| Highlights of Dawn | November 1947 |
Why the only solution for world problems is the setting up of Christ’s kingdom
Upside Down and Empty
“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. … The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”—Isaiah 24:1-6
HERE is a symbolic picture of a world perplexed, distressed, and starving because of its own wrongdoing. It is the world of today, a world that is falling apart because it cannot stand the hammer blows by which its misguided leaders are seeking to repair it; a world that is sick unto death while it continues to take as medicine the poisons concocted by selfishness and stirred with hate. It is necessary to take but a glance at a summary of what is happening throughout the earth from day to day to realize that human wisdom is utterly unable to cope with the situation, and to be convinced that what Jesus said of this very time is true; namely, that unless these days be shortened no flesh shall be saved.
It is not a case of trouble in one place, but in every place; not of one kind of trouble, but of every kind. Nor is even a single ray of hope visible through the fact that possibly a solution may be found for one of the problems, for there is no such fact. Nearly thirty years ago, when the world was left sick and bleeding from the first World War, the “League of Nations” was formed. A magnificent and imposing edifice was erected in Geneva, Switzerland, as a home for the League—a sort of world-doctor’s office. Now the League of Nations itself has died, while the building in which it was housed stands as ironic testimony to the failure of human wisdom. We visited this famous “Peace Palace” the other day, but were refused admittance, with the explanation that there was a diplomatic conference in session. Diplomats and their assistants were hurrying in and out, but nobody seemed to know what the conference was about. It doesn’t really matter, because even if they reached an agreement on some point or other, one of the “great” powers would probably veto it; if not, then it is sure to be vetoed by human selfishness.
Now we have the disunited “United Nations,” but the United Nations has already failed, and is sick unto death. At the moment an operation is being urged. Perhaps the veto will be bypassed, but then there will be something else, some other obstruction in the way that leads to peace and good will. Meanwhile the people of the earth continue to suffer. There are very few places on this whole planet where the masses have enough to eat and to wear; and fears of war, of revolution, of dictatorship, of race prejudice, of communism, to say nothing of the fear of utter starvation, are staring the nations in the face.
In the United States the people are not hungry—except those who are unable to pay the exorbitant prices being asked for food. But more and more the United States is being looked to as the bread basket of the world. As if the food shortage brought about by human selfishness was not enough, Europe is suffering from an unprecedented drought. In the memory of the oldest inhabitants there has not been such a prolonged spell without worthwhile rain. It was all over Europe, and continued until it was too late for rain to save many of the important summer crops. Even in Switzerland, blessed by escaping the ravages of war, the people are fearing the shortage of food during the coming winter due to this lack of rain.
Food alone is not the only shortage of the world, although closely related to many other problems. Many parts of the world are suffering from a shortage of fuel. This is particularly true of Europe. The Ruhr valley of Germany is one of the chief coal producing centers of Europe, but here the production of coal is far below what it should be due to the lack of food supply for the miners. Without sufficient food they cannot do a normal day’s work, and thus far adequate food supplies have not been made available. So in this again we see evidence of how, symbolically, the earth has been turned upside down and made empty.
Food, clothing, and housing are in reality at the root of all the world’s problems. This has been true from the time man sinned and was driven from the Garden of Eden into the unfinished earth to die. Self-interest has dominated in all the governmental, political, and social arrangements of men by which they have undertaken to secure these necessities for themselves and for their families. Now the terrible harvest of selfishness is being reaped, and as a result the earth is laid waste and made desolate. Also during this time when such a large proportion of the human race is suffering from want, groups, races, and nations are adding to the confusion and suffering by clamoring for their real and fancied rights.
Thus the problem of the Jews and of Palestine is imposed upon the general scene of unrest and distress. For nearly two thousand years these natural descendants of Abraham to whom God promised the land of Palestine have been but sojourners in the many countries to which they have been scattered. They have never felt secure, and in many places and much of the time have lived in ghettos and endured other hardships imposed upon them by the ruthlessness of professed Christian nations. With millions of the Jews killed under the Hitler regime, the remainder, particularly in Europe, living in fear of further persecutions arising from they know not where, are clamoring to return to Palestine. Most of these give little or no thought to the fact that God promised them the land of Palestine. They want to go there simply because they imagine that there they will find liberty and security.
But the insistent demand of these displaced persons who, among other millions are “scattered abroad,” as our text declares, is creating one of the world’s most serious international problems. Palestine is strategic to the security of the anti-communist nations of the earth. The Arabs want that land, and are just as insistent in their demands for it as are the Jews. It is feared that if the Jews are permitted to go there in large numbers the Arabs may take sides with Russia. So around and around goes the vicious circle of perplexing problems arising out of the fact that just a tiny fraction of the human race wants the land which God gave to their fathers four thousand years ago.
India is another trouble spot. For a long time India has been ruled from a little island in the North Sea. Her resources have been drained to raise the standard of living throughout an empire so extensive that the sun never sets upon it; but India, a part of that empire, did not have her standard of living raised. Now India, having clamored for liberty until it was technically given to her, is deep in the throes of religious and other dissensions among her own people. As the governing hand of Britain is withdrawn, India is not prepared to rule herself, and, in the chaos which results, is in danger of sinking into a worse state of starvation and want than normally experienced under her anglo-saxon taskmasters. There is also the danger that India in her helplessness may accept the helping hand that is constantly being offered by Russia and thus become another satellite of expanding totalitarianism.
With millions of people starving all over the Old World, in both the Occident and the Orient, it seems idle to draw special attention to one country, but we do so in order to emphasize the plight of all. It is France. The food crisis in this unhappy nation has been highlighted by the sudden skyrocketing of prices. Like previous postwar problems in France the outcry concerning it came from the kitchen. One housekeeper said, “I quake when I start out on my morning shopping round because I know that prices will be sky high as compared with the day before.”
During August alone Paris food prices advanced 23 per cent. Tomatoes and potatoes doubled in price. The cost of one egg (and the people of the United States should notice this) rose from the equivalent of 10 to 16 cents; and it takes $3.00 to buy a pound of ham. Ten years ago in France one could buy a good woolen blanket for 55 francs, now that much money will not buy anything of more value than a pocket comb. Before the war 60,000 francs would buy a twelve-room villa, but now one who is fortunate enough to have that much French money could buy no more for it than a chest of drawers.
But even if a Frenchman has enough money to purchase his needs at these high prices, he cannot do so because practically everything is strictly rationed. The bread ration has sunk to an all time low. The wheat harvest has been less than half of normal. France’s credit abroad is rapidly dwindling so that large quantities of food can no longer be purchased from other countries such as the United States and Canada. Besides the rationing of food, supplies of electricity, gasoline, and fuel are running out, and corresponding restrictions on their use imposed. Electric current will actually be cut off from time to time as it was following the first winter after the war.
Great Britain is only a little better off. Rations are being reduced, and gasoline for other than business purposes withheld altogether. It is universally attested throughout England that living conditions were much better during the war years than they are now. When lend-lease supplies from the United States were shut off, the British began to tighten their belts, and now they have to pull them in still another notch. Yes, the British part of the world has also been turned upside down and emptied.
Germany is probably suffering more than any other country from the most critical shortage of the necessities of life, and no hope of relief is in sight. The prophetic words “empty” and “desolate” are tragically true of this unhappy country. Well nigh, if not quite, on a par with Germany are many other countries of Europe which suffered the ravages of war. Italy, for example, is another nation where the people are slowly starving to death. Nor can we stop with Europe, for there are India and China. The whole Far East, in fact, has been emptied and laid waste.
In this turning of the world upside down, the prophet said also that the inhabitants would be scattered. We doubt if ever before in the history of the human race there have been so many scattered and homeless people. Certainly never before has it been necessary to coin an expression descriptive of these hapless victims of human selfishness, but now this has been done and we have them identified as “Displaced Persons.” How many millions of Displaced Persons there are probably no one knows, but the number is staggering. These have become another pressing problem for the rulers of the world to solve. The longer it remains unsolved the greater the menace becomes to a world society which already is so sick that it no longer responds to the traditional treatments administered by its physicians.
Our text indicates that this “time of trouble” upon the nations will continue and increase in severity until there will be “few men left.” Jesus declared that unless these days be shortened no flesh would be saved. Obviously it takes more than wars, even world wars, to reduce the population of the earth as drastically as indicated by these prophecies. But increasing food shortages will do it; and, apart from divine intervention, before human selfishness has reached its extreme limit, the misuse of atomic energy would complete the obliteration of the human race. How glad we are for the promise of Jesus that the days of trouble will be shortened ere this ultimate extremity is reached!
The Everlasting Covenant
The prophet explains that the cause for this great catastrophe coming upon the human race is that the nations have broken the “everlasting covenant.” This is evidently a reference to a covenant which the Lord made with Noah and his family following the flood. At that time a world had been destroyed by water because of its wickedness. The earth was filled with violence, the Scriptures declare, and this is given as one of the reasons for the flood. (Gen. 6:13) But at the beginning of the new world—“the heavens and the earth, which are now” (II Pet. 3:7)—God promised Noah that he would never again destroy all flesh by a literal flood of waters. In connection with the promise or covenant not to destroy the human race again with a flood, the Lord said, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”—Gen. 9:6
To a large extent men and nations have ignored this condition of the “everlasting covenant.” Instead, they have preyed upon one another without consideration for human rights and the sanctity of human life. This has not always been done by war. The life blood of the people has mercilessly been drained in other ways as well. The slow destruction of life by economic malpractice, or through the oppression of the poor by the rich, may be just as culpable in the sight of the Lord as outright and precipitate murder.
The slow destruction of human life in China by forcing the opium traffic upon that nation could not go unnoticed by a covenant-keeping God. The cruel exploitation of slaves in America and elsewhere went down on the books of justice as an entry against the countries responsible for it. The sweatshops of the world where laboring men and women had their lifeblood slowly crushed from them by circumstances imposed by their economic overlords have not gone unnoticed by God. James tells us of the operation of this principle of divine justice, saying, “Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath.”—James 5:4
Throughout all the centuries, from Noah’s day until now, man’s inhumanity to man has continued and increased. For a short time, during the growth of democracy and the increase of knowledge in these last days, it appeared to many that the people were becoming more humane. The horrors and cruelties of the Dark Ages were thought to have been discarded in the limbo of the past. But what the world thought was progress toward understanding and mercy and love proved to be but a veneer under the cloak of which the enlightenment of science prepared more devilish instruments of destruction and cruelty than the ignorance of the past could conceive.
And now the veneer has vanished. Two world wars in a generation have demonstrated that man is still willing to murder his brother in order to have his own way and to provide for his own lusts and necessities. Thank God, there are individual noble exceptions to the rule! There are men in all the governments of the world who would like to do things differently, but they are in the minority and are, therefore, helpless to change the course of human greed or hold back the flood-tide of selfishness.
So, again, even though most of the world is dying as a result of former orgies of murder which were dignified by the name war, the nations are again ready to plunge their people into another onslaught of butchery. A palpable excuse is always offered. This time it will be the necessity to preserve a way of life. The communists want to preserve their totalitarian way of life; and the democratic world wants to preserve its democratic way of life. To do this, both sides are ready to embark upon the sure way of death. Thus again, and on an unprecedented ‘scale, will human life be taken in defiance of the explicit command of the Lord.
Is it any wonder, then, that the earth is “empty,” turned “upside down,” and made “desolate”? God promised that never again would he destroy the inhabitants of the earth with a flood, but he is destroying this “present evil world” by allowing man to bring upon himself this terrible harvest of selfishness. The retribution shall be so complete and final that concerning it the prophet declares:
“Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.”—Isa. 24:17-20
“The transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it”—how true this has already become! But the end is not yet, for the “earth”—the present world order—must fall completely so that it will “not rise again.” Already it is “reeling to and fro like a drunkard.” Already it is being “removed like a cottage.” But it is yet to fall so completely that there will be no possibility that it shall rise again.
“Then the moon shall be confounded,” says the prophet, and “the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” (Isa. 24:23) The moon and the sun would seem here to stand for the symbolic “heavens,” which together with the symbolic “earth” that is being removed, constitute this the evil world of today. As human selfishness reaches its terrible climax even these “powers of the heavens” are shaken: No longer are they able to control the people, and they, together with the other elements of a world gone mad, are “confounded” now that the due time has come for the Lord to reign.
And this kingdom of the Lord is the only hope of the people, but it is a genuine hope. As yet the people in general know little or nothing about it. They stumble on in the darkness, knowing not that the “Sun of righteousness” is about to arise and heal the sin-sick and dying world, giving to the people a new way of life which will be one of peace and everlasting joy.
According to the marginal translation, this text explains that when the Lord reigns “there shall be glory before his ancients.” This is evidently a reference to the “ancient worthies,” those who, in the kingdom, will be its human representatives, serving as “princes in all the earth.” (Psalm 45:16) Through these, the glory of the Lord will be reflected to the people, and they will learn of him and serve him “with one consent.”—Zeph. 3:8,9
While the present world-smashing troubles of the nations have been brought on by their own misconduct, God refers to the time in which the world is being destroyed as the day of his vengeance. The trouble is prophetically described as the “fire” of his “jealousy.” It is the day of reckoning, and the accumulated sins of the nations throughout the centuries are now finding a just retribution in the destruction of a world order. The people of God, enlightened by the truth of his Word, and therefore knowing the meaning of events, should hold aloof from participating in world affairs.
But we should not keep silent. In the great commission of service given to Jesus and his church through the prophet, one of the responsibilities imposed upon the church at this end of the age is to “proclaim … the day of vengeance of our God.” (Isa. 61:1-3) We are not to pronounce vengeance, but merely to explain its meaning. The Lord’s vengeance is already upon the world, and millions are mourning, not knowing the meaning. We are, as far as possible, to comfort all who mourn by pointing out to them from the Word of God the real causes of present world distress and the marvelous manner in which God’s remedy will cure the ills of human selfishness.
It is a glorious message we have for the people in this their day of great trouble and perplexity. It is only the people of God who know the answer and can give the reason for the present sickness of the world. We should not hold back that answer, but proclaim it far and wide, and by every possible means. By so doing, we bring comfort to some and demonstrate our worthiness of the enlightenment with which the Lord has graciously blessed us. While one of the great cries of the world is for liberty and security, we can assure those who will listen that all mankind is about to be given the true liberty of the sons of God, and a security so real and lasting that life eternal will be the result.