| Highlights of Dawn | November 1955 |
“The Earth Saw, and Trembled”
THE review of Dr. Albert Einstein’s accomplishments on the occasion of his death causes one to realize what impact upon the world can be made by one man. He was lauded as the world’s foremost genius, and the learned in science have ranked him with history’s handful, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Copernicus, and Newton. The existence of such a unique genius as Einstein suggests to the Bible Student the possibility of God’s having influenced his discoveries for wise reasons with respect to the plan of the ages.
Without question Einstein’s profound findings, if used for good, could bless immeasurably, but if used for evil, could blight and eventually destroy all peoples of earth. This gentle, almost child-like man had no great laboratories at his command when first he comprehended some of the hitherto unseen laws of nature. As Time Magazine reported:
“Einstein’s only instruments were a pencil and scratch pad. … Yet he saw farther than a telescope and deeper than a microscope. Einstein traveled in lonely splendor to the crossroads of the visible and the invisible. … He came close to proving by mathematician’s logic what men of religion had long accepted on philosopher’s reasoning or faith, that the laws which move the tiniest unseen electrons must also govern the macrocosms of intergalactic space.”
The theories he advanced regarding the universality of law in creation and the inconceivable amount of atomic power locked in all matter did not bring wealth to him by this world’s standards. Others saw the commercial possibilities, and one of the splinters from Einstein’s achievement was television. And those who were militarily minded saw in the atom’s power, not blessing, but a super-weapon which could crush to the ground the most powerful enemy. No doubt many of the scientists who first worked on the atomic bomb, be they of Russia, Germany, England or the United States, thought they were doing mankind and God a service.
However, when some of the scientists saw the awful devastation of the first atom bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico, they felt much the same as did Dr. Robert Oppenheimer who said, “Science has known sin.” And after Hiroshima felt the full fury of the atomic power unleashed on it, Dr. Einstein lamented his part in the scientific pioneering which led to it. As Time Magazine reported, “The mushroom clouds of atomic fission and hydrogen fusion are his [Einstein’s] unwanted monuments.”
And when the full story of the Hiroshima blast was known, even our own nation, which in this instance was the victor, received it with awed and sober silence. To all peoples of the earth it became an omen of despair. And, in spite of our fear and the fear of all the people of earth, it seems that the nations are caught in a vortex which is leading inevitably toward that center where this holocaust of atomic fury shall break over the earth. Yes, when the Hiroshima atom bomb was detonated, “the earth saw, and trembled.”—Psa. 97:4
The 97th Psalm is a forceful illustration of the transition period wherein the trouble shall mount to such a point of intensity that the destruction of civilization would be inevitable unless God intervened. In the Bible many dramatic illustrations are used to describe the trouble which is bringing the present evil world to an end. It is a trouble of such proportions and strength that symbols are used such as a battle, earthquake, fire, storm, and tidal wave. As the illustrations are studied separately we note that in each a particular aspect is shown that would not be so readily revealed by any other symbol.
For instance, the “earthquake” suggests the violent upsurge of the people against their established rulers such as has been seen in Europe especially since 1914. The “fire” illustrates the conflagration of war ignited by conflicting interests of nations goaded on by selfishness. The “tidal wave” mentioned in Psalm 46 brings to mind the restless masses of “have not” nations which lash out to engulf the long established kingdoms (mountains) which, real or fancied, have exploited them.
Psalm 97 suggests, in a unique way, how God is related to the time of trouble. We have specially in mind verse 4 which reads, “His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.” The “lightnings” here could mean those special revealments of knowledge such as Einstein saw, which knowledge, perverted to evil by selfish man, causes the world to draw back in horror.
In this prophecy, like the pattern in so many, there is first shown the glory and peace of the established kingdom: “The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.” Then the prophet retreats somewhat in time to show those steps of trouble and fury which must precede the blessings of the kingdom, “Clouds and darkness are round about him. … A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord.”—Psalm 97:1-5
Without question, key inventions or special knowledge have either hastened or implemented the time of trouble now upon the nations. Foremost among them is the printing press with movable type invented by Gutenberg about 1440. According to history, it was a chance experience which prompted his activities along the line of the printing press. He had whittled out of wood some design or letter and by accident dropped it into a vat of hot dye in his stepfather’s leather tanning shop. Instinctively he retrieved it and quickly dropped it again because it burned his fingers.
The wood, now saturated with dye, fell upon a hide. When picking it up again he noted the clear imprint of color left by the dye-soaked wood, and there was planted in his mind the idea which led to the printing press. True, much time, effort, and trial were necessary before that first machine became a reality, but from such an unusual beginning has grown the great reservoir of knowledge now found in books.
The printing press sparked the Renaissance. The centuries just before and after our Lord’s time had seen quite a flowering of intellect. Greece and Rome had begun to reach upward in learning and achievement. But then through the marriage of church and state a blight struck learning, and slowly the nations sank into the quagmire of ignorance, superstition, and evil called by historians, “the Dark Ages.”
With the printing press, and especially the Bible, which was the first book printed, came a gradual lifting of the veil of ignorance. No wonder that the resultant resurgence of learning along all lines was called the Renaissance, or rebirth. The preserving of knowledge by books meant that each generation could pass on to the next the cream of its intellectual findings. Then came general education, so that enterprise and initiative were awakened in many minds. These same minds in previous centuries would have remained locked in ignorance, but now these all began yielding their contribution to the march of progress.
All this God foretold in Daniel 12:4, where it is stated that one of the signs of the end of this evil order would be that “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” The child of faith has recognized that the increase of knowledge has been the means by which our Father has implemented the time of trouble. This knowledge which he has given should be a blessing, but the present deplorable condition of the world marks for all to see that when selfishness prompts the heart the good things can become a plague.
The Christian also sees that the key discoveries or inventions, specially from Gutenberg’s time, have not been by “accident” or “chance,” but God-directed. Facts concerning Sir Isaac Newton, for example, suggest that he may have been just such a person whom the Lord led in his studies. His ancestry gave no promise of a genius whose accomplishments were to have such a profound effect upon the generations to follow.
According to a recent article in the Reader’s Digest, Isaac Newton’s father “was a ne’er-do-well who died, at the age of 37, a few weeks before Newton was born. His mother was undistinguished in any way from her farm neighbors. … Geneticists in later years attempted in vain to trace Isaac Newton’s ancestry beyond three generations. They found no clue to his gifts.”
But our Heavenly Father could have seen by the union of two particular people that there would result that wonderful admixture of hereditary genes which would provide the necessary mental potential for a scientist of Newton’s stature. We have known, too, that Sir Isaac Newton was a devout man, and given to much Bible study. All this could have had its effect in preparing him for his discoveries of the system of mathematics, calculus, his recognition of the laws of gravity, his proving the fact that white light is composed of all the colors of the spectrum, and the invention of the reflecting telescope.
Notable with him, as with so many of these pioneers of thought, he was humble. Ponder his words: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Statements like this from such men, together with a lifting of our eyes to behold the far sweep of God’s eternity, make us realize that boastfulness in one’s own attainment or ability is a mark of ignorance.
This same humility was also manifest in Einstein. And he was not an atheist, as some have said. In the book, “The Universe and Dr. Einstein,” there is a quotation of this scientist which reveals his appreciation of God’s greatness, and his awareness of man’s littleness. “My religion,” he said, “consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior Spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”
Time Magazine reports that Einstein broke with other scientists who believed that “the physical universe is made up of small particles that are not governed by some orderly casuality, but by chance.” He insisted, “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos.” This viewpoint came because he saw “that the laws which move the tiniest electron must also govern the macrocosm [island universes of stars] … of space.”
It is quite possible, in ways beyond our knowledge, that God supervised those necessary experiences of this great scientist so that he could recognize and enunciate the great law that matter is also energy. Not only did he realize that matter was a form of energy, but he came up with the now famed equation which permits measuring the energy contained there. As we read in “The Universe and Dr. Einstein,” this means that the energy contained in any particle of matter is equal in ergs to the mass of that body (in grams) multiplied by the square of the velocity of light (in centimeters per second).
To most of us this is quite meaningless until students of science begin to illustrate this in an understandable fashion. This same book continues, “This extraordinary relationship becomes more vivid when its terms are translated into concrete values; that is, one kilogram of coal (about two pounds), if converted entirely into energy, would yield 25 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, or as much as all the power plants in the United States could generate by running steadily for two months.”
Such energy, of course, is present in all matter whether it is coal or sand or water. To the Christian the first reaction is, “With God is terrible majesty. Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power.” (Job 37:22,23) “He ruleth by his power forever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves.”—Ps. 66:7
However, as we realize such atomic power all about us, we think of the inexorable laws which have set its bounds. God first created this energy, and has made it so docile that an infant can harmlessly play with a toy which contains sufficient power, if immediately released, to level a city in destruction. Is it any wonder with a God so powerful and wise that his simple trusting saints can say, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose”?—Rom. 8:28
The first attempt by man to release atomic power was for destruction. Mr. Lewis L. Strauss, Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, estimates twelve billion dollars have been spent by the United States Government for atomic energy, and we are currently spending at the rate of two billion a year. Most of this money by far has been invested in our stockpile of nuclear weapons. Now voices are raised to suggest disarmament as the only solution. In a recent article in Fortune Magazine, Robert E. Sherwood wrote:
“It seems self-evident that all prophecy or speculation concerning the next twenty-five years—or the next millennium—must be entirely dependent upon the ability of our own and other nations to prevent calamitous war. … President Eisenhower has said, ‘Since the advent of nuclear weapons it seems clear that there is no longer any alternative to peace.’ … If this objective of disarmament is not achieved by 1980, then we may as well write finis to the human story.”
But could a nuclear war be so calamitous? Read the chilling words recently written in Look Magazine:
“At 8:15 a.m., on August 6, 1945, ten years ago, one bomb, dropped on one city in Japan, forever changed the future and the fate of every living thing on the face of the globe. That one bomb killed—directly or indirectly, at once or in time—around 200,000 men, women, and children. They were blasted to bits or crushed, or suffocated; they were stricken with radiation sickness, or simply fried to death in a manmade temperature that, for one awful flash of a moment, exceeded 1,800,000 degrees Fahrenheit—heat beside which the blazing surface of the sun itself is cool.”
“His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.”—Ps. 97:4
Now they speak of the Hiroshima bomb as the “Model T” style. The H-bomb that was detonated in the South Seas had a force of twenty-five megatons or twenty-five million tons of TNT. Present estimates of the most potent nuclear bomb is that it is 2,500 times more powerful than the first ever used to crush man. Of the prospect we see that “men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.”—Luke 21:26
But what about the attitude of the child of God in all this turmoil and fear of evil? “God is our refuge and strength … therefore will not we fear, though the earth [society] be removed, and though the mountains [kingdoms] be carried into the midst of the sea [raging nations].” (Ps. 46:1,2) The 97th Psalm also speaks of his people [Zion] being glad when they hear the “speaking” of God in the terrible judgments now upon the earth. In other prophecies this period of distress is also called the “voice of the day of the Lord.” (Zeph.1:14; Isa. 42:13; Ps. 46:6) This illustration uses the symbol of the “voice” as of God “speaking” to show that a message will eventually be conveyed to the world through, or as a result of the trouble. This trouble will “speak” to all generations and all beings that man was unable to stand before God—he was imperfect and fallen and needed a mediator. It will also tell him that no amount of blessing poured upon a being can perform the desired end if selfishness fills the heart.
We believe it is correct to say that man will eventually receive the message because, during the trouble, it causes confusion, distress, and consternation to all except his people. Notice how this is brought out in Psalm 97: “Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves in idols.” (vs. 7) But the true people of God react much differently as they see this culminating trouble press down upon the world.
“Zion [the true church] heard, and was glad; … For thou, Lord, art high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods.” (Psa. 97:8,9) Are we glad because the world suffers? God forbid. We are glad because just beyond the darkness of this storm of trouble shall come the peace and calm of the kingdom of righteousness.
We are glad that soon the world shall see the majesty and glory of our God, and, more wonderful still, his gentle love. Before man destroys himself, God will intervene. There will be disarmament, God imposed—“He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.” And, to the raging nations, God will say, “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Ps. 46:9,10) This is why we are glad the trouble of our day is a sign of the nearness of the full establishment of the kingdom.
By faith we stand on the mountain top. Beneath in the valley of darkness rages the age-ending storm of human passions. But we are glad because the flush of morn is on the mountain top. The storm shall soon cease and the valley, too, shall know peace and be blessed by the sun now seen only by the eye of faith.
“The flush of morn is on the mountains
To drive away the night of sin;
Lift up your heads, O hind’ring portals,
And let the King of glory in!“The flush of morn is on the mountains,
And onward steals to farthest plain.
Awake, O earth! the day is dawning;
He’s come whose right it is to reign.“Though ’round about him clouds and darkness
Obscure the beams of dawning day,
Above the clouds, upon the mountains,
The watchers see the morning ray.”