| The Everlasting Gospel | September 1941 |
Saved by a Miracle
God’s Remedy for a World Gone Mad
THE remedy for human ills that we will bring to your attention is outlined in the Bible. It seems to he most logical that we should I will bring to your attention this afternoon is one that is outlined in God’s Word, the Bible. It seems to me most logical that we should look to the Book of books, for something upon which to base our hopes at a time when all human plans are failing. Many of the underlying principles of the democratic way of life are rooted in the moral and ethical teachings of Christ. The Ten Commandments given by God to the ancient nation of Israel are the basis of many of our principal laws here in America today.
One of the main things for which the democracies are now struggling is the right to worship the God of the Bible. Despite the spread of paganism in so many parts of the earth, the Bible is, among books, still the best seller. America professes to be a God-fearing nation, and the blessing of the Almighty is invoked on many state occasions, including the inaugurations of our Presidents. We believe, therefore, we will all agree that time could not be better spent than in giving serious consideration to what our God, in the guide Book in which we profess to believe, actually tells us about His world of tomorrow.
Let us then peer into the enlightening pages of the Sacred Book with reverence, and with the belief that in those pages God is actually talking to us and telling of the things He purposes to do for distressed men and women which they cannot do for themselves. Millions throughout the world today are earnestly praying for God to do something, and millions are wondering why He is apparently so indifferent to human needs. The Bible assures us that God is not indifferent, and that He soon will answer the universal prayer of all Christians, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, even as it is in heaven.”
Most of us, no doubt, were taught this prayer when we were children, and many of us have continued to offer it. Today, in the face of the most vicious and powerful attacks ever made upon Christianity, the Bible assures us that God is about to answer His people’s prayer by establishing the Messianic Kingdom of peace and good will throughout all the earth. Thus, out of Christianity’s apparent defeat will come its glorious triumph, when Christ will actually reign from sea to sea and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth.
While the Bible outlines for us in considerable detail the organizational arrangements of the Kingdom of Christ, as they will ultimately become manifested to the people, we will not now take time to discuss these details. We will content ourselves rather with calling attention to some of the results of the divine Kingdom, when it becomes operative in the earth. Let us consider the promises of God’s Word as communiqués from heaven. The first one we wish to read into the record is that brought to us by the Prophet Micah. We quote:
“In the last days, it shall come to pass that … many people, and all nations shall come and say, Let us go up to the mountain (Kingdom) of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it.”—Micah 4:1-4
First of all, in considering this divine communiqué, I want you to notice that the foretold blessings are said to come through the “House” of the Lord. God talks to us in our own language, and by the use of the term ruling house, as applied to His Kingdom, He is telling us that all the former ruling houses of the old world are to be set aside, and that a divine ruling house is to predominate in world affairs.
This language was particularly meaningful at the time the prophecy was first recorded. At that time the world was dominated by ruling families called “houses,” whose right to rule was passed on by heredity from father to son. This order of things continued throughout the centuries, and was still in force in Europe at the time of the outbreak of the first World War. As a result of that war most of the powerful ruling houses of Europe had their governments overthrown, and their places taken by cobblers and house painters. These ruling houses were family arrangements. Just so, God’s ruling house will be a family arrangement. It will be the family of God, made up of His Son, Christ Jesus, and those also who suffer and die with Him in order that they may live and reign with Him, as His joint-heirs in the Kingdom of God. It is this ruling house of the Lord that is to be responsible for the order of things outlined by the Prophet Micah. It will make an end of war, it will establish economic security. It says that nothing will be permitted to make afraid in all that holy Kingdom, not even Hitler.
This is God’s own testimony of how His Kingdom ultimately is to take control of the affairs of mankind. It is not a fairy tale, but a description of that which we should actually expect to take place in answer to our prayers, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” And what a wonderful remedy it will be for the world’s ills! How effectively, indeed, it will solve, for example, the war problem. Note how it reverses the age-old axiom that in order to save peace, the nations must be prepared for war. It starts at the very foundation of the trouble, with a program of education in the arts and advantages of peace. Thus a genuine disarmament program will be put into effect. Then will the promises of God pertaining to Jesus as the “Prince of Peace” be fulfilled. Then will the angelic message of “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” become a reality.
This same promise also declares that then “every man” shall dwell “under his vine and fig tree.” This shows that all the present economic problems of the world are to be solved. How serious, indeed, are these problems! Think of the millions today who are permanently unemployed, and for whom human wisdom seems unable to find a place. This divine promise indicates that in the Kingdom arrangement the bounties of the earth will be made available for all; that economic security will, at last, be attained; for then, the Prophet declares, “None shall molest, nor make afraid,” in all that holy Kingdom.—Micah 4:4; Isaiah 11:9
The problem of poverty is, and always has been, a menacing one to millions. The poor, the under-privileged, have ever been a pathetic group. But these shall no longer constitute an army of forgotten men, as heretofore, but will be considered and blessed. Concerning this, the prophet in another divine communiqué concerning Christ, the new King of earth, says, “He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and them that have no helper (that is, the forgotten man).”—Psalms 72:4-12
Then there is the problem of selfishness. There could never be genuine peace and good will in the earth as long as selfishness plays such an important role in the affairs of men. Thank God, even this problem will be solved through the Messianic Kingdom arrangement. When men are taught the Lord’s ways, it will mean they will learn the value of love as against selfishness. The Prophet Jeremiah in the 31st chapter, 31st to 34th verses, assures us that during that glad day of the Lord’s Kingdom, the law of God, which is a law of love, will be written in the hearts of the people. All, eventually, are to become so well acquainted with the Lord and His ways of love, that none will need to say to his neighbor, Know thou the Lord; for all shall know Him from the least of them unto the greatest.
The religious problem is also to be solved. Today earth’s millions worship a multiplicity of gods and even those who attempt to worship the true God are hopelessly divided into factional groups from which come many conflicting claims and doctrines. All that will be changed, for the promise is that the Lord will “turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent.”—Zeph. 3:9
Finally, and more important than all, there is the major problem of sickness and death. Unless this problem can be solved, mankind would still need to travel through the valley of the shadow of death. In such an event there could not be lasting peace and happiness anywhere. Every otherwise peaceful and happy home would he currently blighted by the dread enemy that now counts its victims by the millions every year, unless this problem is solved.
But Christ, the great solver of human problems, will solve this one also, for during His reign, sickness and death are to be destroyed. The Apostle Paul affirms this, saying that Christ “must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet; and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (I Cor. 15:25,26) Isaiah 25:8, declares also that Christ will swallow up death in victory; and that the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.
And in the solving of the problem of death, none is to be overlooked, for even those who have fallen asleep in death throughout the ages, are to hear the voice of the Son of God and come forth from the tomb. (John 5:28,29) This means that no one will need to lament the fact that Christ’s Kingdom did not come sooner—before their father, mother, or other dear ones died—because these loved ones will be restored to life. The power of the Christ who broke up funerals in Judea more than nineteen centuries ago, simply by raising the dead ones to life, will again be exercised, not on behalf of a limited few, but for the restoration of all the families of the earth.
Another of the divine communiqués in which is forecast the effectiveness of Christ’s Kingdom as a remedy for human ills, refers to earth’s new King as the “Sun of Righteousness,” which is to arise with enlightening and healing effects on behalf of all mankind. What a hope-inspiring illustration this is of divine blessing soon to be realized! Think of the blessed results upon a distressed world as the healing rays of the Sun of Righteousness continue to pour into the sin-sick and wounded hearts and lives of all mankind!
From pole to pole this Sun of Righteousness will shine, and upon every continent and the isles of the sea, the soothing and life-giving powers of that divine light and Life-giver will be felt for good. There will he no unfinished spot nor situation not taken care of by the bright-shining of this Sun of Righteousness, for nothing short of a full east-to-west dispensation of His healing rays can fulfill the Master’s own promise concerning the purpose of His Kingdom.
The enlightening rays of this Sun of Righteousness will fill the earth with a knowledge of the glory of God. This means that all “doctrines of devils,” all nocturnal hallucinations and superstitions, as well as the thousand and one other evils that have plagued the dying world, are to be swept away, and all of this replaced by a true knowledge of God and His righteous laws. With the knowledge of the glory of God thus filling the earth, there will come also the clearing out of all the myriad citadels of sin, vice, and crime. As that glorious Sun of Righteousness forces its enlightening and healing rays into the various dens of iniquity, the satanic darkness of these rendezvous of evil will give place to the glorious enlightenment of the new day.
There will not be a corner any place in the earth where the light from that glorious Sun of Righteousness will not penetrate. The warmth of its healing rays will cheer the slums of our great cities and radiate into the institutions of suffering which we call hospitals. How glad we are for these hospitals today; but how wonderful it will be when the bright-shining of the Sun of Righteousness destroys the evil which makes them necessary. The beds of sickness in the cottages of the poor as well as in the palaces of the rich, will also be reached. Indeed, the distinction between the rich and poor will be dissolved because all will be made rich; for the promise is that there will be a feast of fat things for all people.—Isaiah 25:6
Some may object that this which we have outlined from the Holy Scriptures is too fantastic to be considered as a practical remedy for human ills. You may say that only by a miracle would such a remedy be applied as a cure for the world’s troubles. This is precisely the view we should take! Millions are asking the question today, Why does God not intervene in human affairs? The message of joy we are bringing you here is that according to God’s sacred Word, the time is near when He will intervene and do for mankind what they have utterly failed to do for themselves. Yes, the Lord is soon to become the greatest interventionist of all time. Is this hard to believe? It should not be!
Does not all Christendom profess to believe in a miracle-working Christ? Do we not all believe and preach in our churches that Christ, when He was here in the flesh, gave many demonstrations of His ability to perform miracles? Do we not believe that He healed the sick, raised the dead, and stilled the storm-tossed Sea of Galilee? Do we not profess to believe that this miracle-working Christ was raised from the dead by one of the greatest miracles of all time? Should we, therefore, have any difficulty in believing that this resurrected and divine Christ is still abundantly able to fulfill all glorious promises of God—promises that are made contingent upon His coining and the establishment of His Kingdom?
If we believe in God; if we believe in the Bible as His revelation to us; if we believe in prayer, and have confidence that God will answer our prayers, it is wholly illogical not to believe that He will perform a miracle in order to answer the inspired prayer of His people, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”
God has already performed miracles in order to solve the problems of human suffering. Nearly 2,000 years ago, He sent His Son to redeem men from death. This Jesus did by His own death on Calvary’s cross. When Jesus was crucified, the disciples were bewildered and temporarily lost their confidence that He was indeed the Christ. This was because they didn’t know that His death was a necessary part of the divine remedy to save the world from death. Perhaps, when the disciples saw their Master crucified, they felt like asking what millions today are asking, namely, Why doesn’t God do something about it?
Yes, the Scriptures reveal that the death of Jesus was necessary, and that it actually paid the penalty of death resting against the dying race. This means that it is God’s purpose, through Christ, to destroy death. It means that ultimately mankind will cease to die. It has been declared that one of the war aims of the fighting democracies is to assure men and women of all nations the right to die in bed, rather than be bombed to death from the sky. That’s good; but God’s remedy for a mad world is to be so far-reaching that men and women will not need to die at all.
As Christians, we believe in the miracle of Christ’s First Advent; we believe in the miracle of His birth; we believe in the miracle of the cross; we believe in the miracle of His resurrection. Believing, therefore, in the miracles which made possible Christ’s redemptive work on behalf of mankind, should we not believe that God will complete His miracle-working program in the establishment of the divine Kingdom which is to result in the actual destruction of death, and the raising of the dead? It is utterly unthinkable to suppose that having started this program of miracles for the salvation of a lost race, the Creator of the universe should permit His offensive against death to “bog” down in human sin and selfishness, and therefore be defeated.
Why then, some may ask, Have nineteen centuries passed since the beginning of miracles, without any further manifestation of God’s interest in humanity? The proper answer to this question is one of the keys which unlocks for us the entire testimony of God concerning His purpose toward the children of men. The Scriptures point out that the work of God between the First and Second Advents of the Master, has been merely to select from mankind a little flock, the Church. These have been given the opportunity, by following in the footsteps of Jesus, to prove their worthiness to live and reign with Him when His Kingdom is established. In other words, Christ has not been reigning over the earth during the centuries past, but merely directing the dissemination of the Gospel message so that a few may be reached by it, and be prepared to share with Him in His Kingdom when the prayer, “Thy Kingdom come” is finally answered.
The heavenly, or spiritual promises of the Bible are given to this class who are to live and reign with Christ during the thousand years of His Kingdom. It has been these promises that have encouraged the faithful followers of the Master to lay down their lives in His service. These promises, however, were not given to mankind in general, nor was it the divine intention that the world as a whole should he converted by them. The general thought is that Christ’s Kingdom has in some unexplainable way been operating in the earth since Jesus’ resurrection. It has been claimed that the followers of Christ should convert the world to this Kingdom, and thus establish peace on earth, and good will among men. It is because this attempt to convert the world has so signally failed, that many today are asking if Christianity has failed. Christianity has not failed! Christ has not been trying to convert the world, but merely getting ready for that great work.
Jesus did not expect that when He came the second time, He would find the world converted and ready to voluntarily acclaim Him as King. He explained that at His Second Advent there would be very little faith left upon the earth. (Luke 8:8.) He declared furthermore that this age would end in godlessness and unbelief, culminating in a time of national and international trouble such as never was since there was a nation. (Daniel 12:1; Matt. 24:21,22) Jesus further explained that because of this great trouble, all the tribes of the earth would mourn because of Him.—Matt. 24:30; Luke 21:25,26
It is this mourning that we are now witnessing. The testimony of Jesus concerning the condition that would obtain here upon the earth, shows that He did not expect His Kingdom to be established through human agencies. It shows that He did not propose to consider the Kingdoms of this world as part of His Kingdom. It shows furthermore that Jesus knew what would be the final result of unbridled human selfishness. It shows His foreknowledge of the fact that even the best and most enlightened of human efforts to establish a civilization in which peace and good will would be the common heritage of all, must finally and signally fail. Today we are witnessing this failure of human efforts. They are failing, not because there is no good to be found anywhere in the world, but because evil predominates. But evil will not always predominate. As we have already seen, when Christ becomes King of the whole earth, evil will be destroyed. It will be destroyed because divine influences more powerful than the evil that now rules will be introduced by Jesus, the Prince of Peace and Righteousness.
The success of the true Kingdom of Christ will not depend upon the strength of armaments, on land, in the air, or on the sea. It will not depend upon the thickness of armor plate, nor the tonnage of flame-throwing tanks. The Prophet says that the sphere of influence of Christ’s Kingdom will be extended until it embraces the whole earth, not because worldly kingdoms have sponsored His cause, but because the “zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform it.” This information is given in Isaiah, the 9th chapter, verses six and seven, where a divine communiqué is recorded foretelling the birth of Jesus, and the triumph of His Kingdom. In this prophecy it is particularly stated that the responsibility for the success of the Messianic Kingdom will rest with the Lord Himself. It is stated that the “Government shall be upon His shoulders.” How reassuring this is! Men and nations, no matter how good their intentions may have been, have utterly failed to establish lasting peace and happiness in the world. But Christ will not fail. That is why the angels, in announcing the birth of Jesus, could say that the message of salvation centered in Him, was glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people.
The Prophet further declares that one of the titles to be given to Jesus is “Wonderful.” There have been many wonderful persons whose names have gone down in history as outstanding benefactors to their fellow-man; but Jesus as the head over the Kingdom of God, will surpass them all. One of the things which, when recognized by the world, will contribute to making Jesus wonderful is the fact that He died voluntarily as a sacrifice for the sins of His subjects, instead of asking His subjects to die for Him. He died in order that all, condemned to death in Adam, might live.
The Prophet also informs us that Jesus is to become the “Everlasting Father.” The word “father” means “life giver.” An everlasting Father is one who gives everlasting life. From this we are assured that in addition to all other blessings of the divine Kingdom soon to be established, the people are to be given health and life. No other ruler of earth has ever promised life to his subjects, but such a provision is on the agenda of Christ’s Kingdom, and in order that it might be realized in all its fullness, Jesus Himself died to pay the penalty of death entered against mankind in the Garden of Eden.
The Scriptures show that one of the reasons why evil has prospered throughout the ages is because Satan has been “the Prince of this world.” (John 14:40; II Cor. 4:4) If we believe in the Bible, we must accept its testimony that there is a personal, although invisible devil, who has continued to exercise his nefarious influence over the affairs of men. (John 12:31; Gal. 1:4) Satan has exercised his influence through human agencies. It is for this reason that so many of the otherwise well-intentioned efforts of men and nations have finally gone on the rocks, leaving the human race to continue its escapades of ill-will, hatred, and bloodshed. But the Scriptures assure us that one of the first acts of Christ, the great and powerful Ruler of the new Kingdom on earth will be the binding of Satan. (Matt. 12:29; Rev. 20:2,3) The Scriptures furthermore reveal that the spiritual influence of Christ’s Kingdom, consisting of Christ and His Church, will be just as effective and far-reaching for good, as Satan’s influence has been far-reaching for evil. (II Pet. 3:13; Acts 17:30,31; Isa. 26:9) Like Satan’s empire, Christ’s Kingdom will exercise its influence through human agencies. These agencies are of divine selection and preparation.
And the best part of it is, that this—God’s new world of tomorrow—is soon to become a reality, because it has been promised by God, and because all of the prophecies and promises of His Word have thus far been fulfilled. This gives us confidence that what He has said concerning things yet to be will also come to pass—“My Word that goeth forth out of My mouth shall not return unto Me void; but shall accomplish that which I please.”—Isaiah 55:11
Do you know that the prophecies of the Bible point out the present serious dilemma in which the Jews find themselves? Do you know that the divine communiqués of the Bible point out the rebuilding of Palestine as it has been accomplished by the Jews during the last twenty or more years? Yes, the present gigantic struggle of the nations, the rebuilding of Palestine, and the tragic persecution of the Jews by the dictators of Europe, all are closely associated in the prophecies.
Thus the wonderfully clear manner in which the divine communiqués of the Bible identify the time in which we are now living, gives us full assurance that God’s new world of tomorrow is indeed just around the corner. There is no other single fact that should be such a great cause of joy as this. It means in short, that the time is near when all human suffering and sorrow will flee away. It means that the time has come when God will fulfill His promises to wipe away tears from off all faces. This is the reassuring message which He gives us today through His Word.