The Present War in the Wrong Locality — The Scenes Ahead of Us to Be Turmoil and Strife, and Not Peace — Armageddon Not Far Hence — The Close of Probation and the Second Coming of Christ
By M. N. CAMPBELL
THE ALGERIAN "FIRE-EATERS" OF THE FRENCH ARMY, LEAVING PARIS FOR THE BATTLE-FIELD
FOR some years in the past, the talk of "peace and safety" has been exceedingly popular, and the most optimistic ideas have been heralded over the earth and very generally accepted. We have been assured that war was a thing of the past; that arbitration had taken its place; that "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
The following, taken from an editorial in Shields' Magazine of October, 1909, is a very fair specimen of the views entertained and promulgated of late:
"NO MORE WAR?"
"There is no further doubt of it, no way of disguising the fact. The air-ship has put the battle-ship out of business. The great coast defense guns, the bristling field guns, the thousands of infantry and cavalry small arms, and the hundreds of tons of ammunition stored at the various army posts and arsenals, are simply so much junk. The air-ship, with its possible cargo of dynamite, has made playthings of the world's great navies and fortifications. A one hundred pound can of dynamite, dropped from the clouds, would destroy any Dreadnought ever built or dreamed of, or would wipe a whole regiment of infantry or cavalry off the roster. Armies and navies will be kept hereafter merely for centennials, world's fairs, and for social or official intercourse between nations. War is a thing of the past. Verily, the sword shall be turned into the plowshare, and the rifle into the picket fence."
The fact that every nation has been feverishly preparing for bloody strife did not in the least deter prophets of peace from voicing loud assurances that war would come no more, forgetting the Scripture warning that "when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them."
THE CRASH WAS PREDICTED
Some thoughtful minds, however, were able to discern the true situation, and frankly acknowledged their sentiments. As long ago as 1897, Julian Hawthorne, writing in Collier's Weekly concerning an eruption in the Austrian parliament, said:
"You can not calm the Austrian parliament by remedying the particular trumpery abuses which have exploded there, but only by relieving Europe at large of the political and social evils that have been steadily accumulating for a thousand years past. The pressure announces itself in a hundred different ways, but all of them mean the same thing. It is the irrepressible revolt of man against its oppressors, human and statutory. . . . Sometimes it wears the guise of a strike, sometimes an epidemic of suicides, sometimes of a financial panic. The wise men get together and stop up the holes, and the thing breaks forth in another spot. More and more distinctly every day and year we perceive that good and evil are definitely arraying themselves against each other, and that the battle of Armageddon must come. It is no idle myth of ecclesiastical dogma. This is the hour of compromises and makeshifts, but it is the eleventh hour; the crash can not be much longer delayed."
Just now we are confronted with a state of affairs in Europe that is leading men in all walks of life to inquire, "Is this Armageddon?"
IS ARMAGEDDON IN PROGRESS?
To answer this question intelligently, we must consider what the Bible says on the subject. The term "Armageddon" is used but once in the Scriptures, and is there applied to the place where the armies of the world will assemble just before the struggle described as the "battle of the great day of God Almighty."
Armageddon is located about fifty-five miles north of Jerusalem, and includes within its limits the extended plain of Esdraelon between Mount Carmel and Mount Tabor. The soil of this plain has been stained for ages with the blood of contending armies; and here, where Israelite and Philistine, Egyptian and Assyrian, Roman and Greek, Saracen and Crusader, have fought their sanguinary battles, the armies of the east and the west will meet to fight the last great battle of earth's history. The battle is evidently transferred from Armageddon to Jerusalem. Notice the following on this point:
"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. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. 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 fats overflow: for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Joel 3:9-14.
The valley of Jehoshaphat is just outside of Jerusalem, and here the armed hosts of the nations march from Armageddon to fight the last of all battles.
DAYS OF WAR AND NOT OF PEACE
In this connection it might be well to call attention to the fact that according to the proclamation of the Lord, the last days are to be days of war, bloodshed, and destruction, instead of days of peace and prosperity, as some who misunderstand the prophecies assert. In Isa. 2:4 are presented the things that "many people shall go and say" in the last days:
"And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
This, the statement of "many people" (see verse 3), is the very reverse of what God proclaims. See Joel 3:9 and onward. In late years this prophecy has been fulfilled in the general teaching of "peace and safety."
The battle of Armageddon will take place during the outpouring of the sixth plague, and the circumstances involved are outlined in Rev. 16: 12-16:
"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God 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 He gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon."5
GERMAN BIG GUN IN TRANSIT
THE DOOR OF MERCY WILL BE CLOSED
The seven last plagues are poured out just before Christ returns. The door of mercy is closed to sinners before the plagues begin to fall, for the plagues are declared to be the wrath of God poured out "without mixture into the cup of His indignation." In all previous manifestations of God's wrath, it has been mixed with mercy; but the pouring out of the plagues is "without mixture." The decree has evidently been issued: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: . . . and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Rev. 22: 11.
The seven last plagues consist of severe judgments falling on the finally impenitent. The first is a plague of boils; the second falls on the sea, turning it into a poisonous fluid; the third turns the fresh water into blood; the fourth causes the sun to scorch men with fire; the fifth is a special plague against the Roman apostasy; and the sixth marks the drying up of the Euphrates — a symbolic expression referring to the final destruction of the Turkish dominions — and the gathering of the nations at Armageddon. Under the seventh and last plague, a terrible earthquake shakes the earth, tremendous hailstones fall, and the Lord Jesus returns to the earth, putting an end to the battle and to all else of an earthly nature.
A STRANGE SPIRIT OF WAR LUST
This in brief gives the chronology of the battle of Armageddon. Before this battle is fought, the spirits of devils go out and stir the nations to war. Those spirits have evidently already begun their work. Recent years have witnessed an amazing change on the earth. The most peacefully disposed nations have been seized with a strange spirit of war lust. Untold treasures are sacrificed on the altar of the war Moloch in the way of war preparations.
Sir Edward Grey, speaking of the war spirit in England, said: "I do not say that we are peculiar in this respect at this moment. 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."
This "mischievous influence" of which Sir Edward Grey speaks is none else than the "spirits of devils" referred to in Rev. 16: 14. A writer in the Independent says: "Whatever causes of strife may have been lurking in the minds of the people of Europe, they could not have massed and exploded in this demoniac war without the agency of the head devils."
The "Euphrates" is also "drying up." This evidently refers to the gradual dismemberment of the Turkish empire, ending in its total extinction under the sixth plague. That empire has had one section after another taken from it, until it now stands shorn of Egypt, Rumania, Servia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Crete, and other important provinces. In Europe but little has been left to the Turk as a result of this "drying up" process. The development of the Turkish question is the main issue that leads up to Armageddon.
THE KING OF THE NORTH
In the eleventh chapter of Daniel this same power is brought to view as the "king of the north." Adam Clarke, the eminent Methodist commentator, in his comments on Dan. 11: 44, written in 1825, stated that "it may mean that the Persians on the east and the Russians on the north will at some time greatly embarrass the Ottoman government."
This prediction was fulfilled in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, those two powers instigating that conflict. The next verses, Dan. 11: 45 and 12: 1, 2, continue the prophecy concerning Turkey:
"And he shall plant the tabernacle of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. And at that time shall Michael 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."
This remarkable prophecy is now in process of fulfilment, and probably the present convulsion in Europe will greatly hasten its completion.
TO MOVE TO JERUSALEM
The texts just quoted indicate that the Turk will move his capital from its present location in Constantinople to Jerusalem, which is "between the seas in the glorious holy mountain." It is an interesting fact that the Turks, in anticipation of their early expulsion from Europe, are already looking toward Jerusalem as their future capital.
But the prophet Daniel points to tremendous events that hinge on the establishment of the Turkish capital at Jerusalem.
He makes that event the commencement of the terrible "time of trouble" in which the seven last plagues are poured out and the sinfulness of all the ages develops its horrid harvest of misery and wo. Immediately following this time of trouble, according to this prophecy, comes the resurrection of the dead, the close of this dispensation, and the coming of the King who gathers both living and resurrected saints, and takes them back to heaven to spend the millennium.
INVOLVED IN THIS WAR
The Turkish question, or the Eastern question, as it is commonly called, is involved in the present war. The matter of the ultimate possession of Constantinople was the cause of this outbreak. Russia saw in Austria's declaration of war on Servia a move to subjugate all the Balkan peninsula, and with it Constantinople. Russia has plans of her own in that direction, and as a means of blocking the progress of the Teutons toward Constantinople, declared war.
Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard University, says: "In case of victory, the Russians will certainly demand Constantinople, which means that the Turk will be finally shoved out of Europe. England and France will probably favor that solution of the near Eastern question."
Napoleon Bonaparte, before his death on St. Helena, ventured the prediction that Russia would yet become a great naval power and come into possession of Constantinople, and added, "Then God only knows what will happen." Kossuth said, "In Turkey will be decided the fate of the world."
THE GREAT CLIMAX
These quotations coincide exactly with the prophecies of God's word. It is evident that these are times of great seriousness. The work of God is nearly finished, and ere-long the gathering of the nations at Armageddon will take place. But a greater gathering than that will occur at the same time. It is described in Matt. 24: 30, 31:
"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
While the present convulsions among the nations may subside for a time, it will be but a lull in the storm that is to bring on the final world conflagration.
