology groups as well as thru the Prosperity Gospel and Emergent Church movements. It’s like it has become popular again in Christendom, to no longer care if or when Christ will return, as if it is some distraction we needn’t concern ourselves with.
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