Gathering storm clouds presage a fast-approaching struggle that will envelop the entire world in an orgy of destruction; nations to-day are rapidly completing preparations to make the next war the most devastating one in the history of mankind.
John L. Shuler
The huge factories of the world are ready to turn out the munitions of warfare in unprecedented volume when the tocsin sounds.
Among the many changes that the last few years have brought in the conditions of existence, there is one startling change that many have not realized. Destructive science has gone ahead out of all proportion to the power of construction. It is developing so fast that now it actually imperils civilization. Thinking men everywhere recognize that if destructive science remains dominant, it will certainly bring the world to ruin.
While this twentieth century has brought an amazing advance in transportation, communication, education, manufacture, and medicine, it has also brought even a more amazing advance in the production of weapons for wholesale destruction.
A STARTLING COMPARISON
One battleship to-day is more powerful than everything the naval world had produced up to a half century ago. A single modern gun can do far more execution than many whole batteries could do fifty years ago. The armies of one of the great nations of to-day, equipped with the latest improved weapons, could meet all the armies of the world prior to one hundred years ago, and mow them down before they could possibly get close enough to strike a telling blow.
The war appliances with which men fought twenty years ago are for the most part antique relics when compared with the weapons now ready for use. The war appliances of our day are more powerful than all the war appliances of all past ages put together down to the beginning of this twentieth century. Think what a commentary this is on our day, as the day of unprecedented war preparation, exactly as marked out in Joel 3:9, 10.
In this third chapter of Joel we are plainly told that just preceding the gathering of the nations into the valley of judgment, when God will arise to shake terribly the earth, war preparedness will dominate the nations. Mark how strikingly this is now fulfilled before your eyes!
Never since the world began has there been such a spectacle,—the whole world ready for war. Preparation for war is not confined to the great powers of Europe, but every nation in every continent is making enormous efforts to equip itself for the emergency of war.
SCIENTIFIC MEN STIRRED
War preparation constitutes what is actually the greatest industry in the world to-day. It is annually consuming billions of dollars and the service of millions of men. We see now what Joel predicted twenty-seven hundred years ago,—“Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war.” Joel 3:9, A. R. V.
In this preparation for war, the mighty men are to be stirred up. Mark now how the developments of the last few years have disclosed anew the significance of the words, “Stir up the mighty men.” The men of genius, science, and invention have been stirred in recent years as never before to discover and perfect new war appliances for destroying human life. There never was a time when science and invention were being drafted into the discovery of new and more destructive methods of waging war as in our day.
For ages men have fought on land and sea, but it remained for the twentieth century to lift war into the air and to carry it on under the sea. During the last three decades the war-preparedness movement has become so dominant in the world that war preparation has entered the domain of “the four dimensions” within man’s reach. The nations are now prepared to fight on the land, on the sea, in the air, and under the sea. Where else could they fight?
There never was anything like this before. We are witnessing a great race among the nations for supremacy in land armament, sea armament, aerial armament, and submersible armament.
And what does this mean to you and me? Look at the prophecy of Joel and see what it says of the time when this special war-preparedness condition obtains in the world. Hear the prophecy speak three times on this question.
It means that the great day of God is near. (Joel 3:14.) It means that Christ is about to take His seat on His judgment throne, and appear to the world to execute judgment on the nations. (Joel 3:12, 2.) It means that the time is at hand for Christ to appear as the great Reaper to reap the ripened harvest (Joel 3:13), and this is strictly a symbol of the end of the world (Revelation 14:14-20). Thus we are told three times over that this condition of war preparation is a harbinger of the glad day of the return of our Lord.
A WAR-PREPARATION PROPHECY
We should note particularly how these post-war years have brought the fulfillment of this war-preparation prophecy to a superlative degree. The progress of military science since the World War has been literally astounding. There have been amazing improvements in the range, hitting accuracy, and increased size of the projectiles of machine guns, trench mortars, field guns, and big cannon; in the increased bomb-carrying capacity; in speed, cruising radius, and armament of submarines, airplanes, and dirigibles; in the increased destructiveness and hitting accuracy of aerial bombs; in the increased speed, armament, cruising radius, mobility, and armaments of tanks; and in the increased destructiveness of chemical warfare.
The improvements in war appliances in recent years above those in use at the beginning12of the Great War have been as great as the invention of cannon was above the ancient artillery of the catapult and stone. It would be useless for us to attempt to give figures on the increased size, range, rapidity of fire, and hitting accuracy of guns, or the increased death-dealing power of battleships, cruisers, submarines, aircraft, or tanks, because before this would get into print it would be outdone by something still larger. Military science is advancing so quickly from one stage to another that the mind is dazed in keeping up with the swift advancement.
Some of the new and terrible weapons that will be ready in case of a new war are: aerial torpedoes; radio control of submarine torpedoes and bombing planes; armored superairplanes; soundless cannon; machine guns shooting 2,400 bullets a minute; flash lights of a million candle power; liquid poison, three drops of which will kill on contact; illuminating projectiles to light vast areas at night; electric apparatus to explode enemy ammunition stores far behind the lines; aerial bombs and submarine torpedoes of gigantic size; amphibious tanks, capable of crossing lakes, canals, and rivers, or lying submerged in flooded shell holes or ponds; armored supersubmarines; superguns and shells outranging by miles any heretofore in use; new deadly poison gases; a semiautomatic shoulder rifle that fires sixty shots a minute that will practically make every soldier a machine gunner.
These are only a few of the new war appliances of increased destructiveness that the nations now possess. We can easily believe they have more terrible inventions locked and guarded in their arsenals and secret places. No one knows what terrible inventions for destruction are now being secretly prepared in the laboratories and arsenals of the nations.
MERE CHILD’S PLAY
The British Society for Chemical Research in a recent report said: “Everything which happened in the World War in the way of the use of chemicals is mere child’s play compared with what will happen in a future war between industrially and scientifically advanced powers.
“Applied Science has brought aviation to a day when a lone aviator, riding a mother plane, may drive before him through the skylines a covey of death in the shape of pilotless planes. Under gas waves spread by them a great city or an army might be anaesthetized for a day or sent into that sleep that knows no waking. In this winged brood of destruction, radio guided, every plane will be able to drop bombs twenty times as destructive as the largest shell ever hurled from a gun muzzle.”
David Sarnoff, vice president and general manager of the Radio Corporation of America, and an outstanding authority on the possibilities of wireless, recently went so far as to say that, in view of the possible use of wireless in war, some future war would be more destructive and decisive in the first day of its duration than the whole four years of the World War.
He declares: “We know enough to-day about radio control of remote mechanisms (the field of radioteledynamics) to expect that, as development proceeds, unmanned airplanes, surface vessels, submarines, and land tanks, carrying dangerously destructive explosives, poisonous gases, or disease-breeding bacilli, could be aimed at the population centers of the enemy and sent to their destination in shoals.”
FRIGHTFUL FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
The mind is staggered by the frightfulness of these new war appliances. General Mason M. Patrick, chief of the United States Army Air Service, says: “We have developed automatic pilots so that airplanes can be sent off at a predetermined height and made to drop their bombs at a predetermined point. Or they can be maneuvered by radio with no pilot aboard. They may be carried across a continent by dirigibles and then sent forth on combat missions.”—Quoted in the Literary Digest for October 4, 1924.
The recent general assembly of the League of Nations in session. Many had hoped the League would be able to grapple with the war questions in a decisive way; but, as in the present case of the Italo-French deadlock over naval armaments, the League seems quite impotent to deal with Mars.
Just think of the horrors of one of these new wars, with the engines of death and destruction controlled by an invisible human agency, coming out of the clouds, hovering—it may be—over our city, and then letting loose its cyclone of death in destructive bombs or the breath of death in poison gas! Military men declare that no limit can be imposed upon new ideas of attack when war comes again, and they mention as a possibility the paralyzing of an entire nation by a combination of chemicals distributed by radio-controlled airplanes.
All of these things stand as striking evidence of the supreme fulfillment of this last-day prophecy of Joel, which sets forth the feverish activity of men in forging weapons for world conflict. In the manufacture of tanks for war, we have a striking example of the beating of plowshares into swords, for the tank is but a farm tractor dressed up and equipped for battle. Nahum 2:3, 4 declares that in the day of preparation “the chariots are with fire of steel [margin, A. R. V.]. . . . The appearance of them is like torches; they run like the lightnings.” Such language might well be used in reference to armored motor cars or armored tanks.
In view of the fact that scientists are inventing weapons of destruction beyond theThirteencomprehension of those who fought in the World War, men are now saying that the next war will be as much worse than this recent world conflict as that transcended every previous conflict of the nations.
“RESTFUL BY COMPARISON”
The editor of the Scientific American recently expressed his belief that “the future war will be so horrible as to make the late war restful by comparison. Short as it will inevitably be, it will last long enough to wipe out mankind at a rate which will turn many a flourishing capital into a deserted village, and many a fair campagna into a Sahara of lifeless desolation.”
General Bliss of the United States Army says, “The destructiveness of the next war would surpass human imagination.” David Lloyd George of England declares that another world war would wreck civilization, and this world would be driven, “not to the condition of the Middle or Dark Ages, but to something which the world has never conceived of in its most imaginative moment.”
Bible prophecy does not indicate that the next world war will result in the Armageddon of the Apocalypse. Prophecy does plainly show, however, that the worst war that has ever been in the history of nations—the war of the great day of God—is impending to-day. Is it not very significant that at such a time men of the world are saying that the next war will be as much worse than the World War as that was above any that preceded it?
These men made these statements without any knowledge of or any reference to the Scriptural forecast of Armageddon. They made them on the basis of developments in the war appliances of this day. Surely here is a striking indication that the stage is being set to-day for that final war of Scripture prophecy.
The prophetic outline of the proportions and resultant destruction of that coming, final, colossal struggle at Armageddon more than meets what men of the world are now saying relative to the extent and results of the next war. As we study further, we shall see a foregleam of that coming colossal struggle, not only in the forging of these new weapons of destruction, but prophecy will show how the nations are now lining up for the last conflict.
(To be continued)
TWICE-BORN MEN
By Allen Walker
The Necessity of the New Birth
ALLEN WALKER
Paul fervently proclaimed the necessity of the new birth.
The depravity of human nature makes the new birth a necessity to salvation. So long as the tree is corrupt, the fruit will be evil. Man has no control over this nature any more than the tree has control over the kind of fruit it bears. The fruit will be regulated by the nature of the tree.
The most hopeless thing a person could undertake is to produce “the fruit of the Spirit” while still in a carnal and unregenerate state. The impossibility of such an undertaking is set forth in Jeremiah 13:23 in the following challenging language: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” The reason why the leopard cannot change his spots or the man his color is that they have no control over the law of nature that imparted the spots or the color. Only a divine miracle could remove the spots and change the color. The reason a man cannot make himself good or order his conduct aright is that the law of nature which makes him inherently bad and the fruits of conduct evil is just as uncontrollable as the law that imparts to the man his color and to the leopard his spots. Only a divine miracle can alter the situation and transform the nature.
UNREGENERATE NATURE
Speaking of the time when he was “in the flesh” (Romans 7:5), or controlled by the impulses of unregenerate nature, Paul said, “That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do.” Again, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Romans 7:15, 19. This shows that there is no such thing as mind control of the unregenerate nature. The strongest resolutions and determinations or exertions of will power can never hold in check the impulses of the unconverted state. “O Lord,” says the prophet, “I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23. Man is not only incapable of cleansing himself from the pollutions of the past. “Though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God.” Jeremiah 2:22. Man may boast that he is “self-made” and speak of his “self-improvement,” but could he at that moment see himself as God sees him, he would, like the ancient lepers, cry out, “Unclean, unclean.” There are many who are priding themselves on their good health, when a diagnosis would reveal that some internal malady (of which they are entirely ignorant) will soon send them to the grave. In a spiritual sense this is true of multitudes.
FRUITS ACCORDING TO NATURE
When Jesus said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” He was speaking of the law of nature. What He meant was that “like produces like.” Or, as taught in the first chapter of Genesis, each is to “bring forth” “after his kind.” In the first birth there is imparted to us a nature that is poisoned with the seeds of sin. This nature is corrupt and its fruits are evil. In the second birth the same law works. In the second birth, when we are “born of the Spirit,” there is the impartation of a nature that is divine because the Holy Spirit, which produces this nature, is divine. As in the first birth we become partakers of the nature of our parents, so in the second birth we become “partakers of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:4. Then the fruits of this new nature will be “the fruit of the Spirit.” There can be no such thing as a physical life without a physical birth. There can be no such thing as a spiritual life without a spiritual birth. The first birth is of blood, of the will of the flesh, of man, but those of the second birth are born of God. (John 1:13.) Just as our earthly father imparts to us his nature, so does our heavenly Father supernaturally impart to us His divine nature. It is a miracle of grace, which is supernatural and beyond the comprehension of the human mind.
Just when does this miracle occur? It occurs at the moment the individual receives Christ into the heart. There has never been a conversion apart from the receiving of Christ into the life. In John 1:12, 13 we find that “as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Then to believe on His name is to receive Him; and when this occurs, the miracle of regeneration takes place. At the instant of this miracle there may be no extreme emotional sensations, but there does come real faith in Christ followed by “joy and peace in believing.” Romans 15:13.
The Safety of Surrender
There is a measure of safety in intrusting ourselves to a good physician. He may discover conditions in us of which we are unaware; he may treat those conditions successfully; often he will bring us out of sickness into health. Suppose we found a human doctor who did this not only sometimes, but always; who never in a single case failed; who brought every patient he ever had into full health: should we count ourselves fortunate if he was willing to take us in charge? There is no such human physician; but there is such a divine Physician. He has never lost a case intrusted to Him, and left wholly in His hands. He has never failed; He cannot fail. This is the One to whom we are asked to surrender our lives. Is it a dangerous move for us to make? Is it a hardship, is it asking a good deal of us when God urges us to trust ourselves wholly to His Son?
Frances Ridley Havergal, who knew this Great Physician better than most of her generation, is quoted in the Keswick Calendar in a letter to a friend: “How infinitely blessed it is to be entirely Christ’s. To think that you and I are never to have another care or another fear, but that Jesus has undertaken simply everything for us!” That is the meaning of surrender.—Sunday School Times.
EXPLORING YOUR BIBLE
By Rose E. Boose
with the guidance of an expert Bible teacher
Miss ROSE E. BOOSE
Promises Concerning the Coming Kingdom
The beauties and glories of the new earth, which is to be the home of the redeemed throughout eternity, were presented in the last Bible study. To-day we will take a brief review of the promises that God has given in His holy word of this coming kingdom.
You have read of the original plan of God that this earth was to be a perfect home for man. (Isaiah 45:18.) The entrance of sin thwarted this original plan; but the price paid on Calvary made completion of it possible. Therefore, through the ancient prophets, God renewed His promise that man “shall inherit the earth” and have dominion over it.
To Abraham God said: “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” Genesis 13:14-17. Again: “He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.” Genesis 15:5, 6. Read also Genesis 17:5-8.
TWO PROMISES MADE
This promise should not be confused with the other promise to Abraham given in Genesis 15:13-21, where the very boundary is fixed to designate the earthly Canaan and the very time of the possession of that land is made very clear, even in “the fourth generation.”
The New Testament comments on the first and larger promise of Genesis 13, later repeated in chapter 17, in these words: “The promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Romans 4:13.
Abraham understood what the promise of God included, and lived as a pilgrim and a stranger upon earth, joyfully waiting for the inheritance of the new earth. This is made very clear in Hebrews 11, where we read: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. . . . By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. . . . These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. . . . They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.” Hebrews 11:8-16.
PROMISE NOT YET FULFILLED
That promise is not yet fulfilled. Abraham never received the smallest part of this promised inheritance while he was upon this earth, for Stephen said, in speaking of God’s promise to Abraham, “He gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on.” Acts 7:5. Yet Abraham was not disappointed, because he understood the broader application of the promise, that it included the restored kingdom of the new earth.
Paul dwells much on this point in his inspired writings. He says: “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:27, 29. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.” Romans 8:14, 17.
To David God said: “I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. . . . And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever.” 2 Samuel 7:12-16. Later this promise was confirmed with an oath: “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing, that is gone out of My lips. Once have I sworn by My holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me.” Psalm 89:34-36.
The immediate seed of David proved untrue to this high privilege. God told very definitely what would happen if they departed from His commandments, and, although He bore long and patiently with them, the time came when, through Ezekiel, a message of rejection was sent in these words: “Thou, profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown. . . . I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.” Ezekiel 21:25-27.
CHRIST’S COMING ANNOUNCED
The coming of the One “whose right it is” was announced to the virgin of Nazareth in these words: “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:32, 33. Here is the “Seed of Abraham;” the “Son14of David;” the “Son of God.” The seed has been manifested, the kingdom made sure, and “when the Son of man shall come in His glory, . . . then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” Matthew 25:31. When He comes, it will be said, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever.” Revelation 11:15. Then “shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” Daniel 2:44. “The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.” Daniel 7:18.
The restoration of the kingdom, through the plan of redemption, has been the theme of the Scriptures in all ages; the anticipation of its accomplishment, the joy of all the holy prophets and saints.
It is well to remember that there are two phases of the kingdom of Christ. They are the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory. The kingdom of glory you have just read about is still future, and is the eternal reign of Christ upon this earth in its renewed state. What, then, is the kingdom of grace?
John the Baptist announced this kingdom when he preached, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2. The same message was preached by Christ (Matthew 4:17) and the disciples (Matthew 10:7). When the Pharisees asked “when the kingdom of God should come,” Jesus answered: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: . . . the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20, 21.
CHRIST IS REIGNING NOW
To-day Jesus desires to establish His kingdom in the heart, and He says to all: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.” Revelation 3:20. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (Ephesians 3:17) is still the purpose of the gospel. When the door is open and Jesus comes in, then will be realized in each individual life the purpose of the prayer, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10.
Christ is reigning now upon the throne of grace. (Hebrews 4:14-16.) The gospel invitation is still sounding to “come boldly unto the throne of grace,” and “obtain mercy” and pardon for sins. This is the kingdom likened unto “a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.” Matthew 13:47-50.
During this reign of grace all who respond to the gospel of salvation are called from sin and allegiance to Satan into the glorious liberty of the sons of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. There could be no kingdom of glory without the preparatory work of the kingdom of grace.
Soon, very soon, the kingdom of grace will be superseded by the kingdom of glory, and again a message is to go to the ends of the earth to “prepare the way of the Lord.” It is stated that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Matthew 24:14. This is the mission of the church of Christ to-day.
The Gift of Gratitude
By Grenville Kleiser
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Count your blessings every day;
Gratitude will smooth the way.
Sunshine which the morning sends,
Love of family and friends;
Food and raiment for your need,
Hands to do a kindly deed;
Work to fill the day with joy,
Good that has no base alloy;
Letters that bring dear ones near,
Flowers to impart love and cheer;
Peace that bids unrest be still,
Will to do God’s perfect will;
Patience when the hours are long,
Words to comfort and make strong;
Time to exercise and play,
Wisdom that knows what to say;
Books that rest and solace give,
Truth to show you how to live;
Faith to banish doubt and dread,
Light to see the best ahead;
Strength to do an irksome task,
Smiles that discontent unmask;
Hope to vanquish needless fear,
Power to summon courage here;
Means to generously share,
Spirit to endure and dare;
Knowledge of God’s righteous laws,
Zeal to serve a worthy cause;
Prayer to guide and safely keep,
Rest from night’s refreshing sleep.
Count your blessings every day;
Gratitude will smooth the way.
