IN the Advance, one of Chicago’s leading religious weeklies, for September 24, we find the following paragraph referring to the European war:
“We have called other great wars ‘the Crimean War,’ ‘the Franco-Prussian War,’ and ‘the Civil War.’ But this is the demoniac war. Rulers that we thought were efficient promoters of peace and industry and commerce and culture are acting as if they were possessed by the devil. They are mad; mad because for so long a time they have been gratifying their egotism and selfishness and arrogance. In their insanity they indulge in the most insolent sacrilege. They plan their devilish work and then haughtily declare that they are doing it by the grace and in the favor of God. . . . This demoniac war proves to us that European civilization is superficial. It is but veiled animalism and gilded savagery.”
It must be recognized that in saying the foregoing, the editor of the Advance is stating the facts; and furthermore, it should be added that in harmony with these facts, the word of God specifically informs us that the “spirits of demons, working signs,” will “go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.” Rev. 16:14.
It is well for men to recognize that this war in Europe is a “demoniac war,” but we must also recognize that it is in direct fulfilment of prophecies which foretell the war spirit of this age, and which furthermore clearly foreshadow that the second coming of Christ is very near at hand.
This “demoniac” war is not the real Armageddon. That war is still a little way in the future. This one will be terminated, and there will be a brief period of peace—if we are correct in our interpretation of these prophecies. Some believe that there will be at least one more furious outbreak of war before we finally come to the great Armageddon, which involves the whole world just at the time of the second advent.