| Highlights of Dawn | April 1967 |
The Threatened Famine
WAR, revolution, crime, increasing taxes and national debts, race riots, and space exploration capture most of the headlines in the news these days. But co-existent with the events to which these refer there is developing a crisis more ominous than anything the human race has ever experienced. It is world famine. Recently the National Council of Churches of the U.S.A. expressed the belief that this famine would be upon us by the year 2000. Many economists put it much closer, some of them as few as fifteen years from now.
The farmers of the world are now able to produce more food per acre than ever before; so why should there be a world famine? It is the exploding population. The population of the earth is increasing much faster than the production of food; and sooner or later, the economists say, this will lead first to shortages, and later these shortages will increase to famine proportions. It is one of the great paradoxes of the ages that at a time when the potential for food production is greater than it has ever before been, the human race might well be facing a starvation diet.
However, as already noted, this is not the fault of the world’s farmers but is due to the “exploding” population. In the United States and a few other countries of the world, the people in general are still getting plenty to eat. But with seventy-five percent of the earth’s population this is not true. There is virtually a famine in India even now. True, this is due in part to failing crops in 1966, occasioned by lack of rain; but even apart from these unfortunate circumstances, India is chronically short of food, and millions in that overcrowded country are constantly hungry. Millions of bushels of wheat are being sent to India from other countries, but this only partially alleviates the suffering of the people in that stricken country.
Statistics
Some very interesting statistics are being presented by the experts on the increase of population in the past and currently. Sir Charles Darwin, former director of Britain’s National Physical Laboratory—comparable to the United States Bureau of Standards—has made extensive studies of the world’s population problems. He claims that in the year A.D. 1700 the total population of earth was only five hundred million. At the present time the population of earth is close to three billion. This means that in less than three hundred years the world’s population has increased by nearly two and a half billion, or more than four times the amount of increase from creation to the year 1700, a period of nearly 6,000 years.
Conservatively estimated, it is now the belief of economists that the next forty years—perhaps less—will see another doubling of the population, which would bring the number of humans living on the earth to nearly six billion, and so it goes. It is not difficult to see that, barring unforeseen circumstances, the population of earth will mount to proportions that are staggering.
Sir Charles Darwin concedes that the earth could produce food for the tremendous population that will be on the earth a hundred years from now, but he wonders about the problems of food and living room by the end of the second hundred years, when, according to the present rate of increase, the population will number between forty and fifty billion. It is difficult for our minds to grasp such colossal figures. It is easier, perhaps, to comprehend what is taking place when we think of it in terms of days, and single years. The population of the earth is now increasing at the rate of one hundred thousand every twenty-four hours. Thus at the end of every ten days there are a million more people on earth to be fed, and at the end of a hundred days, ten million more.
So at the end of each year a number of people more than equal to that of four cities the size of London, or of New York, have been added to earth’s population. Nor does this increase remain constant. It is like compound interest on money in a bank. These additional millions each year themselves accelerate the increase. It becomes accumulative.
There are two principal reasons for the present population “explosion.” One is a matter of simple arithmetic. When the figure one is doubled you still have only two, and the double of two is only four. This doubling can be continued through many steps before arriving at a figure that is beyond our ability to comprehend. So it was with earth’s population. As late as A.D. 1700 it was only five hundred million. But now each doubling carries ominous overtones of future hunger and over-crowding.
The second reason has helped to compound the threat of disaster. It is the development of medical science, which has decreased the death rate and increased the average length of human life. The biblical lifespan is given as “three score years and ten,” but actually the average length of human life was less than half of this until recent years. (Ps. 90:10) The exception to this was in the antediluvian world, and for a short time following the Flood, when the life span ranged in hundreds of years.
As late as a hundred years ago parents could expect to lose half their children in death before they reached the age of maturity. Medical science has changed this. In Asiatic countries, of course, this change is not so marked; but even there great advances have been made. Assuming that medical science will continue to advance, conquering to a large extent one after another of the “killer diseases” which still blight the human race, this again will add to the force of the “explosion” that is sending earth’s population skyrocketing to such unbelievable heights.
God’s Design
Human wisdom is baffled by the problems produced by this rapid increase of population. Economists only a few years ago, while recognizing what was happening, took the view generally that the present generation would not experience any insurmountable problems because of it. But even this viewpoint is now changing. The year A.D. 2000 is now the date suggested by many for world famine, and, as we have noted, many are putting it still closer. Certainly parents of today can well be concerned over the overcrowded world in which their children will find themselves.
For those who have faith in the Bible, and in the plan of God for his human creatures which it reveals, the outlook is different. This difference is implied in God’s commission to our first parents. We quote: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them, … and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish [Hebrew, ‘fill’] the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”—Gen. 1:27,28
Many have not considered the limitation placed upon this commission. The human race was to multiply and “fill” the earth. It was not God’s design that the earth be overfilled. God did not commission our first parents to continue multiplying regardless of the capacity of the earth to provide food and shelter for their offspring. From this we must believe that when sufficient people have been born to “fill” the earth adequately, the propagation of the race will cease. To believe this calls for the acceptance of the fact that the great Creator of the universe, and of man, intervenes in human affairs whenever necessary for the accomplishment of his purpose in the creation of man.
There have already been outstanding examples of this. The antediluvian world became so corrupt through intermarrying with materialized angels that the human race might well have deteriorated and vanished. But God intervened and destroyed that world by the Flood. In the divine providence Noah and his family were brought through the Flood and became the nucleus of a new world.
God’s chosen people, the natural descendants of Abraham, were held slaves in Egypt, and through privation and other hardships could have been destroyed as a people. But God did not permit this. Through a series of outstanding miracles God delivered his people and cared for them, overshadowing them with miracles to assure their reaching the land he had promised to their fathers.
God promised to send a Redeemer and Deliverer who would redeem the world from death and restore the people to life and to the dominion which was forfeited because of sin. This great Messiah came in the person of Jesus Christ, but his enemies crucified him. Again God intervened, and raised his Son from the dead, and Christ returns to earth to accomplish that mighty deliverance promised by the mouth of all God’s holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:19-21) This means that the billions who have died will be resurrected and will live on the earth.
Still Not Too Many
To those who are concerned about the present population, it might almost be frightening to think that room and food must also be found for those who have died and will be restored to life. But there is really no cause for alarm. Just a few years ago the Eugenics Department of Carnegie Institute estimated that some thirty billion people have lived on the earth since the beginning of recorded history, which, as indicated in the Bible, was shortly after creation. This figure, of course, is now somewhat larger.
This many people distributed evenly over the land surface of the earth would give a density of about 550 per square mile, Today, the population density in the Netherlands is 870 per square mile. In the state of Rhode Island it is 800, and in New Jersey, 700. In many countries today a very high standard of living is being maintained where the population density is well over 550 per square mile.
However, at this point we are presented with sobering implications. What about the billions who will be born in the future? This is just the point to which we have been leading. We believe it is fully in harmony with the plan of God as revealed in the Bible for him again to intervene in the affairs of mankind as he did in times past. This time his intervention would be to halt the propagation of the human race, for the simple reason that his design in this connection will have been accomplished.
Preparations for the blessings of Christ’s kingdom are going on throughout all the earth today. Never before has man struggled so arduously to bring about peace. The advantages of peace are more clearly recognized now than ever before. This also is in preparation for the glad day that is coming when Christ will establish universal and lasting peace.
Today the economists of the world know that in order to avoid a future tragedy of frightening proportions the human birthrate must be drastically cut. God foreknew when he commissioned our first parents to fill the earth that such a crisis would one day be reached, and he knew what he would do about it when the time came. Meanwhile, he is allowing mankind to make the effort, and thus to be prepared for this drastic change which must soon be miraculously brought about.
Nor will this be in the far distant future! Statistics clearly reveal that the hour of change is close upon us. This, we submit, is one of the most definite proofs we have of the nearness of the full establishment of Christ’s kingdom. So, again, what the world looks upon as a possible calamity, by faith we are able to view as one of the signs that soon there will be divine intervention in the affairs of men, an intervention through the agencies of Christ’s kingdom, which will shower blessings of prosperity, health, and lasting life upon all the willing and obedient of mankind.
What About the Famine?
Are we to expect, then, that world-wide famine conditions will prevail before the kingdom of Christ is fully established? There is no definite scriptural answer to this question. Already seventy-five percent of the human race go to sleep hungry every night, and this situation is worsening almost every year. The extent to which this may develop into famine proportions remains to be seen. The most definite promise we have is that in this time of tribulation, caused by war, famine, and other evils, all flesh will not be destroyed.—Matt. 24:21,22
It seems reasonable to suppose that millions will lose their lives in this time of great tribulation. But this will not be an eternal loss for them, for they will be restored to life in the resurrection and together with their fellows have an opportunity to enjoy the blessings of Christ’s kingdom. Those blessings will be many, and varied. Above all they will include life—not a life of hunger, but a full and rewarding life; not a life that fades away into decrepit old age and finally succumbs to the ravages of sin and disease, but a life, rather, of full and glorious perfection, a robust life, filled with vigor and aglow with happiness.
God assures us that this will be so, and even gives us some hints as to how the earth will provide for the needs of mankind. “The earth shall yield her increase,” we are told. (Ps. 67:6) Every man shall dwell under his vine and fig tree, we are assured. (Micah 4:4) This we understand to be a symbolic statement depicting economic security.
Isaiah 25:6-8 describes the kingdom of Christ symbolically as a “mountain,” and we are told that in this “mountain” the Lord will make unto all people “a feast of fat things.” This does not necessarily refer to material food, although this would be included. There is “a famine in the land” today for hearing the Word of God, but in the kingdom the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:9) Thus mankind will not only enjoy economic security and a restoration to health and life, but will be enlightened concerning the true God, and in him they will also rejoice. They will say, “This is our God; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”—Isa. 25:9