The Meaning by C. S. Longacre

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 6, 1907

The Meaning

By C. S. Longacre

THE PRICE OF THE WORLD'S PEACE—$1,389,859,374.

(Continued.)

The Meaning.

But what does all this preparation for war mean? The answer of all the nations is: The great preparations for war are to insure peace and maintain it. But the holy prophets prophesied that "the spirits of devils" should go forth with the deceptive "doctrines of devils," "in the latter days," "unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Yet the holy prophets declared that the nations, on the very eve of the last great battle of earth, will teach the people, saying, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace." Paul declared that "when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them." And this false peace cry is to be

an unmistakable sign of the near approach of "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. 5: 1-3.

Armed Peace That Is Purchased Yearly at the price of billions, and maintained by the power of dynamite and thru rival aggression in gigantic war preparations, is a false, carnal peace, and can not last long. The affairs of the world, in all phases of operation, are reaching an unavoidable crisis. Unsurpassed trouble, distress, and perplexity are coming to the nations of earth and its people. Factions and immense combinations of labor, industry, and capital are arraying their forces against each other. The nations are whetting their swords and gnashing the teeth in anger, and the possibility of peace is forever passing away. An intensity of unrest and uncertainty pervades everything.

All Europe is sitting, as it were, over the crater of a mighty volcano that is quaking and heaving and ready to belch forth and produce the greatest convulsion and death-struggle among nations the world has ever seen. Never in the history of the world, were the nations equipped with such costly, mighty, death-dealing, and terribly destructive missiles for warfare; and when the war-demons are once let loose for concerted action, there will be no pause till earth's thrones topple and fall and the earth is strewn with the slain and refuses to cover them any more. Then the satanic hosts are left alone on the field of battle to behold for a thousand years the awful wreck of nations and the desolation of the whole earth.

All the diplomatic policies and schemes to avoid this calamitous catastrophe of nations will come to naught. While they are spending more than a billion a year to keep the European nations apart, all the powers are going into bankruptcy. France is illustrating this by earning $640,000,000 a year and spending $710,000,000 in the same period, which has already accumulated a national debt of $6,000,000,000. Instead of beating the sword into the plowshare, our own nation appropriated $165,000,000 last year to beat the plowshare into armor-plate and various deadly implements for war purposes.

Some day a blundering diplomat will hurl a political bomb into the powder magazine of nations, set the world afame, and bring about the terrible crisis that will involve all the nations of earth in the most bloody and calamitous conflict of the ages. There is nothing plainer than this to the observant eye, and this is exactly what the Bible says concerning the conditions and the wind-up of this world's history. The prophet Daniel in holy vision pictures the outcome thus: "And at that time shall Michael [Christ] stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble; such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Dan. 12: 1.

Thus will end the history of this sin-cursed earth. For the unprepared there is pictured a fearful end; for the righteous there is portrayed a most glorious beginning with an infinity of days and unalloyed joys. May the promises of God concerning the faithful, cause a bright star of hope to spring up in the hearts of some sin-despairing souls; for there is still mercy with God. But soon the great Ledger in heaven will fold its lids, and if your name is not then written in the Book, you will be forever excluded from the joys and blessings of heaven.

C. S. LONGACRE.