A TIME OF PEACE AND SAFETY.
By S.
This old earth has seen much of sorrow and suffering. Its hills and valleys have often been trampled by the feet of angry hosts and reddened with the blood of those whom they hunted with vengeance in their hearts. It has been nation against nation; tribe against tribe; family against family; man against man. And in it all and through it all the cruel hand of sin was working out the purpose of Satan in perverting the blessings of the Most High. He had perverted love till it turned to hate; and his devotees were dispensing ruin and death in the place of the service of love and the benefactions of benevolence. In such the heart had become the citadel of hate when it should have been the stronghold of love; and with that perverted, every imagination of the mind became “only evil continually.” The farthest extreme from the purpose of God is met on the battlefield—on the field where men battle against each other individually as well as on the field where they battle collectively. The purpose of God toward His creatures and in His creatures toward each other is helpfulness and not strife, loving interest and not murder. But the world was full of the perversion of God’s intention anciently; it is full of the same perversion at the present time. He who has not in view another’s good is out of harmony with the purpose of the one who made him; and in the strife for preferment, wealth, and aggrandizement, the present day is probably ahead of any age in the history of the world. The whole world is arming itself now to make its last and greatest demand for self, and to be in a condition to enforce that demand. The rumors of war and the expectation of war are existent on every hand; and soon will come the day when this greatest perversion of the purpose of God will make itself manifest in all the horrors of its glory as the world has never seen it before. The time is ripe for the exhibition, and the hearts of men are filled with dread as they realize the meaning of the terrible omens. Some are crying “peace and safety” when they should be warning men of the true condition of things. They are making men believe that peace is at hand when the heralds of war are already calling to the fray or aiming their modern catapults at the citadel itself. Thus does the false teacher disarm the victims at the time of greatest danger. He who expects no foe is doubly disarmed; and the one who has been taught to expect peace and safety and a long reign of quietness and temporal blessings, when the day of destruction is hastening to his very gate, will find that swift judgment has come upon him and his shelter is unprepared. The Lord says that sudden destruction shall come upon them and “they shall not escape.” 1 Thess. 5:3. That cry of “peace and safety” is heard now, at the very time when the nations are angry and are sparring for an opening, maneuvering for an opportunity to strike when the other is at a disadvantage. The fact that that cry is heard now is one of the most unmistakable signs of the times. When the angels that are now holding the winds of strife shall cease longer to restrain the angry nations, the day toward which the nations look with dread will dawn upon the world, and the sad course which began in disobedience and sin will find the goal toward which it has sped these thousands of years, ruin and death. We see what has come upon the world in the past; we see the end toward which it points; we see the dogs of war now straining at the leash that holds them; we see the fearful carnage that is coming and coming soon; we see the approach of the great day of God which that terrible work will usher in; and yet, in spite of all this, we can say that there is coming a time of peace and safety. The end of this history of sin is not the end of God or His purpose concerning man and the earth on which He placed him. Tho God has waited long for Satan to demonstrate to the universe the falsity of his charges against God and the wickedness of his purposes throughout, the fruit of his evil work will not go on forever, and the end of the reign of sin is not the end for those who have sworn fealty to the God of heaven and stood faithful to their vows. God has something better for them; and wars and rumors of wars will trouble them no more when He has made an end of sin. The Lord has told us of that permanent habitation, that quiet, peaceful habitation, in which He will place that tabernacle which shall not be taken down; and of that place He says: “But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.” Isa. 33:20, 21. The galley with oars and the gallant ships were ships of war. How much sad history has gone down in the wrecked or sunken war galleys, with the bodies and souls of men chained to their oar-locks, slaves for life in the terrible business of war and oppression. The rivers as well as the seas have been plowed by these engines of destruction, and human life has been counted as nothing when it stood in the way of the plans of ambitious men, or when it could be forced to contribute to the carrying out of those plans. There will be no place for them in the reconstruction of the war-racked dominion of man. No slave will be there to cringe under the blows of a cruel master or spend his life in the service of another’s choosing, as anciently they did in the war galleys of greedy nations or in the fields of men who bought them as chattels. “The former things are passed away,” and it can be truly said then that “the nations shall learn war no more,” for then there will be but one nation and Jesus Christ will be king over all. The words of the prophet are, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.” That time is not yet. The declaration that the nations of this present world shall not learn war any more is not the declaration of God, tho it is found in the Bible. It is put there by the Lord as the declaration of men. He tells us what men will be saying, quotes their words, and then tells us what His remnant people will be doing in that time. See Micah 4:1-7. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Gal. 6:7. It is as true of nations as of men. They have sowed hatred and war; they will reap hatred and war. That will be their harvest. As God’s Word is true, the nations of this world will come to their end in war. “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 pruninghooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come.” Joel 3:9-12. That is to be the slogan that will gather the clans of earth to the last mighty fray. They are arming and drilling now, and the gathering is not long to wait. How good to know that we can look beyond this sad prospect: that we have the promise of a quiet, peaceful dwelling from which all selfishness and sin, all misery and hunger, all strife, contention, and war, will be forever banished and come into our thoughts no more! This will be only after God has renovated this sin-cursed earth and allowed sin to burn itself out in the fires that were kindled by itself. Toward that consummation we are hastening now; the shelter is provided. Let us haste to enter in.