THE HIGH COURT OF NATIONS.
By S.
A writer declares, in the Union Signal of May 9, that there is no great advance movement of to-day which “Christians and reformers can so heartily indorse as the great movement for international peace and arbitration.” Now, the Christian is for peace, as between man and man, nation and nation, always and everywhere. The true Christian’s voice is never heard clamoring for war anywhere or under any conditions—except war against sin, and that not with carnal weapons. I repeat that the Christian has no desire for anything but peace and righteousness, love and kindness; and yet the Christian, the one who believes the Bible, has nothing to hope for from the “peace and safety” movement of the present day. That Book tells him that wars and rumors of wars, discord, strife, deception, lack of natural affection, disasters, distress of nations with perplexity, are to continue up to the time that Christ shall appear in the clouds of heaven. So, then, tho the Christian desires peace, desires to see the last relic of war obliterated from the earth, he knows that it can not be until after Christ has come and given the sin-cursed earth, with all its wickedness, over to the purifying flames of that great day. Speaking of the International Court of Arbitration established at The Hague, this writer says that the crystallization of this peace idea “seems to presage at once the dawn of the new era prophesied of old, when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, when men shall learn war no more, and the Prince of Peace shall rule in righteousness over a redeemed world.” This would be a happy dream if it were so; but it is not. It is another sample of a hasty reading of an important scripture, and putting into it a meaning which is not there. The Lord has not declared that the nations shall learn war no more. The Lord has not declared that they shall beat their swords into plowshares, nor that they shall beat their spears into pruning-hooks. Some one has declared it; but it was not God. In fact, the declaration itself is a sign that we are in the last days of this earth’s history. The scripture referred to is the second chapter of Isaiah. The second verse declares that it applies “in the last days.” Verse 3 states that “many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,” etc.; and in verse 4 these same “many people” are declaring, on their own authority, what they think is going to occur. They say that the Lord shall rebuke many people, and that those people shall “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks;” that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” All this is what the people are declaring. They were to declare it “in the last days,” according to verse 2. They are declaring it now. Therefore we are “in the last days,” but the most deplorable part of the blindness is that they are taking what they themselves are saying, which the Lord Himself has not said, and are declaring it to be the Word of God specified for our instruction. God has told us that “in the last days” the people would be saying these things. Now these people take God’s prediction concerning them, and declare it to be what the Lord is saying, when the Lord has not said it. How must Satan gloat over such a perversion of the Word of God? But if the Lord did not say that, what did He say concerning these times? We have a record of what the Lord Himself has said concerning what should take place in the last days when He would be preparing to judge the nations, and here it is:—“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. . . . Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great.” Joel 3:9-13. Now put together these two declarations. The people are to say in the last days that the nations shall beat their implements of war into implements of peace, and that they shall not any more take up arms against one another. The Lord says that they shall prepare war; that they shall wake up their mighty men; that they shall gather their men of war together; that they shall beat their implements of peace into implements of war; that this spirit of preparing for war shall not be confined to the great civilized nations, but that the heathen, or the uncivilized, in all parts of the world, will be imbued with the same spirit; and He further declares that the work of preparation for war is really the preparation for the great harvest of the world. Whom shall we believe? Men (and women) are declaring one thing; God is declaring an opposite thing. Now, which is true? Is it peace, or is it war? There is no escaping the alternative. It is one or the other, and which is it? The proposition, simmered down, is simply this: Is God’s Word true, or is it not? If it is true, then the international arbitration tribunals can never bring peace to this present world. The nations are doing now just what the Lord said they would do. They are straining every nerve to “prepare war” and gather together their men of war. The laborer is compelled now, not only to earn his bread by the sweat of his face, but in the sweat of his face to pour the fruits of his toil into the coffers of the war-mad nations. They are preparing for war, and not for peace. But what does the Lord say of those who shall be crying peace and safety in these times?—“When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them; . . . and they shall not escape.” 1 Thess. 5:3. It is a dreadful thing to be proclaiming a message which the Lord declares is not true. It is a dreadful thing to be doing that, when the Lord declares that they who do it “shall not escape” destruction. There will be no peace in this world until Christ reigns over it in righteousness, reigns over it in person. He will not do that until it has been purified by fire, and all the wickedness and the wicked burned out of it. See Malachi 4 and 2 Peter 3: 10-13. Let us, then, not be deceived by the cry of “peace and safety,” nor join in the deception by proclaiming it ourselves.