SPIRITS OF DEMONS

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 8, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 35.

SPIRITS OF DEMONS

IN THE FIELD OF WAR

This Unexpected and Unnatural Tempest of Strife What Is the Power That Drives Men in Spite of Themselves into Such Barbaric Butcheries?

THERE has been much talk, during the last twenty-five years, about war in Europe; but many of our earnest peace advocates have believed that it could be averted, and that our civilization would warrant us in affirming that we would now have universal peace.

Hence when this war came so suddenly, it was like a slap in the face from a friend. It was not only unexpected, but it seemed shamefully out of place.

ARDENT EFFORTS FOR PEACE

Some of the leading advocates of peace, like our president, Mr. Wilson, and the secretary of state, Mr. Bryan, together with Dr. David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, and President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard, have been not only sincere but intensely earnest in their work. They have not only caricatured the gruesomeness and the cruelties of war, but they have presented in a strong light the absurdities of civilized men taking up the sword like barbarians to butcher one another.

We have several hundred peace societies, some of them international in their character; and leading men, like the ones mentioned above, in various nations, have been ardently working for peace. Hence there has been created a public sentiment against war; and when this war broke out in Europe, leaders in all these various nations hastened to apologize for it, and to try to throw the blame away from themselves. All the nations engaged in this Titanic strife claim to have a Christian civilization, and the Christian religion is held to be dominant within their domains. Thus from every standpoint, this war is not only the most unnatural, but the most abnormal thing that has occurred in the history of the world.

RUSSIAN CAVALRY CHARGING THROUGH THE WATER

DELEGATES TO PEACE CONFERENCE DAZED

The new Church Peace Union, recently established by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, was to have held a meeting in Constance, Germany, commencing August 2. Leading doctors of divinity were assembling in that place from the various countries of the civilized world; but war had already broken out, and they had to break up their meeting and hasten away. Documents sent out by the Federation of Churches would indicate that those men were dazed by this sudden outbreak of war. They were not expecting it. They were hoping for peace, instead, and had been not only hoping, but talking, that we would have peace—that powerful influences in the church and in society generally, would hold the war spirit in bounds.

SLAUGHTERING BY MACHINERY

But we have this war, with all of its appalling and gruesome slaughter. We have civilized men on the field of battle, mowing one another down by the modern machinery of war. For men are no longer killed in battle by any kind of hand-to-hand struggle, or by any kind of hand work, as formerly, but ponderous machines are made to slaughter scores of men at a single stroke.

France has in her equipment a death-dealing apparatus, an armored train, having mounted rapid-fire guns on revolving bases. The special steel cars in which troops are carried, are equipped with hand-rails on the roof, making it a convenient vantage-point for sharpshooters. One of these cars next to the engine has an extensible conning-tower, from which an officer can take observations and direct the fire.

One incident reported in this war tells of a shell that exploded among some fifteen women who had been driven from their homes by artillery fire, and every one of them was killed. Other instances are mentioned where this modern machinery of slaughter destroyed whole regiments of men in a few minutes.

These men who are fighting belong to the great nations that are leading in civilization, science, art, and all the other things that go with the blessings of peace. These men, as they went into their battles, were blessed and prayed for by other men who are wearing the insignia of the Prince of peace.

WHY ALL THIS ABSURD CONTRADICTION OF PEACE AND WAR?

Why all this worse than absurd contradiction between the actual conditions, and what we would naturally expect from the teachings and from what we had thought to be the morality of these times?

The good old Book has made the explanation of it perfectly clear, if we are willing to accept its teaching. Jehovah of hosts tells us what we may expect in these times. One among many of these plain Bible texts follows: "And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, as it were frogs: for they are spirits of demons, working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. (Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.) And they gathered them together into the place which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon." Rev. 16: 13–16.

There is nothing difficult in the foregoing passage of Scripture. All we need do is to observe carefully just what it says. It states, in language that a child may understand, that unclean spirits, the spirits of demons, work signs as they go forth to "the kings of the whole world" to gather them to the war of the great day of God.

THE SPIRITS OF DEMONS ARE DOING IT

This text shows that when the great day of God is imminent, there will be a universal war, and that the spirits of demons, in spite of the heroic efforts of good men, through whom God is working, will inflame the leaders in all the nations with the diabolical spirit of hatred and of war.

MISCHIEVOUS INFLUENCES WORKING

Some of the great men who have had to meet these conditions in their councils of state have felt this unseen and diabolical influence that is working. No longer ago than November 27, 1911, Sir Edward Grey, one of England's greatest statesmen, addressed the House of Commons on the "relations of Great Britain and Germany." There was a big stir then, and many were alarmed for fear that these two powerful nations would go to war—nations that have a common Christianity, nations whose rulers are closely related by the ties of blood. Under those circumstances and at that time, Sir Edward Grey said:

"It is really as if, in the atmosphere of the world, there were some mischievous influence at work which troubles and excites every part of it. We are passing, this year, through a period of excitement; it is so still. Some countries are in revolution, others are at war; and in several countries which are neither in revolution nor at war, there are people who seem to delight in discussing how near they have been, or are, or are likely to be, either to revolution or to war in the past, the present, or the future. Really it is as if the world were indulging in a fit of political alcoholism, and the best that can be done by those of us who are in positions of responsibility is to keep cool and sober."

SIR EDWARD'S STATEMENT AND THE PROPHECY

Place this statement of Sir Edward's beside the words of Scripture. The Book says that the spirits of demons would go to the kings of the earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God Almighty. Sir Edward had stood for peace. His nation had stood for peace. Germany had stood just as strongly for peace. And regardless of some of the things that are said by excitable writers, Germany's emperor has been laudably ambitious that his reign should be characterized by a period of peace, of great growth in his nation, and of industrial and scientific as well as political prosperity.

But regardless of these sentiments among these strong men, the war spirit has risen higher and higher. There has been a malevolent influence at work, largely through the commercial organizations that would profit by the manufacture of the munitions of war; and these influences have ridden, in their gory chariots, over the sentiments of kings and emperors, and have dragged the world into the high fever that produces war hysteria.

The Book says that the spirits of demons would go to the kings of the earth, to excite them to war. Sir Edward Grey, who had been in the center of this combat, tells us that "it is really as if, in the atmosphere of the world, there were some mischievous influence at work," and furthermore, it is really "as if the world were indulging in a fit of political alcoholism."

How strikingly do these expressions of England's great statesman coincide with the words of Scripture! And how strikingly are the facts in the world in harmony with what the Book says! If we are willing to be guided by God's book, there will be no perplexities for us in this time, for that book makes the meaning of the conditions in the world perfectly clear.

STRIFE WILL BE HELD IN BOUNDS

As we have pointed out in a recent issue, God has a mighty work to do, in giving the gospel of His eternal kingdom, and of the soon coming of His Son, to every one of the inhabitants of earth. Hence He is holding in check these terrible conditions of strife. And while He may allow this spirit of war to break out as it has done now in Europe, yet He will restrain it. This war will be brought to an end, and, in all probability, before a great while; but it should be an everlasting object-lesson to the men of this earth that the spirit of war, and not the spirit of peace, is that which characterizes the inhabitants of our planet.

We will continue to have these rumblings and mutterings of strife. We may have brief outbreaks such as the awful one now in progress, as well as many lesser ones, all to show the inhabitants of the world the true condition of things, and to call their attention to the words of Him who knows the end from the beginning.

But in just a little while from now the great Armageddon itself will break, which is the last great war, and that will be terminated by the second coming of Christ. And every one who is following God's word, as it shows the meaning of unfolding events, and who is prepared for the issue of that great day, will enter into the indescribable peace of eternity.

"### Spirits of Demons in the Fields of War"

(Continued from page 2)

If we look to the conditions on earth, everything is dark and gloomy. These conditions are not what God has made them; but as shown in the scripture quoted, they are stirred up by the spirits of demons. Let it be emphasized, God does not create these conditions; but being able to read the future with perfect accuracy, He knew that these things would exist, and has foretold them, and has also given His promise that His Son would come to save us from their perils and their terrors. Our hearts may be made sad by the wickedness, the suffering, and the anguish that we see around us; but they will be made to leap with joy as we look forward to that glorious day when the great Prince of peace will come to put an end forever to strife, and to give every one of His waiting children a home with Him amid the indescribable splendors of eternity.

Where are we standing to-day? Where will we stand then? Let us decide to stand with God now, so that we may be made immortal at that splendid time.