Is CIVILIZATION on the Edge of aPage FivePRECIPICE? . . . . . JOHN L. SHULER
¶ The present world status cannot remain long without a change. Will that change plunge us back into chaos, or will a new order replace the present decaying and unpromising civilization?
The extraordinary conditions that now prevail on the international stage forecast approaching events of the greatest magnitude. When we compare current conditions and developments with God's outline of what would happen at the end of this age, as set forth in the Scriptures, we shall clearly understand the true meaning of the times in which we live, and know whither we are tending.
We shall consider two prophecies from our Lord's great forecast of the future, in response to His disciples' question, “What shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the world?” Matthew 24:3. In verses 6, 7, we read: “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. . . . For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
APPLICABLE TO PRESENT CONDITIONS
How applicable are these words to the present time! This is the day of wars and rumors of wars. We have witnessed in our day the greatest rising of nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom that the world has ever known since Jesus Christ uttered this great prophecy on Olivet.
During the lifetime of many people now living, there have come great wars such as the American Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish War, the Chinese-Japanese War, the Spanish-American War, the Boer War, and the Russian-Japanese War. But it remained for the World War of 1914-1918 to put the capsheaf on the history of all war from the beginning of time. Every other war preceding it sinks into utter insignificance when compared with this one.
More deaths occurred in this World War than in all the previous wars for more than one hundred years. The war costs of this recent world conflict in four and a quarter years amounted to nine times the cost of all previous wars for the preceding one hundred twenty-four years, from 1790 to 1914.
SECOND GREAT PROPHECY
The second prophecy under consideration is the one in which Christ pointed out certain things that would happen in the last generation of mankind, as harbingers of His speedy return. “There shall be signs; . . . upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear.” Luke 21:25, 26.
This forecast agrees exactly with the conditions that now exist. Mark the four characteristics here enumerated:
1. “Distress of nations.” How well these words describe the conditions of the nations in recent years and the widespread groaning and anguish of mankind! Distress has not been confined to merely two or three nations; it has been international and earth-wide in its reach. The World War brought a period of political, social, and economic distress that is without a parallel in modern history.
2. “With perplexity.” Statesmen have been put to their wit's end to know how to guide their ships of state away from the rocks that threaten to crush them to pieces. Situations are constantly arising with which the wisest of statesmen are unable to cope successfully. International conditions ever since the war have been more or less a hopeless muddle. The world's practical men are not sure whether the next step will leave them on solid ground or hurl them over a precipice.
WORLD FILLED WITH UNREST
3. “The sea and the waves roaring.” In Scripture the sea is used to represent the peoples of the earth which, away from God, know no rest. (Isaiah 57:20, 21; Revelation 17:15.) Like the sea, the masses to-day are in a seething turmoil. The world is filled with unrest, agitation, uprising, and tumult. There never was a time in this Christian era when there was such widespread and profound unrest among the peoples of the earth as there is to-day.
This is the day of upheaval and revolution. At the beginning of 1914 there were approximately forty hereditary rulers in Europe. Before the next decade passed, this number was reduced to sixteen. Three imperial dynasties—the Romanov of Russia, the Hohenzollern of Germany, and the Hapsburg of Austria-Hungary—were suddenly deposed. Governments that had endured for centuries and were considered as stable as the earth itself suddenly crashed into atoms. Empires that “were like the fixed stars in the firmament” have been “rolled down” into utter, endless darkness. The world was turned upside down, and “no one can tell how far it has been shocked out of its course.”
The political map of Europe was practically redrawn during a period of six years, 1914 to 1920. Six entirely new nations were created. The governments of six other nations were completely changed by revolutions. Three others were so thoroughly transformed by the addition of new territory as to be substantially new nations.
The great political changes taken all together constitute the greatest revolution in history. And be it remembered that this great revolution of the twentieth century is a sure sign of coming dissolution of the present order of things at the coming of Jesus Christ, and the introduction of a new order of things, where Christ will reign supreme.
MEN'S HEARTS FAILING
4. “Men's heart failing them for fear.” Human society is becoming panic stricken. Fear is the dominant emotion throughout the world to-day. There is apprehension in the hearts of men everywhere. A sense of undefined danger pervades civilization. Men are fearful of what they see approaching, and are powerless to hinder and prevent it. Men's hearts are “failing them.”
When were human politics so confused, so contradictory, so threatening, as they are now? When was the stability of government trembling in the balance as it is to-day? When was law so utterly impotent to restrain the violent passions of men? Our time is a day of peril, as predicted in 2 Timothy 3:1.
Every day brings new indications of disquietude and convulsions. The waves of human passion are rising higher and higher, and threaten utterly to swamp the landmarks of the ancients. Every day the spirit of general restlessness, insubordination, lawlessness, and anarchy is gathering strength, and will erelong burst like a dam before a mighty torrent, and deluge society with a flood of trouble.6
Everywhere, in all countries, there is a movement on among the lower classes, seeking to change the existing order of things, to discard all governmental forms, to abolish established customs, to cast off the restraints that civilization has imposed. Socialism, anarchism, syndicalism, communism, are in vogue as never before. Revolt is in the very air. Political ferment is everywhere. These are only the mutterings of the coming storm, the tremblings of the coming world-desolating shock, the eddies of the approaching world-destroying whirlwind, the rumbling of the thunder of the on-coming cataclysm of ruin that overhangs the world.
CONDITIONS ACCURATELY DESCRIBED
The condition of the nations and of mankind in general in recent years is certainly correctly described in this brief prophetic outline,—“distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” And what does this mean? Read verse 27, and see what is coming next: “Then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
This restless, apprehensive, bewildered, confused world is one of the many indicators of the time in which we live. The ultimate issue from all world problems and their true solution will find a climax in the coming of earth's true King.
Whether men realize it or not, the coming of Jesus Christ is the only arrangement that can fulfill the world's needs. Conditions on earth have now reached such a pass that no human skill can steer clear of the mighty maelstrom that is rapidly drawing all nations within its awful whirl. In the impending return of Jesus Christ is the perfect solution, and the only solution, of the political, social, and industrial problems that now vex mankind. “The demonstration of man's utter incapacity is about complete. When his unworthiness of trust, and his inability for any progress except in a downward direction, are wholly demonstrated, God will set him aside as ‘a despised and broken vessel,’ and bring in the ‘second man,’ ‘the last Adam,’ even His own eternal Son.”
CHRIST'S COMING IMMINENT
In this prophecy of Luke 21:25-27, Christ tells us plainly that this period of “distress of nations, with perplexity” is to be immediately followed by His second coming in power and majesty. Accordingly there cannot and will not be any millennium of peace this side of Christ's reappearing.
In harmony with this, we find in Revelation 11:18 that in the closing years of this age the spirit of anger and war will prevail among the nations. And true to that word, this is the day of unrelenting hatred among nations, races, colors, and classes. General Smuts, the South African statesman, says,
“Never has there been so much hatred in the world—never have people everywhere hated one another so much—never has hatred been so great and so deep.”
“Europe is a seething caldron of international hates.” Throughout all Asia the hidden fires of anti-European hatred are burning. The colored races hate the white race with a most intense hatred. Europe and Asia, which contain over two thirds of the human family, are under a pall of hatred.
Just as a heap of wood, a pile of coal, or a tank of oil contains the potentialities of a fire, so this international hatred and interracial hatred in these continents contain the potentialities of a great world conflagration. David Lloyd George says: “A temple to human right was built with material quarried out of all that is choicest in the soul of man. But its timbers are being drenched with the kerosene of hatred, and one day a match will be lit by some careless or malignant hand which will set fire to this magnificent edifice; its splendor will be reduced to black embers, and the hope of mankind will be once more laid in ashes.”—“Where Are We Going?” page 40.
As long as there is all this hatred, malice, hostility, distrust, and bitterness in the hearts of men and in the soul of the nations, war will be an ever-present possibility. Whenever the match is applied to these forces of hatred, there will be war.
WAR CANNOT BE AVERTED
Never was national and racial feeling stronger upon earth than it is now. Even the smallest nations are seized by a national frenzy. The whole world is at fever heat.
Has this condition of hatred among the nations and peoples of earth a significance that you and I should understand? Yes. Nineteen centuries ago the seer of Patmos, looking down through the ages to the closing days of earth's history, declared, “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldst give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.” Revelation 11:18.
This hatred among the nations to-day is a sure sign that the great day of God's wrath is about to come. And mark it well, from the above text, that at the time when the nations are angry, Jesus Christ will intervene and will put forth His hand in mercy and judgment, in judgment upon the ungodly, in mercy for the delivering and rewarding of those who fear and serve Him.
It means that the time has come for “the kingdoms of this world” to “become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever.” Revelation 11:15. Then sin and sinners will be destroyed out of the earth, and there will be nothing ever to mar the glorious era of peace that its righteous inhabitants will enjoy forever.
Thus it is that, notwithstanding the fact that civilization is crumbling into oblivion, the brightest prospects man has contemplated since Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden lie just ahead of us. This coming development will appear plainer and surer as we follow on in our study of the world's situation in the light of divine prophecy.
Looking under the huge turret rifles of the U. S. S. "West Virginia." The great guns of modern warships can fire tons of steel at targets many miles away. Surely such developments do not presage peace for the future.
