“IS THE WORLD GROWING BETTER OR WORSE?”
The Answer Depends on the Meaning of the Question
THE question, “Is the world growing better?” is one that has often been asked during the last twenty-five years, and almost invariably the answer has come that the world is becoming much better. Many things have been pointed out as evidences of that. But the barbarous war in progress among the “Christian nations” of Europe is causing many people to reconsider the question, and much doubt is expressed as to the correctness of the position that the world is actually growing better. Before this war in Europe broke out, however, there was an interesting editorial in the Sunday School Times which shows that men who were depending upon the Bible understood the conditions of the world even before the great shock of this war came on. And we believe that it is very opportune to present that editorial to our readers at this time. It is as follows: “Most people believe that the world is growing better. We are tempted to put aside impatiently the suggestion that anything else can be true in a world that God created, and in a universe where God reigns. Yet there is something to be said on the other side, especially when the Bible is consulted. A reader in Tennessee asks to have the question discussed: “From a study of church history, I would gather that the world is growing better, while many claim that the world is growing more and more wicked. Such passages as 2 Timothy 3 [“In the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers,” etc.], and Matt. 24: 15-32, are quoted to sustain their belief. Please reconcile the two statements, and give us some light on the religious and moral progress of the world.” “The world is undoubtedly growing worse, while parts of the world are growing better. An admirable summary of the facts and of the clear teachings of God’s word in answer to this question is given in a little book just published, by Dr. R. A. Torrey, dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, California, on The Return of the Lord Jesus. Here is Dr. Torrey’s answer: “‘“Is the world getting better?” To answer this question intelligently, we must ask what is meant by “the world.” If you use “the world” in the Biblical sense, it certainly cannot be getting better, for we are taught distinctly in 1 John 5: 19, “The whole world lieth in the evil one.” In Biblical usage, the world is the whole body of men and women who reject Christ; it lieth “in the wicked one,” and certainly in such embrace cannot be getting better. Further, the devil is its god. The apostle Paul says, “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them” (2 Cor. 4: 4), and, of course, it necessarily is growing worse. “But if we mean by “the world”—as men usually do when they ask this question—the entire mass of men, Christians and non-Christians, that go to make up present human society, then it is to be said there are two developments going on side by side at the present time,—the development of the kingdom of God, and the development of the kingdom of Satan. These two developments will be brought to a crisis when the antichrist is developed at the head of the latter, and the Christ appears at the head of the former. The crisis will end in a complete victory for Christ and the kingdom of God. In the meantime, on the one hand, God is gathering out of the world a people for His name; as James puts it in Acts 15: 14, “God visited the gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name.” The purpose of the preaching of the748gospel of grace in this present dispensation is not the winning of the whole world for Christ, but the gathering out of the world a people for His name. Many people in these days raise the watch cry, “America for Christ,” or “The whole wide world for Christ”; but those who know their Bibles, know that we shall not see “America for Christ,” nor “the whole wide world for Christ,” in the present dispensation. The gospel of grace has not failed—it is accomplishing just what God intended it should accomplish, gathering out of the world a people for His name, the church, the bride of Christ. “These whom God is gathering out of the world as a people for His name are growing in the knowledge and likeness of Himself, and the world is of necessity to a certain extent influenced by them. The influence of Christianity is seen in the political, commercial, and social life of the day, and in that sense the world might be said to be growing better. “On the other hand, every person who is open-eyed to what is going on in the world to-day, must see that there is what the Scripture predicted there would be, the development of the “mystery of lawlessness.” 2 Thess. 2: 7. There is, it is true, at present, some restraining power; but nevertheless, the “mystery of lawlessness doth already work,” resulting in increasing error and apostasy in the professing church, as well as out of it, and in the growing immorality (for example, along the lines of divorce and impurity and immodesty in dress, etc.), and especially by the development of anarchy or “lawlessness” among all classes of society. In this sense, the world is growing worse. We should not be at all disheartened by this fact. It is a fulfillment of prophecy. Indeed, the darkest clouds that are gathering are but harbingers of the golden day that is coming when our Lord Himself shall return and take up the reins of government.’”