| Highlights of Dawn | June 1954 |
This Nuclear Age
A SYNDICATED article in the New York World-Telegram and Sun quoted “one of the greatest scientists in this country” as saying, “I haven’t been able to sleep for weeks. Only God can save us from what we have fashioned for ourselves.” This statement is doubtless true. With the unbelievable potentials of destruction now possessed in hydrogen bombs, if they should ever be used in a world-wide war, certainly only divine intervention could save the human race from destruction, either total, or approaching thereto.
Tests of the hydrogen bomb reveal the dangers of radioactive dust inflicting lingering and horrible death upon victims far removed from the actual explosion. With these bombs being dropped on major cities on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the areas of safety where human life could continue would be very limited indeed. What a horrible spectacle, therefore, confronts the fear-filled world of today!
But, as the scientist wishfully expresses the thought, will God save the world from this gruesome inferno of destruction? We believe that he will, at least insofar as the total destruction of the human race is concerned. And it is significant that scientists and others are beginning to realize that only the Lord is capable of saving man from the terrible fate to which human unwisdom would otherwise inevitably lead. The Scriptures do, however, predict a “time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation,” and the Lord will not intervene to stop this trouble until it has accomplished his design in humbling the nations and causing them to look to him for help in the hour of their extremity.
In this connection we are reminded of an incident which occurred during the first World War. It was before the United States entered the war, and a day of national prayer for peace was set aside, and all the clergymen of the nation were called upon to pray for peace. Pastor C.T. Russell of the New York City Temple was one who received that urgent request to offer special prayers for peace.
The pastor replied that he could not conscientiously offer such a prayer. He called attention to the prophecies which, by their united testimony, forecast that the present age would end in a “time of trouble” and that this distress of nations would be permitted by the Lord to prepare the world to receive the kingdom of Christ. He said that in view of this, to offer an unqualified prayer for peace among the nations would be tantamount to asking God to change his plans.
There is, however, one way in which every Christian can pray for peace, as Pastor Russell pointed out then, and that is to continue offering The Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” The promises of God give us every assurance that this prayer will be answered in his own due time, and that the human race will not be completely destroyed from the earth. From this standpoint we know that the Lord will save humanity from the ultimate destruction to which sin and selfishness would otherwise ultimately lead.
Various prophecies indicate, however, that in the closing scenes of the age, and in connection with the destruction of Satan’s world, there will be much “tribulation” upon the nations. “Sudden destruction shall come upon them,” writes Paul, “as travail upon a woman with child.” (I Thess. 5:1-3) “Travail” comes in spasms, and already some of these have been experienced. The people of America are not so conscious of this as they are in lands which were more particularly the focal points in the last two global struggles.
But it would seem that the end is not yet. Psalm 46:8,9 reads, “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth; … he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.” The suggestion here seems to be that the terrible “desolations” of the time of trouble will contribute toward making “wars to cease unto the ends of the earth.” The thought could be that war will become so horrible that the nations will be the more willing, even glad, to abandon their own unworkable strategy for keeping the peace, and accept instead the authority and the instructions of the Lord.
In the next verse of the prophecy the Lord declares, “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Ps. 46:10) The Hebrew word here translated “heathen” literally means a “foreign nation.” It is used in the Old Testament to denote all other nations than Israel, which was God’s own nation during that age. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” he told them through the Prophet Amos. (ch. 3:2) All other nations were foreign to him, being alienated from him through wicked works.
These same “heathen” are mentioned in verse 6 of the 46th Psalm, where we read that in this time when the Lord is making such a desolation in the earth “the heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.” It is these raging heathen, therefore, who are still on the earth alive, to whom the Lord later says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Yes, there will still be far-reaching “desolations” in the earth, causing additional acute and widespread human suffering ere the “time of trouble” is over, but the human race as such will not be destroyed. Many of the raging heathen will live through that final phase of the great Armageddon to accept the rulership of Christ’s kingdom, and to say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain [kingdom] of the Lord, … and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” (Micah 4:1-4) Those who are destroyed in Armageddon will later be awakened from death to enjoy the blessings of the new kingdom.
Man’s Lack of Wisdom
The nations are not yet ready to humble themselves and look to the Lord wholly for guidance. True, remarks are often made by outstanding statesmen of the world which indicate that they at least think about the Lord. They speak of the “spiritual resources” of the free world, but there is little evidence that any of them are as yet ready to accept the directives of the Word of God in conducting their affairs of state, or that they are willing to be guided by the principles of righteousness laid down in the Word of God.
The prophets Isaiah and Micah both clearly set forth that when the nations sincerely look to the Lord for instructions, and follow in his ways, they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks, and will learn war no more. This has never been the viewpoint of the nations, and it is not today. The most powerful nations of the earth are still following the principle that in order to be assured of peace they must be prepared for war.
It is this policy that now is holding the world very uncertainly over an abyss of destruction the like of which has never been known, and is beyond description. The nations today no longer depend upon their standing armies, their navies, their submarines, their cannon and other incidentals of war, to frighten their enemies into refraining from aggression. Instead, they explode bombs over the ocean and dissolve islands, dig mammoth craters in the ocean bed, and spread killing, radioactive dust over hundreds of square miles, with the implication that this is what will happen to any nation or people that dares to attack.
And the enemy nations do the same—or would, if they could. But will this age-old, time-worn method actually keep the peace? It never has. No armament race has ever accomplished more than to gain time to make war more horribly destructive when at last it did break out. Even now the western world is candidly announcing that if certain moves are made by the communists, atomic reprisal will follow and then, of course, the third World War will be on, the end of which no one can predict.
Another Dilemma
The possibility of hydrogen warfare is not the only frightening thing threatening the world today. It was a blessed relief to parents and wives of sons and husbands still alive in Korea when the shooting stopped there. Quite properly President Eisenhower expressed thanks that no American boys had to spend last Christmas on the battlefield.
But as a result of the end of the shooting war in Korea unemployment began to rise in America. By the end of April, there were upwards of half as many people unemployed in the United States as during the “great depression” of the early thirties. The economists call it a “minor recession,” or a “readjustment,” or some other more palatable name. The stark fact is that with present techniques of streamlined production, in which every possible labor-saving gadget is used, the civilian needs of the nation, or of the world, may not be able to provide continuous, full-time employment the world over for all who need employment in order to live.
Billions of dollars are still being poured into industry to build up this nation’s arsenal of defense. It was only a small war in Korea, and if the maintaining of supplies and munitions for that minor theatre of hostilities meant the difference between prosperity and a creeping depression, what would happen to the economy of America and, in fact, of the world, if all the nations should suddenly find a magic formula for peace? Many fear that the result would be widespread unemployment and poverty. The Scriptures do not prophesy the details of these developments. We are calling attention to the trends thus far merely in order to emphasize that human wisdom, struggling against the handicap of selfishness, is proving unable to cope with these problems of the “last days.”
The Increase of Knowledge
We have called attention many times to the prophetic “increase of knowledge” described in Daniel 12:4, and foretold in this prophecy as being due in the “time of the end.” It is related in the prophecies to the bright shining of our Lord’s second presence, and is designed ultimately to contribute to human happiness. But because of man’s lack of wisdom, and his inherent selfishness, it results first of all in that great “time of trouble,” some of the “spasms” of which have already been experienced.
It is the misuse of knowledge that has brought the world into its present predicament, although the developments leading up to the present crisis have been spread out over a long period of time. One of the main events which paved the way for what is now called the nuclear age, was the invention of the printing press. But the first press was crude and clumsy. It was a long time before the art of printing became general, and before the resultant increase of knowledge made any appreciable impact on world thinking and habits.
The sharing of knowledge made possible by printing spurred invention, and in due course there came the telegraph, the telephone, the railroad, and the steamship. Men began to “run to and fro” bodily, and shall we say also in spirit, as they projected their thoughts over the telegraph and telephone, thus augmenting national and international trade.
The changes wrought in the world economy by these “modern inventions” were not at first especially revolutionary. Gradually, however, the official workday for laborers began to be cut. From twelve hours or more it was reduced, first to ten hours, then to eight hours, and then to the forty-hour week. Those who worked twelve hours a day for six or even seven days a week were perhaps given Saturday afternoon off, but now the vast majority do not work at all on Saturday or Sunday.
These changes gradually became more and more widespread and drastic. Early in the beginning of the century fears of unemployment due to the use of labor-saving machinery began to be expressed. The theory was advanced by some that each new labor-saving invention, while it would put a certain number of people out of work, would create extra work for its manufacture, and thus the balance of employment would be maintained. But this was an over simplification.
To begin with, of course, this was partially true. Railroads, for example, while they replaced stage coaches, required the construction of rolling stock and the laying of roadbeds and tracks, creating a tremendous demand for labor. We could probably say that modern invention in this field did not reduce the need for workers; perhaps even created additional avenues of employment.
But as invention continued, even the methods of creating the new devices required less man hours, so that the inventive mind gradually caught up with and began to outstrip muscle and hand skills. This was the situation about the time of the outbreak of the first World War. Then, of course, for the years of that war the need for munitions temporarily set aside the race between machine and hand work. Besides, there was a period of catching up with civilian needs, lasting for years after the war.
But finally production, greatly aided by additional new inventions which came out of the war, caught up with domestic demand, and there came the “great depression.” It was a world-wide depression. In this country the unemployed were helped by public works projects. In the major countries of Europe they began rearming and building huge armies. This took up the slack in those countries. But we should remember that the problem of the “great depression” was never solved. The second global struggle began, the unemployed went back into the factories to manufacture the sinews of war and the nation became relatively prosperous.
The second world struggle continued longer than the first. When the first war was over, after a few months of negotiations, a peace treaty was signed. None of the nations liked the treaty, but it afforded an opportunity to relax from their war thinking, and to slacken their munitions-making. The United States even went so far as to sink some of her battleships, partly as a token of good will, and partly, perhaps, because they were obsolete anyway.
But no all-inclusive peace treaty was signed after the second war. The atomic bombs which blasted that war to an end left the nations suspicious of one another. War allies became enemies, and the nations realigned themselves into two great armed camps. This necessitated the continuance of wartime economy on a scale only slightly smaller than during the war itself.
Not only so, but after all those years of war, during which the manufacture of peacetime goods was greatly curtailed, practically everything the people needed was in short supply. This meant that of necessity business continued brisk for a considerable time. It was beginning to slacken off, however, when the Korean war started. This again helped prosperity in this country to “hold the line.” Now, of course, we know what is happening in a few short months since that war ended.
Distribution
But would not this problem be solved through better distribution, especially if the people were relieved of taxes and had more money with which to buy consumer goods? That, no doubt, would make some difference within the bounds of this one country. But let’s look at the situation in a factual manner. Since the close of the second global war, the factories of this country have continued to turn out fabulous amounts of war materials of all sorts. During the same years they have caught up on the short supply of consumer goods and have piled up surpluses of these in storehouses all over the land.
Meanwhile, the average American family has lived well. The people have unstintingly bought practically everything their hearts may have desired—new radios, television, automobiles, refrigerators; and they have eaten well. Just think of the gadgets they would have had in their homes, and the number of automobiles on the already over-crowded highways, if the public had bought enough extra merely to prevent the piling up of surpluses during this time when so many billions of dollars’ worth of war materials were also being manufactured!
And then think of what the public would have had to buy if, in addition, the factories of America today were kept busy entirely in the production of domestic goods! Distribution would help some, but it would be no real solution. The point we are making is that the Lord, by his perfect timing, brought about the “increase of knowledge” at exactly the right time to present an unsolvable problem to a selfish world. It has made possible race suicide on the one hand, and what seems to be a hopeless economic crisis on the other.
But what about the rest of the world, some may ask? Is it not true that seventy-five percent of the world today is underfed, insufficiently clothed, and without adequate housing? Yes, and the Lord loves the people of all nations, and has designed that the “increase of knowledge” shall ultimately result in their blessing also. But at the moment, if the tremendous production capacity of the United States were to be used to supply the needs of the rest of the world, the goods would have to be furnished almost altogether as a gift. There are many noble minded people in America who would like to see this done, but at the most it would be but a temporary solution to the problem.
The people of other countries do not want to be paupers and beggars. Without realizing its true source, through the increase of knowledge they are hearing the antitypical jubilee trumpet of truth, and they are eagerly striving for liberty and economic security. True, in many instances, in their anxiety to make a better world for themselves many of them are falling prey to a new and more ruthless overlordship than they experienced in the past. The more advanced nations are willing that these other nations be helped, but only if it can be done without reducing their own standards of living, which might well be possible if human selfishness and lack of wisdom did not stand in the way.
And this is the one great lesson which the whole world must learn. The “increase of knowledge” has already resulted in many blessings to millions of the earth’s inhabitants. With it they will ultimately learn something which is even more important than to be able to fly several hundred miles an hour, or sit in the home and enjoy television. They will learn that without God and the application of his principles of justice and love, the knowledge which they so much prize can but lead to chaos and possibly race destruction.
The Kingdom Solution
For six thousand years God has permitted man to do the best he could to govern himself, and to find solutions for his problems, and he has had some success. There have been noble-minded statesmen and rulers who have done their best to stem the tide of human selfishness, but the odds have been against them, and the general trend has been downward. With the increase of knowledge of these last days, there were high hopes on the part of many that the situation would change. But science and invention did not, and will not, purge selfishness from the hearts of the fallen race, and the Lord timed the increase of knowledge so as to give mankind an opportunity to learn this lesson by experience also. The people will come to appreciate this when, under the arrangements of Christ’s kingdom, the knowledge now being acquired by man, and doubtless greatly augmented as time goes on, will be utilized to give joy and blessings to all mankind,
When our first parents were sentenced to death God said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.” The thought here is of hard, grueling labor. This was a part of the original curse. It may be that the Lord, in the great economy of his planning, is permitting man to discover ways of living with less work just enough in advance of the time when kingdom blessings are due, to contribute first of all to the great “time of trouble.” Then, after the trouble is over, he will permit these discoveries to be utilized in the rehabilitation work of the thousand years.
These are details of the kingdom which the Lord has not revealed. This we know, however, that under the administration of the kingdom laws, the people will learn and practice the principle of love. Then it will become possible for an absolutely equal world-wide distribution of the earth’s bounties. If only a few hours work a week is needed on the part of all in order to live, they will still live well, and, inspired by love and the desire to promote the well-being and happiness of all, will rejoice in the privilege of joining in the great undertaking of the neglected job of subduing the earth, and making it one vast paradise of God.
During the thousand years of “restitution” the dead will be restored to life. It is interesting to note that in association with the prophecy which forecasts the increase of knowledge and its resultant time of trouble is the promise, “At that time thy people shall be delivered, … and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” (Dan. 12:1,2) The expression, “thy people,” refers to Daniel’s people, who are the Lord’s people. It is during this “time of trouble” that these are delivered in the “first resurrection.” Jesus said, “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption [deliverance] draweth nigh.”—Luke 21:28
And after that, “many”—actually “the” many—all mankind—will be awakened from the “dust of the earth” to which, through Adam, they were sentenced when the Lord said, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen. 3:19) With twenty billions or more of the dead returning to life during the Millennium, every labor-saving device now known, with the many more yet to be developed, will be happily utilized in making provision for the returning captives. What a glorious prospect for the human race, which today, because of its own unwisdom and selfishness, has reached a hopeless impasse on account of the very advantages which, under divine guidance, will be utilized for their eternal good!