Wake Up the Mighty Men by Roland E. Loasby

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 18, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 20.

Wake Up the Mighty Men

By Roland E. Loasby

War Furies as Seen by the Prophets—A World Gone Mad—What Is the Portent?

By Roland E. Loasby

For many years, a storm has been gathering, and a war cloud, like the sword of Damocles, has been hanging over this world. We have seen its shadows, and have wondered anxiously, When will this burst?

Sees the End from the Beginning

God also has seen this troubled condition, for He sees the end from the beginning, and He has described it in the following words: “Proclaim ye this among the gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord.” Joel 3:9-11.

The warning of the late Earl Roberts to the British nation seems a fitting complement to this message to the nation and the message to my countrymen at this solemn hour is: ‘Arm and prepare to quit yourselves like men, for the time of your ordeal is at hand.’” And so persistent has the cry to arm become, that even the most cursory reader of the daily press is familiar with the tremendous efforts that all the powers have been putting forth to increase the number and power of their fighting utilities and units. The prevailing militarism—the superiority of the military, and the subordination of the civic power—is an overwhelming testimony to the fulfillment of the words of Joel.

Science and War

Modern science has turned its genius and energy to the evolution of forces of destruction, rather than of conservation. Scientists themselves have confessed that “science is perhaps the most inhuman of all man’s works.”

An example of what modern science is doing, is seen in the development of the dirigible airship. The latest air craft of this make is as large as a modern ocean steamer. This giant vessel can travel at an average speed of from forty to sixty miles an hour, is equipped with wireless apparatus, and fitted with guns for offensive work. Of the dirigible’s value we had ample evidence when the Hague, the Aboukir, and the Cressy were sunk,—three British warships that were sighted by a Schütte-Lanz airship, whose commander “wirelessed” their location to his base, with the result that a German submarine was able to find and to sink them in a fraction of the time that would have been spent in ordinary sea scouting.

Fearful Explosives and Awful Guns

When it is able to get home its torpedo, the deadly submarine effects the destruction of the ship attacked, practically at the first blow. The latest torpedo, charged with 420 pounds of trinitrotoluol, can loosen up the internal structure of a ship so badly as to make her foundering only a question of time.

As an example of the latest development of ships for surface warfare, the Queen Elizabeth, of Dardanelles fame, is sufficient. Her gigantic fifteen-inch guns throw a shell weighing nearly 2,000 pounds a distance of twenty miles. It is sufficient only to mention the modern military automobile; the aeroplane; the machine gun; and the latest rifle, the Lewis gun, now manufactured by England, which has a magazine arrangement that can be regulated as desired to discharge between 350 and 750 shots a minute. The advance of troops before a battery of such destroyers is practically impossible.

Such Appalling Armies

Surely the words of Joel, “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears,” have been fulfilled a thousand-fold. He also said, “Wake up the mighty men,” “Assemble yourselves.” We used to shudder at the account of the battle of Austerlitz, with its army of 75,000 men; at the battle of Leipsic, called the “battle of the nations,” in which 130,000 French were opposed to 230,000 allies; and at Napoleon’s famous campaign against Russia, which was conducted with 450,000 men. But how these figures pale before Germany’s total war strength of 5,200,000 men, France’s 4,000,000 men, Austria-Hungary’s 2,000,000 men, and Russia’s 5,000,000 men! These mighty nations are to-day locked in deadly combat across the fields of Europe, equipped with all the marvels of destruction that modern science has been able to produce.

A Generation Gone Mad

What do all these things mean? It is not difficult to tell. The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill said, in 1912: “No one can measure the consequences of a general war. The original cause would soon be lost in the greater and more terrible issues which would be raised. No one can say that there is any great power which would not be involved in such a cataclysm. No one can say there is any institution in Europe which would certainly be left standing at its close. All might be cast into the abyss, and in the destruction of a few weeks or months, injury might be wrought to the fabric of our economic and social life which would plunge it back almost into the desolation and barbarism of the Middle Ages. And the only epitaph to write upon such a catastrophe would be that this whole generation of men went mad and tore themselves to pieces.”

A Power for Protection

Surely a fearful picture, and one that bids fair to be realized. But we can abide in the assurance that the gospel remains “the power of God unto salvation” to every one that believes. And we can heed the word of God, which not only shows us these things beforehand, but can make us strong in troubled times. And as we learn to lean upon God and His word, we may have the full assurance that some day, in the earth renewed, the council of peace will again prevail.