| News and Views | June 1943 |
Why Doesn’t God Stop the War?
“SMASHING,” “crashing,” “crushing,” and “slashing”—these are samples of the words employed to describe the bloodiest conflict of nations ever witnessed by man. This conflict is spread over the greater part of the earth, and is daily increasing in severity. By it the nations are becoming impoverished and countless millions of homes are being saddened. What is it all about? Human wisdom furnishes no really satisfactory answer nor does it offer any basis for genuine hope that the outcome will be aught but tragedy heaped upon present chaos.
The question, Why doesn’t God stop the war? is one now being asked by millions. It is a natural question, and a proper one. The pity is that it should be stressed only in times of national or international distress; for, although a global war is now the basis of the question, yet, fundamentally the query is concerned with why a, wise and loving Creator should permit suffering at all, whatever the cause might be.
When we consider the over-all picture, we find that while the war has increased human suffering, yet the mortality rate is increased but very little. The daily total being killed in all branches of the armed forces of all the nations engaged in the present global struggle is but a fraction of the normal death rate in the earth. Total deaths by accident in the United States since the war started are probably greater than the number of Americans thus far killed in the war. And while properly we are appalled at the number of women and children being killed by bombs from the sky, we should remember that thousands upon thousands of women and children are suffering and dying every day from so-called natural causes.
It should be apparent, then, that when we ask why God doesn’t stop the war, in order to stop the suffering caused by the war, we should also ask What He is doing about this larger picture of human suffering and death. Manifestly, if God is interested enough in the human race to stop the war on the ground that it is causing suffering, He should also be interested in doing something about the much greater amount of suffering that is not caused by the war.
If we are not too selfishly concerned with this particular time of the world’s history, we will want also to ask why God didn’t put an end to human suffering thousands of years ago. Indeed, the really fundamental question to ask is, Why did God permit evil at all? The answer to this question will answer the one about the war, for both have to do with God’s viewpoint toward the children of men and what His plan is for them.
The answer to any question concerning the viewpoint and conduct of God, should be sought for in the only Book that purports to contain the revelation of His purposes; namely, the Bible. In that precious Book the thesis is set forth that all suffering is a result, directly or indirectly, of disobedience to the Creator’s law. This comes to light in the very opening chapters of the Book, where we are informed that the death penalty and the thorns and thistles of human experience incidental thereto, came as a result of disobedience to God. In the closing chapters of the Book we learn that when men become God’s people again, there will be no more death, “neither shall there be any more pain.”—Rev. 21:3,4
The outstanding personality of the Bible is Jesus. He came to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament, and the New Testament writings are the outgrowth of His teachings and example. His Sermon on the Mount is the moral code—the expression of what is right and wrong—for all who name His name. In a word, that code is love, which, when properly expressed in human relationships, results in men and women doing unto others as they would that others should do unto them—loving their neighbors as themselves.
It doesn’t require any extra-ordinary intelligence to see that if such a moral code had been adhered to throughout the centuries there never would have been any wars. If all concerned had practiced such a code prior to 1914, the first World War could not have occurred. If all nations had loved their neighbors as themselves between November 11, 1918, and August, 1939, we would not now be suffering the horrors of a global war. This adds up to mean but one thing, which is that again we find mankind suffering because divine law has been flouted. Again, sin and selfishness have taken the ;saddle in international affairs, driving the angry nations headlong on a rampage of slaughter which leaves the people prostrate and dying in its wake.
But why doesn’t God stop it? One reason is that divine wisdom foresaw that certain valuable lessons would be learned by the experience of human suffering, including that caused by the war, a lesson that, when learned, will enhance the everlasting joy of all concerned.
Why couldn’t this lesson be learned some other way? There are only four ways to obtain knowledge—by intuition, information, observation, and experience. Intuitive knowledge belongs to deity alone, for it is “direct apprehension, without the process of reasoning, or the necessity for proof.” As for information, man was told what the result of sin would be; in fact, through the Bible, that information has been imparted over and over again, but to little avail. The professed Christian nations can, therefore, be held responsible for failure to act on such knowledge—and they have failed, miserably. To learn by observation would mean that the object lesson would need to occur somewhere, and why not among human beings?
The stark fact is that nothing but an experience with the awful result of sin would suffice to teach man the necessary lesson in righteousness to make him really want to obey God. This applies to the lessons each succeeding generation of the human race has learned since the days of Eden, and it applies to the lessons now being learned as a result of suffering due to the war. God will stop the war when He sees that it has accomplished its purpose in preparing the hearts of the people to understand and appreciate the great lessons He has designed for them to learn, for He has promised to do so.—Psalm 46
God foresaw and foretold that the war would come because He knew the downward trend of human selfishness. He knew that the advantages of education and invention, instead of softening human hearts and increasing benevolence, would but implement human greed and step up the tempo of the age-old war of conquest to such a point that there would be no survivors unless He intervened to make an end of the carnage. Speaking of this very time Jesus said that unless the days be shortened no flesh would be saved. But He also assures that they will be shortened.—Matt. 24:22
The President has declared that it is given to the present generation of humans to hold a rendezvous with destiny. That is true, for it is given to the peoples of the earth today to witness the closing scenes of human experience with sin and its result. Each generation of the race has had its own experience of suffering from sin, but there has been an accumulation of evils, which, under the impact of modern science and education, is now being released, and the releasing of these pent-up forces of human selfishness is causing what the Prophet Daniel foretold would be “a time of trouble, such as never was since there eras a nation.”—Daniel 12:1
What Daniel describes as a time of trouble, the Lord also refers to as a day of vengeance, saying, “The day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed is come.” Concerning the sane time we read again, “It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.” (Isa. 63:4; 34:8) Again of this period Malachi says, “Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.” (Mal. 4:1) It is the same time that Joel describes as “a day of clouds and of thick darkness.” (Joel 2:2) Amos (5:20) writes of it as a time of “darkness and not light, even very dark, and no brightness in it.” That the present time of literal and symbolic blackouts is the dark and gloomy day thus described by the prophets, there seems no doubt.
The prophets show it to be a day of judgment upon mankind, socially and nationally—a day of national recompenses. But while noting this, it is important to bear in mind the difference between national judgment and individual judgment. There is a coming judgment, or trial day for individuals—all individuals of the human race, including the millions who have died and who will be awakened from the sleep of death to stand trial under the benevolent, yet rigid terms then to be in force.
Proceeding this coming thousand years of individual judgment, there is a judgment of the nations. True, nations are made up of individuals, and individuals are largely responsible for what nations do, nevertheless, the judgment of the world as individuals will be distinct from its judgment as nations. The judgment of nations is a judgment of men in their collective (religious and civil) capacities. Hear the Word of the Lord to the nations now assembled before Him for judgment:
“Come near, ye nations, to hear: and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies.” “The Lord is … an everlasting King: at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation.” “A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations. … Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind [intense and complicated trouble and commotion] shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth.”—Isa. 34:1,2; Jer. 10:10; 25:31-33
It is not our purpose in calling attention to these prophecies to create a sensation, or to gratify idle curiosity. Nor do we wish to apply the prophecies as a blanket condemnation of all nations and individuals involved in the present global war. Christians should recognize and appreciate righteousness wherever found. They should discern between the wholly selfish and those who endeavor to block their aggressive designs.
But, while recognizing the good that there is in the world, the viewpoint of the prophecies is that because of the preponderance of human selfishness, the present trouble was inevitable. The powerful causes of evil are at work, and no human ingenuity or strength is able to arrest their operation and progress toward the certain end foreseen by God. No hand but the hand of God can stay the progress of the resent current of events; and His hand will not do so until the bitter experiences of this conflict shall have sealed their instruction upon the hearts of men.
And when we say “this conflict,” we are not referring merely to the present global war, for it is but one in a series of eruptions from the festering sore of human selfishness. Using a different metaphor, Paul describes these outbursts as “spasms” of trouble, of “travail” which are incidental to the birth of God’s new order. (I Thess. 5:3) From this standpoint it is seen that the “day of vengeance” stands related to the benevolent object of its divine permission, which is the overthrow of the rule of selfishness preparatory to the permanent establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, which will be under the control of Christ, the Prince of Peace.
While, as in the past, God will use human agencies largely in the overthrow of selfish mis-rule in the earth, yet it will be by divine strategy superimposed over the affairs of men—either willingly or unwillingly accepted by them—that His “strange work” in the earth will be accomplished. (Isa. 28:21) We read, “He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth; and with the breath of His lips [the force and spirit of the truth] shall He slay the wicked.” (Isa. 11:4) Forty-six years ago, a noted student of prophecy wrote concerning this, as follows:
“To no human generalship can the honors of the coming victory for truth and righteousness be ascribed. Wild will be the conflict of the angry nations, and worldwide will be the battlefield and the distress of nations; and no human Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon will be found to bring order out of the dreadful confusion. But in the end it will be known that the grand victory of justice and truth, and the punishment of iniquity with its just deserts, was brought about by the mighty power of the King of kings and Lord of lords.”—The Battle of Armageddon, page 19.
Isaiah 26:9 declares that when the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. This is true with respect to the present national judgment day, and it will be true in the coming judgment day for individuals, But the permission of evil as corrective judgments from the Lord to teach righteousness would avail little if viewed from the standpoint of human limitations, for all the pupils of past ages are dead, most of them having died before they recognized the meaning of the lessons.
The pupils of the present semester of experience are likewise dying, and most of them will die before they comprehend what it is all about. Only those enlightened by God’s Word recognize the educational value of the permission of evil. But when we inquire about God’s interest in human suffering, we must accept His solution if our hearts are to be comforted, and His solution calls for an awakening from the sleep of death of all the pupils, that the lessons begun here may progress to completion under the favorable conditions of the new order He is soon to establish for the blessing of all nations.
This, then, is an important part of the answer to the question, Why doesn’t God stop the war? He will stop it in His due time—He will stop all wars. Meanwhile the people are not losing their opportunity to profit everlastingly from their experiences, for they will come back from “the land of the enemy.”—Isa. 35:10