Said the Master: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matt. 24:6–8.
The largest gun ever built, now being completed at Watervliet Arsenal.
There, in the plainest language, stand the imperishable words of our Lord. “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars,” He says. And He adds further that “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” There is no intimation in these words of Scripture that this present world will ever be free from war. Neither is there any promise in all the divine Book that this world, made up as it is of sinful men, can ever settle down to the enjoyments of peace. It will be filled with bloody wars till time shall close.
The Lord could see in advance what would take place in this world, and He has plainly written its history beforehand. Not only would the world hear of “wars and rumors of wars,” as we are informed by the words of prophecy, but it is also stated that “the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” Rev. 11:18.
Thus there comes a time when the simple statement that “ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars” is not strong enough to express the actual situation. And so the Lord tells us that the “nations were angry.” This language would indicate a spirit of war that is intense in the extreme. And anyone needs only to read the foregoing text from the book of Revelation to see that it brings to view “the time of the dead, that they should be judged,” and that it is at the time of the judgment day when the “nations are angry.”
The prophet Jeremiah had a view of the military scenes among the “angry nations” at the time of the judgment, for he says: “My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I can not hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled. Suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.” Jer. 4:19, 20.
Here is a scene of warfare described by the prophet, such as the world has never beheld. As his vision opens to him this clashing of arms, he says, “My heart maketh a noise in me.” The sight of the terrible battle that is here passing before him is no ordinary warfare. As he views the horrible carnage and destruction, it is such that his every emotion is heightened to the greatest possible tension. “My heart maketh a noise in me,” says the divine seer. It is only when the most alarming terrors takes possession of one, that every faculty and fiber of the body seems to be a great sounding-board for the heavy drumbeats of the heart.
“I can not hold my peace,” continues the prophet, “because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.” And it is evident that this graphic language is drawn forth by the scenes of war that will be produced by the powerful weapons that are being forged in these last days. For it is added in the following verse that “destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled.”
Then in connection with these judgment-day scenes not only is there to be “destruction,” but “destruction upon destruction.” And note the further expression, “for the whole land is spoiled.” Language that is so powerful in its description of great battle scenes could not be confined in its application to anything found in the past. And it must be very evident to the student of the Word of God that Jeremiah was permitted to view the awful destruction that is to be wrought in that great and final battle of Armageddon.
And when we take into account the weapons of warfare to-day, is it any wonder that such strong language should be drawn from the inspired pen? The great 16½-inch gun that is now being built at the Watervliet Arsenal, and shown in our accompanying illustration, gives some idea of the power and destructiveness of modern arms. This gun is 49 feet long, the diameter of the breech is 5 feet, and it weighs 126 tons. The cost each time it is fired is $1,000. It uses a charge of 1,500 pounds of powder and throws a shell weighing 2,350 pounds a distance of 16 miles. This huge shell is thrown through the air with a velocity of 2,000 feet per second. In going one mile it would require less than three seconds of time. The crushing blow of such a cannon ball may be imagined, but hardly described. This great gun is soon to be mounted in a Gruson turret in the Romer Shoal to guard the entrance to New York harbor. The modern “machine gun” will discharge 400 one-pound balls per minute, and it will shoot 700 rifle balls per minute; the “rapid fire” guns will throw shells weighing in the neighborhood of 250 pounds at the rate of from four to eight per minute; while the six-pounder “rapid fire” guns will shoot as high as forty times per minute.
In this article we have only space to make the merest mention of this wonderful power and effectiveness of some of these guns. But enough is known of the present preparations for war to make the bravest hearts tremble. And what does it all mean? For surely the development in the field of war implements has been alarmingly remarkable within the last few years.
There is an irresistible impression being made upon the minds of men that these unprecedented war preparations portend a great calamity to this world. What it will be they hardly know. But if the Word of God is carefully studied we will find that in the place of a calamity overhanging the world, this battle-cry all over the face of the earth is one of the evidences of the soon coming of Christ. And His coming is a joy to the righteous and a calamity only to those who cling to the evil of their ways. Are you ready for the coming of the Just One? T.
