Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

• Matthew 24:4-8

He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
“But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.

• Luke 21:8-19

I was thinking about running a series of quizzes on the birth pains of the End Times – maybe not every week.  What Jesus says in Matthew 24 (basically the same words in Mark 13) gives some words that can be the focus of a quiz.  Luke 21 uses a slightly different expression of the same basic things.  Wars and rumors of wars seem to be what people focus on, but I doubt if there has been a day on earth at least for the last few centuries where there was not a war or rumor of war.  I think a rumor of war is really a war but it is not declared “officially”.  I will get into that in the discussions between the Questions and Bible References and then between the Bible References and the Answers.

But it is sad that so many people have their heart tugged by a war and suddenly think we are in the End Times.  Jesus also mentioned earthquakes, famines, and pestilence.  We have had those too.  But our short attention spans lose heart as we read through, before Jesus says the words “birth pains.”  And the admonishment to take heart.

So, this quiz focuses on the word “war”.  Sorry, “rumor” is in the NIV only six times.

A popular Bible search engine states there are 399 verses with words beginning with “war”.  But this includes variations of warn (112), warm (19), ward (9), and warp (4).  There are 94 verses with the word warrior. But we still have a lot to choose from, from Genesis to Revelation.  There are five questions from each testament.

The Questions:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	Who chased his son-in-law down and complained that his daughters and their children had been taken away like “captives in war”?
2	What excuse did Pharoah use to enslave the Israelites?
3	Moses was on the mountain, talking to God.  Their conversation was interrupted and Moses walked down when Joshua was standing guard.  Joshua said that it sounded like a war had broken out in the camp below, but what was it instead?
4	In Numbers 25, Midianites were used by Moab to corrupt the Israelites.  In Numbers 31, God commanded that they go to war against the Midianites for what they had done.  What did the Midianites do?
5	After Gibeon’s deception, no other Canaanite king made a treaty with Joshua.  Why?
6	Paul speaks of a personal war within himself to the Romans with what too warring forces?
7	Paul tells the Corinthians that we are at war, but not like the wars of this world.  What does our divine power demolish?
8	What does Peter say that sinful desires do?
9	Who leads (or led) the angel army against the dragon when the dragon (Satan) was throw to the earth with all his angels?
10	In the last mention of “war” in the NIV, who are the combatants on either side?

I get the following statistics from Wikipedia.  They state that there are six major wars and ten minor wars around the world as of the end of 2024.  They differentiate based on the number of war deaths.  A major war is a war with over 10,000 deaths in a calendar year.  If the death toll is between 1,000 and 9,999, it is a minor war.

There is nothing minor about it if your loved ones are part of the 9,999 deaths.

The two wars that most people know about, those reported by the major news outlets, are the Russian-Ukraine war, claiming the most lives by warfare in 2024.  The second is the Arab-Israeli war which as continued since 1948 in one form or another.

But you rarely hear about the other four major wars from the major news markets.  The Sudanese Civil War (and related internal conflicts) claimed over 16,000 lives in 2024, but since 2008, it is estimated that the death toll is between 600,000 and 1,100,000 lives being lost.  The Ethiopian civil conflicts from 2018 to the present have cost possibly more than 600,000 lives, but barely the 10,000 lives in 2024 to keep them on the major war list.  Another civil war is raging in Myanmar.  The death toll is considerably less total, varying greatly between those keeping the records, but the war has continued in some form since 1948.

The other war is a war for extremist Muslim expansion by a variety of groups from Morocco to Libya to Chad to Ivory Coast.  This includes most of the Sahara, but the intense fighting is in the region south of the Sahara Desert in the Sahel region that stretches from Senegal to Eritrea (West Coast to East Coast north of the jungle lands).  It has been reported that over half of terrorist deaths in recent years come from the Sahel.  This conflict started in 2002, according to the records.

While the big two wars have the media’s attention, the death toll of the other four wars greatly overshadows the loss of life in the Middle East, and almost equals the loss of life in Ukraine and Russia.

Yet, Jesus said these are only birth pains.  The End Times will come later.

Bible References:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	Who chased his son-in-law down and complained that his daughters and their children had been taken away like “captives in war”?	Genesis 31:26
2	What excuse did Pharoah use to enslave the Israelites?	Exodus 1:10
3	Moses was on the mountain, talking to God.  Their conversation was interrupted and Moses walked down when Joshua was standing guard.  Joshua said that it sounded like a war had broken out in the camp below, but what was it instead?	Exodus 32:17
4	In Numbers 25, Midianites were used by Moab to corrupt the Israelites.  In Numbers 31, God commanded that they go to war against the Midianites for what they had done.  What did the Midianites do?	Numbers 31:3, Numbers 25:6-9
5	After Gibeon’s deception, no other Canaanite king made a treaty with Joshua.  Why?	Joshua 11:18-20
6	Paul speaks of a personal war within himself to the Romans with what too warring forces?	Romans 7:23
7	Paul tells the Corinthians that we are at war, but not like the wars of this world.  What does our divine power demolish?	2 Corinthians 10:3-6
8	What does Peter say that sinful desires do?	1 Peter 2:11
9	Who leads (or led) the angel army against the dragon when the dragon (Satan) was throw to the earth with all his angels?	Revelation 12:7-9
10	In the last mention of “war” in the NIV, who are the combatants on either side?	Revelation 19:19

One death by war is too many.  There were 10 wars in the minor war list.  For conflicts not being war status, by those gathering the data, 100-999 deaths in 2024, there were sixteen conflicts.  And there were 10 skirmishes – places of past conflicts where less than 100 deaths have been reported in 2024, in spite of treaties.

Considering total deaths from the conflicts, the Afghan war has claimed the most, followed by the Somali Civil War, the Syrian Civil War (that has been reported to be back on the rise recently), and the Mexican drug wars.

I could go on with a variety of wars or conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.

One death is too many, but as a missionary in the Sahel said to a reporter recently, spreading the Gospel in these war-torn areas is important, and the people are desperate to receive the Good News.  Christians must spread the Word of God faster than the enemy can kill them.

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The Answers:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	Who chased his son-in-law down and complained that his daughters and their children had been taken away like “captives in war”?	Genesis 31:26	Laban, when Jacob left to return to the Promised Land.  But Laban was in part disingenuous as he was also looking for the person who stole his household gods (Rachel hid them).
2	What excuse did Pharoah use to enslave the Israelites?	Exodus 1:10	They were a large group of people who might join the enemy if war broke out.
3	Moses was on the mountain, talking to God.  Their conversation was interrupted and Moses walked down when Joshua was standing guard.  Joshua said that it sounded like a war had broken out in the camp below, but what was it instead?	Exodus 32:17	The Israelites were worshipping the golden calf.
4	In Numbers 25, Midianites were used by Moab to corrupt the Israelites.  In Numbers 31, God commanded that they go to war against the Midianites for what they had done.  What did the Midianites do?	Numbers 31:3, Numbers 25:6-9	The Moabites sent women into the camp to have the Israelites commit sexual immorality.  A plague came upon them and 24,000 died, but the plague ended when Phinehas drove a spear through an Israelite and into the Midianite woman who were in the middle of sexual immorality.  So, while the Moabites started this temptation, the Midianites followed through.
5	After Gibeon’s deception, no other Canaanite king made a treaty with Joshua.  Why?	Joshua 11:18-20	God hardened their hearts so that these cursed people will be thoroughly destroyed.
6	Paul speaks of a personal war within himself to the Romans with what too warring forces?	Romans 7:23	The Law of God’s Word in his mind versus the law of sin
7	Paul tells the Corinthians that we are at war, but not like the wars of this world.  What does our divine power demolish?	2 Corinthians 10:3-6	Strongholds of arguments, pretense, and eventually disobedience.
8	What does Peter say that sinful desires do?	1 Peter 2:11	They wage war on the soul.
9	Who leads (or led) the angel army against the dragon when the dragon (Satan) was throw to the earth with all his angels?	Revelation 12:7-9	Michael
10	In the last mention of “war” in the NIV, who are the combatants on either side?	Revelation 19:19	The beast and the kings of the earth versus the “rider” on the horse and His army.  The rider is Jesus in His return, and note that it does not say some of the kings of the earth.  Jesus comes to the rescue, not a “good” nation with Jesus tagging along.

Whether you did well on this quiz or, ummm, not so well, for the first video, here is the former Red Army Choir singing Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Only the fifth verse, with a couple of mispronounced words, but singing it in English at this moment in 1992 of Russian history brough tears to the eyes of Rev. Graham and his team.

Here are the Praise and Harmony Singers singing Eternal Father, Strong to Save.  I usually use the Navy Hymn which has a couple of verses that are the same, but this version prays for those in peril of the sea, then on the land, and then in the air.  When William Whiting wrote this song in about 1860, I doubt if there were those in peril in the air, but even though I was Army, I am moved by this hymn each time I hear it.

Here is Chris Tomlin singing Whom Shall I Fear (The God of Angel Armies).

Here are Charles Jenkins and Fellowship Chicago singing War.

For those who deny we are at war, I doubt if they have tried very hard to be a Christian.  Or maybe they have not stepped out of their sheltered space into this fallen world.

If you like these Saturday morning Bible quizzes, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Saturday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.