The disappointing fact of nineteen million “peacemakers”

“Peace, Peace; When There Is No Peace”

IT HAS been two years since the defeat of German militarism, but militarism in practically all other parts of the world is still a blighting reality. A vivid evidence of this is the fact that there are today 19,000,000 men under arms. This total number in the standing armies of the nations is costing the world about $27,400,000,000 a year. Moreover this staggering amount does not include what is being spent on atomic research. These figures were given out by The New York Times, after a world-wide survey conducted by its Military Editor, Hanson W. Baldwin. He asserts that despite the crushing of the German and Japanese military machines there are more men under arms in the world today than there were just before the outbreak of the second World War in 1938.

Observers say that the only chance of this military burden of the world being lightened is based on confidence in the United Nations, and right now confidence in the United Nations is at a very low ebb. Others believe that the best chance for the world settling down to something like a normal peace-time basis is for the United States to continue its strong opposition to the further spread of Communism, in fact, to increase its resistance by even stronger measures than are now being used. Communism today, like Fascism ten years ago, seems to be the bogy man against which many of the nations are marshaling their forces. While none of the nations are right now ready for war, they are all preparing, and there seems little hope that the time won’t come when there will be another clash of arms, including atomic bombs.

There is an increasing uneasiness throughout the world over the fact that two years after the close of the recent war so little has been accomplished toward making peace. This war which was to make an end of fear and want has left the peoples of earth more fearful than ever, and seventy-five per cent of the world’s population is living on a starvation diet. Food shortages in most parts of the earth are now more acute than ever, and thousands are dying daily of malnutrition.

True to the prophetic picture, the ancient people of God, the Jews, take the center of the stage in the world’s distress. As with the deceased League of Nations, so again through the United Nations the problem of Palestine and the Jews was brought before the nations of the earth for settlement, but it was not settled. The best that the United Nations could do was to appoint an investigating committee to look into the situation and make a report, as though there were any factors in the situation the world’s diplomats do not already know.

But the appointment of this commission was quite in keeping with all the other “accomplishments” of the United Nations; that is, it was just a means of putting off a real decision. The prophet declared of this time that the nations would be at their wit’s end, and how true that is! International diplomacy has become so entangled that human wisdom is incapable of finding a way out. The nations assemble, they negotiate, they “take counsel together,” but the Lord “laughs” and “shall have them in derision.”—Psalm 2:2,4

The Psalmist explains why the Lord’s blessing is not upon the deliberations of the nations. It is because he has set his King upon his holy hill of Zion. (Psalm 2:6) In other words, the time has come for the establishment of his kingdom, which means a transfer of earth’s sovereignty from Gentile kingdoms to Christ. For this reason we may expect that the world situation will become increasingly confused and economic conditions more and more unstable until the authority of the new kingdom is made manifest. This will be when the prophecy is fulfilled in which the Lord says that he will speak to the raging nations saying, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen [nations], I will be exalted in the earth.”—Psalm 46:10

Clouds and thick darkness

The Day of the Lord

Mr. J. Hutchison Cockburn, writing in The Christian Century, paints a very dark picture of religious conditions throughout Europe. We quote a paragraph from his article, as follows:

“The need for strategic or long-term planning for spiritual relief will be clear to those who know anything of the conditions in Europe today. I do not mean the things needing to be done to deal with the obvious damages to buildings, agriculture, communications, industry, economics and finance. I have in mind the spiritual confusions, the shattered illusions, the broken hopes, the despairs, the uprootings of thought, and the destruction of traditional patterns of life, which afflict multitudes in Europe today. A new and terrible day of the Lord has come to Europe with clouds and lightnings and thick darkness. Fierce forces of anti-Christ are abroad, and that at a time when the churches have received a shattering blow, are often weak and small and very divided. The churches face a spiritual earthquake which will long endure. The main cultural tradition of Europe can no longer be called Christian.”

When Mr. Cockburn writes that “a new and terrible day of the Lord has come to Europe with clouds and lightnings and thick darkness,” he uses the language of the Prophet Joel (ch. 2). He probably knew this, but does he realize how accurately conditions in Europe and the rest of the world are fulfilling Joel’s prophecy, as well as many other prophecies pertaining to the end of the age and the near establishment of the kingdom of Christ? We hope so, for only an understanding of this fact can give hope and comfort in the light of what is happening to the professing Christian world.

Elsewhere in his article Mr. Cockburn suggests as one of the remedies for this condition of “thick darkness” an energetic preaching of the Gospel, but then he blasts all hope of this accomplishing anything worthwhile by saying that each denomination should preach the Gospel according to its own doctrines. Does he not realize that this would but add to the confusion? He should know that one of the greatest causes of the present “thick darkness” has been the conflicting creeds of Christendom. He reports that never have so many people in, Europe been willing to listen to the Gospel. Alas that more of the true Gospel cannot be preached to them that they might, even amidst their distress, rejoice in the glorious hope of the kingdom!

He speaks of “shattered illusions,” “broken hopes,” and the “uprootings of thought,” which have afflicted millions. The reason it has been possible for this to occur is because the thoughts and the hopes which have been shattered were of the wood, hay, and stubble type. They were merely the traditions of men and not based upon the infallible Word of God. For example, one of the expectations of Christendom has been that the world was gradually being won for Christ, that soon all nations would be evangelized, and there would then be an era of lasting peace and good will. If this had been God’s plan it would have been accomplished. The fact that the reverse is true has shattered the illusions of those who believed this erroneous conception of the plan of God. If these same people could now be assured that it was merely their false viewpoints that have failed, and not the plan of God itself, the faith of many would be restored. The church is to convert the world, but it will be the glorified church, made up of the footstep followers of Jesus, who, having lain down their lives in his service, will come forth in the first resurrection to live and reign with him for a thousand years. Through these, in association with their Head, Christ Jesus, the knowledge of God’s glory will be caused to fill the whole earth, and then all will call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent. How glad we should be that the collapse of the counterfeit kingdom of Christ, styled Christendom, betokens the fact that the real kingdom is near!

Mr. Cockburn’s reference to the “spiritual earthquake” which is upsetting the churches of Europe is very much in keeping with the prophecy of Revelation 16:18 where the fall of Christendom is described as an earthquake more terrible than any which has ever occurred. And it is just that, for it climaxes what the Prophet Daniel described as a “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.” (Dan. 12:1) Jesus applied this prophecy to the time of his second presence and the end of the age, and gave us the assurance that such a period of distress and tribulation would never recur. The reason is, of course, that the trouble will be stopped through the agency of Christ’s kingdom, and that kingdom will cause God’s will to be done in earth even as it is done in heaven.

But no one is happy!

Peace Treaties Ratified

Washington lawmakers have finally ratified the peace treaties which were drawn up by the victor nations for the four former German satellite nations, Italy, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. However, nobody thinks that this will make very much difference in the general course of the world, although fears are expressed that the withdrawal of British and United States troops from Italy—one of the provisions of the treaty—will permit conditions there to deteriorate and become more chaotic than they are at present.

With the recent ousting of the constitutional government in Hungary by a Communist minority, it is conceded that Bulgaria, Roumania, and Hungary are now definitely in the Russian orbit of influence; and it is feared that the Communists may attempt a similar coup in Italy once the occupying troops are withdrawn. This of course gives point to the new foreign policy of the United States, which is designed to stop the spread of Communism, a policy which is already being implemented by economic and military aid to Turkey and Greece—not to Turkish and Greek democracy, however, for democracy does not exist in these unhappy countries. The State Department evidently thinks that the dictatorships of these countries are enough better than the dictatorship of Communism to warrant the effort being made to sustain them in order to prevent the Communists taking over.

In all of this is to be seen the line-up gradually shaping for the final struggle. Territorial and commercial rights are only incidental to the ideological principles involved. True, the forces of Communism need territory and raw materials in order to carry on their expansionist program. So do the forces of alleged democracy, hence both sides are endeavoring to bring as many countries as possible into their orbits of control, but the real conflict is that of one way of life against another, and before it is finished there will be NO way of life for distressed humanity except that Christ will then take over the rulership of the earth for a thousand years and give the people real peace and happiness.

A beam in its own eye

Vatican Watches Russian Church

Archbishop Gregorio, Metropolitan of the Greek Catholic Church in Russia, came to the United States for the purpose of restoring the Greek Catholic Church of this country to the fold of the mother church in Russia. The influence of the Greek Catholic Church in America is negligible, nor is it strong in Russia, although under the czarist regime it was the state church of that country. Interest is added to the Metropolitan’s visit to this country by the fact that, according to reports, the Vatican was interested in it and endeavored to veto its influence.

Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, radio voice of the Vatican in America, charged that Gregorio is a “professor of atheism at the Atheistic College of the Soviet Union,” and “of trying to bind the Russian Orthodox Church in America to Stalin.” This brought a quick response from the Greek Church in the form of a letter sent to the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington with the request that it be forwarded to the Pope. In this letter it was pointed out that the position of the Greek Church in America is no different than that of the Roman Church, and that Gregorio’s visit was designed strictly for religious purposes. A strange part of this controversy is a letter by Father G. de Vries, of the Roman Church, published in the influential Jesuit periodical, Civilta Cattolica. In this letter he charges that the apparent reversal of position on the part of the Kremlin toward the Greek Church within Russia was merely for purposes of prestige, and that the church in reality sold, out to the Communists in order to gain this bit of recognition. We quote the letter in part:

“During the war the church gave its complete support to the government and by its propaganda strengthened the Russians’ will to fight. To please the Soviet Government representatives of the Government have given up the foremost command of Christianity to love your enemy. Such is the servility of the church in a godless regime.

“Furthermore, the Soviet Government makes use of the church as an instrument to reach its goals in foreign policy. In fact, the Russian Orthodox Church, which has good relations with the Anglican Church, did much to facilitate the alliance between Britain and Russia. In this way it supports the imperialistic dreams of Moscow’s foreign policy.”

This indeed is strange talk to be coming from representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, which throughout all the centuries of its existence has never hesitated to encourage nations to make war on other nations whenever it seemed to the best interests of the church to do so. Some of the latest episodes along this line were the Roman church’s blessing upon Mussolini’s army of aggression in Ethiopia and the Franco forces in Spain.

Nor has the Roman Church ever hesitated to use its religious influence in the shaping of pacts and alliances between nations, and it still claims the right to do this as evidenced by the fact of the Vatican’s envoys located in so many of the world’s capitals, and the further fact that many nations have their envoys at the Vatican. It would appear that the officials of the Catholic Church must believe that the general public is easily fooled, that when they now talk about brotherly love and the sin of encouraging war, the people will think that they have always believed and. acted in harmony with these honeyed words.

The point of greatest significance in these controversies between various sections of “Babylon” is the fact that the world in general pays so little attention to them. The general public knows little and cares less about the opinions and controversies of the once world-ruling ecclesiastical powers of the Roman and other state churches of Europe. Today the thinking public knows that these institutions have failed to give the world what it needs, and the problems of great concern now are not the. controversies of churches largely defunct, but of getting something to eat, and the obtaining of some assurance that they will not be completely destroyed by atomic bombs within the next few years. But of course these problems are not being solved. The darkness deepens, and the fear of the people increases. Meanwhile, let those of us who know that the world will be saved by Christ’s kingdom bear this message of hope far and wide, telling the whole world these blessed tidings in so far as it is possible for us to do so.

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