| News and Views | April 1943 |
Grave Possibilities, Joyous Certainties
IN Isaiah 24:1-3, the prophet of God portrays a depletion of the earth’s resources upon which mankind depends to live, that would take place just prior to the full establishment of His Kingdom. In contrast to this tragic picture of human needs, which already has imposed drastic food and clothing rationing upon practically all nations of earth, the prophet in verses 6 to 8 of the next chapter describes the blessings of Christ’s Kingdom, likening them to a feast.
Former President Hoover, Food Administrator at the time of the first World War, has recently been warning the public and the Government of the tragic shortage of food now threatened unless immediate steps are taken to remedy what he considers to be poor handling of the situation. While some may comfort themselves that possibly the war may come to a sudden end, and thus all our troubles be over, Mr. Hoover points out that the food problem following the war will become even more serious rather than otherwise. At a speech delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, March 15, to the Mid-West Governors’ Conference, he said,
“In all this I have discussed the question from our immediate point of view of winning the war. But food must also win the peace. When firing ceases we will be faced with three or four hundred million starving people in Europe and China. To save these millions of people after the war is not alone a transcendent act of compassion. It is the only road to peace. Unless we stop the degenerative forces on our food front we will have no supplies for this purpose. And unless we stop these degenerative forces, we will weaken our military front.”
Mr. Hoover also visualizes the possibility of serious trouble for the world following the war that will not be based entirely upon food shortages. In a special dispatch to The New York Times, James B. Reston, reporting Mr. Hoover’s Des Moines speech, says he “recommended that the United Nations impose and support a conditional peace which would remove the destructive ideological, economic, nationalistic, and imperialistic forces before forming a new league of nations.” This seems to be Mr. Hoover’s way of saying that following an Armistice, time should be allowed during which steps can be taken to prevent the further spread of Communism and Socialism as well as to safeguard the world against any imperialistic ambitions of one or more nations.
Vice-President Wallace apparently views the situation somewhat differently, but with no lesser degree of foreboding. While Mr. Hoover hints at the necessity of restraining Communism, Mr. Wallace, in a speech at Ohio Wesleyan University on March 8, asserted that “Any American attempt at double-dealing with the Soviet Union ‘probably’ would mean war.”—World War III. Elaborating on this point Mr. Wallace is quoted as saying, “Without a close and trusting understanding between Russia and the United States there is grave probability of Russia and Germany sooner or later making common cause.”
In order to obtain an unbiased viewpoint of world problems as discussed by Mr. Hoover and Mr. Wallace, it is well to remember that the former President is a Republican, and the Vice-President a Democrat. The 1944 presidential campaign is already under way, and naturally these opposing statesmen are desirous of impressing the public with the idea that their particular brand of politics is the only remedy for the present world chaos and the only guarantee of lasting peace. However, discounting the political aspect of what is said by outstanding statesmen like these, the fact still remains that the gravity of post-war problems is made distressingly acute by the lack of agreement on the part of world leaders as to what the shape of the new order is to be.
This dis-unity of the United Nations is not only represented by a chaos of ideas within each of the nations involved, but in the relationship of the nations to each other there is also a wide diversity of opinion represented in their post-war aims. By now, everybody has heard of Mr. Wallace’s idealistic world of tomorrow, in which all nations would enjoy the blessings of a “quart of milk a day.” We can’t imagine why anyone could object to this, yet some do. Others active in the war effort have said that they were not helping to win the war with the idea of giving every Hottentot a quart of milk.
However, as a result of education made possible through the prophetic increase of knowledge that has come to the world in this “time of the end,” the Hottentot is no longer satisfied with this unequal division of the earth’s bounties. Hitherto backward nations are now demanding equal rights and privileges with allegedly more advanced peoples and nations with whom they are making common cause in fighting Axis aggression. They have been invited to become partners in war, and there is tolerably sure to be trouble if they are not made equal partners in peace.
Will human selfishness, which still steers the ships of state of all nations, permit this? Prophecies of the Bible indicate that only by virtue of the educational program to be instituted by Christ’s Kingdom will the peoples of earth finally learn that their lasting peace and greatest happiness can be achieved by the way of love instead of selfishness. Speaking prophetically of the manner in which God’s solution of the world’s problems will become effective, and using the terms “mountains and “hills” to symbolize greater and lesser kingdoms, David wrote, “The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.” (Psa. 72:3) “Righteousness” is obedience to God’s law, and “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10), hence the prophet meant that when Christ’s Kingdom is operating in the earth, the nations will obtain peace by obedience to God’s royal law of love.
There seems little difference of opinion as to the nature of blessings the whole world needs. But how to obtain these blessings is what constitutes the baffling problem now worrying post-war planners. After months of supposedly intensive research, the “National Resources Planning Board” proposed in, its report what is called a “New Bill of Rights,” in which they set forth nine “rights” to which they claim the world is entitled. Actually, all righteously inclined peoples of earth knew that mankind was entitled to these rights before the “National Resources Planning Board” went to work on the idea. Where the Planning Board left an aching void in the hearts of those who would like to see a better world, is in their failure to point out any means by which these rights may be obtained. Because this New Bill of Rights summarizes what most people would like to see, and in A general way what Christ’s Kingdom guarantees to provide, we are glad to quote it as follows:
1. The right to work, usefully and creatively through the productive years.
2. The right to fair pay, adequate to command the necessities and amenities of life in exchange for work, ideas, thrift and other socially valuable service.
3. The right to adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care.
4. The right to security, with freedom from fear of old age, want, dependency, sickness, unemployment and accident.
5. The right to live in a system of free enterprise, free from compulsory labor, irresponsible private power, arbitrary public authority and unregulated monopolies.
6. The right to come and go, to speak or to be silent, free from the spyings of secret political police.
7. The right to equality before the law, with equal access to justice in fact.
8. The right to education, for work, for citizenship and for personal growth and happiness.
9. The right to rest, recreation, and adventure, the opportunity to enjoy and take part in an advancing civilization.
The failure of the Planning Board to offer a plan by which this new Bill of Rights can become effective, is no fault of the men on the Board. They knew all too well that the criss-crossing interests and demands of human selfishness would tend to sabotage any plan that the more generous-minded of our statesmen might attempt to set up. But this extremity of man becomes God’s opportunity.
Like the Jubilee trumpeters of Israel who announced the beginning of that typical Jubilee arrangement by which a general equalization of wealth and property was effected; so today, when the time is here for the establishment of Christ’s Kingdom, God has seen to it that the people are awakened to a sense of their need for the very blessings which He is about to give them.
Since man was driven from his Eden home six thousand years ago, God has been preparing the machinery by which His “New Deal” will become effectively operative on behalf of all mankind. The returned Christ will be the Head in that Kingdom arrangement. Associated and reigning with Him will be His church, selected from among all nations since the time of His first advent. The earthly representatives of this congress of divine rulers will be that class of faithful servants of God beginning with Abel and ending with John the Baptist.
As there was a miracle in the resurrection of Jesus at the beginning of the age, so there is now a miracle in the resurrection of His church, and a still further miracle in the resurrection of the Ancient Worthies in order that they might serve as princes in all the earth. With Kingdom arrangements of this kind, backed up by miracle-working power, neither the wrath of men nor devils can hinder its dispensing of the life-giving blessings which God has promised.
And how wonderfully Christ’s Kingdom will assure to the people their rights. All will indeed be given the “right to work, usefully and creatively through the productive years.” (See Isaiah 65:17-25) As the Prophet Isaiah points out, however, there will be no end of the “productive years” for those who obey the laws of God’s new order shall live forever.
The “right to fair pay, adequate to command the necessities and amenities of life,” will also be guaranteed to the people in God’s new order. Of the time when Jesus is King, the prophet declares, “He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. … He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.”—Psalm 72:2-4
In Christ’s Kingdom the people will also be guaranteed the “right to adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care.” The medical care then, however, will be under the jurisdiction of Christ, the Great Physician who will actually and permanently heal the people of all their diseases. (Rev. 22:2; Ezek. 47:12) One of the specific promises concerning the results of the medical care that will be given to the people in God’s new order is that of Isaiah 33:24, which reads, “The inhabitants of that day shall not say I am sick.”
Not only will the people have the “right to security with freedom from fear of old age, want and dependency, sickness, unemployment and accident,” but even better than this, there will not be decrepit old age nor sickness. (Job 33:25) Neither will accidents be permitted, for God has promised that “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.”—Isa. 11:9
The “right to live in a system of free enterprise” will also be guaranteed by Christ’s Kingdom. No “irresponsible private power” will be permitted to interfere in any way with that enterprise—an enterprise involving a thousand-year plan by which the fallen race will be restored to lasting peace and happiness in a global paradise.—Acts 3:19-21
Yes, there will also be the “right to come and go, to speak or be silent, free from the spyings of secret political police.” With the knowledge of the glory of God filling, the earth as the waters cover the sea, doubtless the freedom of speech of that day will be universally employed by the people for the sounding forth of the praises of their God.—Isaiah 25:9
There will surely be the “right to equality before the law, with equal access to justice.” The law, at that time shall go forth from Zion, and “the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isa. 2:3) And we are assured that “judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet.”—Isaiah 28:17
Thank God for the “right to education, for work, for citizenship, and for personal growth and happiness,” which Christ’s Kingdom will vouchsafe to the people. A part of the education to be provided in God’s new order is described in Micah 4:1-4, which indicates that then the people will learn of the Lord’s ways and will walk in His paths and that they will not “learn war any more.” The entire educational program of that day will prepare the people for lasting citizenship in a global paradise which, under divine guidance and by miracle-working assistance, they helped to create. Those who qualify for eternal life in the restored paradise, will be given, as it were, their citizenship papers, as indicated in the words of Jesus, which we quote from Matthew 25:34, “Then shall the king say unto them on His right hand, come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”—See Gen. 1:28
Last but not least will be the “right to rest, recreation and adventure, the opportunity to enjoy and take part in an advancing civilization.” The human mind is utterly unable to grasp the extent to which these blessings will be enjoyed under the administration of Christ’s Kingdom. For a thousand years there will be an “advancing civilization,” resulting in a complete return to absolute human perfection, mentally, morally and physically. The Mediatorial reign of Christ will accomplish this, and beyond that thousand years there will yet remain an eternity in which restored mankind can participate in holy rest, recreation and adventure, the joys of which no human tongue nor pen can now describe.
Is all this wishful thinking? No, thank God, these promised blessings of Christ’s Kingdom are “joyous certainties.” The Apostle John, in describing a vision of these Kingdom blessings gives us a thumbnail sketch of what they will mean for the people. He then assures us that their certainty has been guaranteed by God Himself, for, says the apostle, “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me Write: for these words are true and faithful.”—Rev. 21:4,5