The Coming Armageddon by Horace G. Franks

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · Jun 14, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 24.

The Coming Armageddon

By Horace G. Franks

Preparing the World's Stage for the Greatest of All Cataclysms

HORACE G. FRANKS

The certainty of another great war is now admitted by many of the foremost thinkers of our day. Moreover Bible prophecy is definite and emphatic upon this point. Armageddon is still future.

The League of Nations was thought by many to be a sure defence against war, but it might very easily turn out to be a fighting League of Nations. Each member is pledged to support every other member, and just as previous alliances between powerful nations have failed to preserve peace, but, rather, have intensified war, just so may this greater alliance between the great nations ultimately prove to be the very cause of a veritable Armageddon.

At the time when the Armistice was signed the whole world was speaking of, and looking forward to, the formation of the League of Nations, but now, as in past times, the impossibility of eradicating war from the earth is gradually dawning upon the majority of thinking people. Says Dr. John R. Mott of present-day conditions:—

We are not through with war yet. All peoples are on their nerves, which are worn and threadbare. The spirit of criticism prevails everywhere. . . . Nations, whether victors or vanquished, are torn and embittered. We have the Bolsheviki, and deep chasms not only exist between nations, but between classes within nations. The people of the world are awaking to the price they must pay. It is a bewildered world, a confused world. This all means an imperilled world. We see everything disintegrating, and that leads to destruction.

God's Picture of Armageddon

No! “we are not through with war yet.” There are Scripture prophecies which not only foretell future strife, but which also delineate the battle-ground and describe the intensity of the coming Armageddon. Referring to the time of the seven last plagues, the outpouring of God's vials of wrath, the prophet John declares:—

The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. . . . And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. Rev. 16:12-16.

In these striking words, “spirits of devils, working miracles,” God's penman hints at the terrors of the war that is to come. The recent Great War was terrible in its intensity and cruel in its methods, and from what it developed and used we can obtain some idea of the weapons of the next. Take poison gas, for instance. Too late for use in the recent conflict, but with its secret formula in readiness for the next, a gas has been compounded “possessing seventy-two times the killing power of the most deadly gas used during the war.” An American general recently described gassing as a “humane method” of warfare, while General Sir Louis Jackson, who was in charge of gas production during the war and Director of Trench Warfare and Supplies, recognised that “there is a great prejudice against the use of gas,” but continues:—

There is, however, no more need to bar the use of gas generally, because certain gases cause unnecessary suffering, than there is to forbid rifles in order to prevent the use of dum-dum bullets. There are gases which can give a quite sudden and painless death, and others, again, which cause death with far less suffering than, say, a shell wound. It is easy to conceive cases in which it would be more humane to use gas than explosive shells.

It is true, of course, that the League of Nations forbids the use of gas in the wars of the future, but military leaders do not seem to have much faith in the prohibition. Indeed, Lieut.-Col. Fuller, Chief General Staff Officer of the Tank Corps, has recently written a book, “Tanks in the Great War,” and gives this strange but terrible forecast of tank and gas warfare in the future:—

Fleets of fast-moving tanks, equipped with tons of liquid gas, against which the enemy will probably have no protection, will cross the frontier, and obliterate every living thing in the fields and farms, the villages and cities of the enemy's country. While life is being swept away along the frontier, fleets of aeroplanes will attack the enemy's great industrial and governing centres. All these attacks will be made against the civil population, in order to compel it to accept the will of the attacker.

London Times
KING GEORGE BIDDING FAREWELL TO HIS AMBASSADOR SON
With Queen Mary behind the King, and Queen Alexandra immediately behind the Prince of Wales — London Times KING GEORGE BIDDING FAREWELL TO HIS AMBASSADOR SON With Queen Mary behind the King, and Queen Alexandra immediately behind the Prince of Wales

Thus it is plain that poison gas on a vast scale is recognised as one of the most potent weapons of the coming war,—a weapon to be used against the civil as well as the military population, and which is to “obliterate every living thing” within its deadly range. This is neither an empty vision nor an ugly dream, but is the solemn forecast of military students and scientific soldiers. Is it, therefore, any wonder that on this interesting subject the editor of the Commercial Appeal writes:—

Compared to the next war, the struggle which has just ended will be as a fight between children is to a struggle between giants.

In the next war, cannon will be used that can accurately hurl shells a distance of forty miles.

Already this estimate has been exceeded, for March last the French Government paid nearly £5,000 for the patent rights of a new long-range gun capable of firing shells a distance of 150 miles, twice as far as the German “Big Bertha” which shelled Paris. To continue our quotation:—

In the next war shells weighing 2,100 lb. will be hurled from these cannon, and their destructive force will be twice as great as that of any shell now manufactured.

This forecast, too, has already been shown out of date. Messrs. Hadfields, Ltd., of Sheffield, are already preparing to produce armour-piercing projectiles weighing 5,600 lb. each, and 21 ins. in diameter. Such monster messengers of death, moreover, could perforate two and one-half feet of hard faced armour at a range of ten miles.

To continue again:—

In the next war a poison gas will be used which can penetrate wool and leather. One drop of this gas on the bare skin of the foot will destroy that member. A whiff of this gas will snuff out the life of him that breathes it. This gas can be hurled in shells, and the contents of one shell will kill everything that is living, animal or vegetable, within the area of five acres and then will spread over other acres and do serious damage.

In the next war the present aeroplanes will be as pygmies to the airships that will be made. These ships will be armoured and will carry high-powered guns. They will carry machine guns and other guns from which will be fired armour-penetrating shells. These aeroplanes can lift containers of poison gas material weighing a ton. When these gas shells are dropped over a fortress, they will destroy every living thing within a four hundred foot radius.

Under such conditions as these, and with such terrible weapons of warfare, leagues and alliances alike will be impotent to prevent, or even check, the passions of war-mad nations. The war that is coming, that lies just ahead, with such satanic contrivances as we have described (and a multitude of others which we cannot even imagine) might well be the fulfilment of the Bible prophecy of Armageddon, with its “spirits of devils, working miracles.” Such a battle will be the climax of war, the grand finale of Satan's evil and deadly campaign. Out of that welter of woe, that medley of misery, that dance of death, God's people—His commandment-keepers—will be saved; they will be sheltered under the wings of the Almighty, translated from such a world of war into the haven of heavenly peace. They who would know what the future has in store for

this world and for those who are faithful to God and His truth should study Joel 3:9-16; I Thess. 4:14-17; Revelation 21 and 22, and kindred scriptures. We are living in the most important, the most serious, and the most solemn period of this world's chequered history. The climax of the ages is fast drawing on. Are you ready for the great and mighty events which the near future will usher in?