| Highlights of DAWN | August 1979 |
“Distress of Nations, with Perplexity!”
“And there shall be … upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” —Luke 21:25,26
REFERRING in general terms to the problems troubling the nation, Dr. Henry Kaufman, highly regarded business economist and consultant, recently said: “As I look around I see some bleak times ahead, and it makes me worry. … I’m worried about my country, about the place where I live. … And I’m worried because I’m afraid Washington does not recognize the severity of the problems, and I see nothing in place that can effectively deal with them.”—New York Times, May 27, 1979
Dr. Kaufman is far from being alone in his concern. In almost every aspect of human existence that we examine, it is evident that the nation and the world are confronted with problems which defy the efforts of imperfect men and imperfect governments to analyze, attack, and cure. Every night of their lives hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings go hungry to bed—if they have a bed. In spite of substantial advances in many areas of medical science, other untold millions still suffer and die every year from hideous diseases. Nightmarish ghettoes extend their ugly borders in many of the great cities of the world. Nuclear wastes proliferate, while men vainly endeavor to devise safe methods to dispose of them.
Israel and Egypt have indeed signed a peace treaty; but, given the well-nigh irreconcilable viewpoints of the peoples directly involved, it must be concluded that progress toward a real and lasting settlement of the still unresolved issues in this Middle East area is very uncertain. Bloody conflicts between nations and within nations constantly erupt in all parts of the world. Corruption, cheating, and stealing—in high places and low—make daily headlines in the public press. Perhaps the saddest aspect of all is the declining state of morality and ethical conduct and of regard for the happiness and well-being of one’s fellow man. And the people are perplexed and troubled. They are frustrated, angry, and discouraged, wondering what the outcome of it all will be.
“Is Anyone in Charge?”
Although President Carter’s executive branch is ostensibly supported by a heavily democratic congress, the president can boast of little by way of constructive progress for his announced programs. In the month of May alone he sustained a number of legislative defeats, and his fellow democrats were largely responsible.
In an article headed “Is Anyone in Charge?” U.S. News & World Report recently stated (June 11, 1979): “The wheel spinning and disarray were so apparent to all that President Carter told a news conference on May 29: ‘The American people are beginning to feel that their own government can’t deal adequately with crucial issues.’” To his credit it must be said that Mr. Carter stated the feelings of his fellow citizens rather well, for his recent handling of many admittedly difficult problems, domestic and foreign, does not inspire much hope for an early solution.
“Beyond Coping”
The most recent and obvious display of governmental ineptitude, mismanagement, and floundering has been in connection with the developing energy crisis, and particularly the resulting gasoline shortage. This situation has been making a shambles of the lives of millions of frustrated, bewildered people. The New York Times discussed this problem in an article that was headed up, significantly, “Beyond Coping.”
After reviewing areas of our national existence most likely to be adversely affected by the situation, the writer stated as his reason for his gloomy analysis “the inability of politicians to accept … solutions that inflict … pain.” Repeated attempts to pass energy legislation have been defeated because politicians are fearful of being associated with the unpopular remedies required to meet and cure the situation.
American Impotence
The highly volatile Middle East has also been the scene of political miscalculations by the U.S. government. An unexpected revolution has occurred in Iran, reducing the supply of oil to the West. Our formerly cordial relationship with Saudi Arabia has gone sour. Oil prices have skyrocketed, causing financial and economic difficulties for much of the industrial world. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt presently shows little indication of being effectively implemented. And as conditions in that part of the world continue to deteriorate, the United States stands helplessly and awkwardly by. “Here, more than in any other area of the world,” says Time magazine (March 12, 1979), “the U.S. has vital interests that are threatened by forces it has not been able to control, and all too often seems unable to influence.”
Reporting on a discussion by a panel of experts on the situation in the so-called “crescent of crisis” and what the United States should do to protect its interests there, the writer said, “Always in the background [of the discussion] was the hard reality that the U.S. has long since lost its power to do almost anything it wanted around the world.” What a vast and humbling change this is from the powerful and dominant role in world affairs that had been so long enjoyed by the United States!
Worldwide Violence—“No Cures!”
Another cause of consternation and fear is the universal spread of violence of every description. The late Brazilian terrorist Carlos Marighella wrote a manual which has since become the standard guide for terrorists of all nationalities. As a result, numerous business executives in different parts of the world have become the victims of kidnappings and murders. In the last eight years alone some 232 terrorist-connected kidnappings were reported involving businessmen in Latin America and Europe.
This condition is especially rampant in Italy, where hundreds of businessmen have already been kidnapped. Time magazine (May 14, 1979) labeled the situation in that country as “Italy’s raging epidemic of terrorism. So far this year, the tally of terrorist acts, from bombings to kneecappings to bank heists, stands at an astonishing 865 incidents.” It is hardly surprising that the number of firms providing personal security has soared in Italy, as have sales of watchdogs, bulletproof vests, armored cars, and kidnap insurance policies. (Time magazine, July 10, 1978) Many wealthy Italians have moved their families out of the country, while others who stay have adopted the habit of carrying weapons.
The United States, of course, has its share of crime and violence. Just the same, it comes as something of a shock to a citizen of this formerly well-ordered nation to read an advertisement in an American national weekly that proclaims:
“Executives are targets for kidnap, terrorism.
SURVIVAL A-Z shows you how to minimize risks. $5.00”
It is also disconcerting to learn that the protection of businessmen is already a fast-growing industry in this country. And that American industry regards the threat of personal violence seriously may be seen in the number of firms already taking measures to safeguard their higher echelons of management. “Former FBI Agent Charles Bates, now an executive at a San Francisco security agency, reckons that 80% of large U.S. firms have either started executive protection programs or are considering doing so. Scores of new firms specializing in executive safety have opened shop, and the big, old protection agencies are growing.”—Time magazine, July 10, 1978
Leading security firms in the U.S. now produce films and manuals for the guidance of American executives; courses in evasive driving are available to car drivers; while “dozens of firms in the U.S. and Europe now convert Cadillacs, Rolls-Royces, or Mercedes into moving fortresses that can withstand attack by all but the most powerful assault rifles and rocket launchers.” (Time magazine, July 10, 1978) And in case all these fail to thwart the kidnappers, ransom and kidnapping insurance policies are available from Lloyd’s of London.
Some areas of our largest cities are already in a state of near anarchy, with muggings, purse-snatching, dope-peddling, and arson common events. “New York has indeed become a grim and dangerous place … of littered streets, decaying buildings, and loitering addicts,” writes one lady to a weekly news magazine. But the condition is no longer confined to metropolitan areas. She continues: “The little white farmhouse in Connecticut where I grew up is also under assault. … Only last July, a house over the hill was vandalized and then set on fire. A few months earlier, the old couple in the yellow cottage were tied to their kitchen chairs, beaten, and robbed. The husband died of a heart attack before help arrived.” The same lady wonders if “the spread of chaos can now be stopped.”
Even the Schools
Conditions in many of the nation’s schools are appalling. “Handguns, ice picks, explosives and other weapons are turning up increasingly at schools in wealthy suburbs of Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, D.C., and New York, as well as in scores of smaller towns across the nation,” reports U.S. News & World Report, May 21, 1979.
Sixty thousand high school teachers are physically attacked every year, and seventy thousand are robbed by force. Over three million high school students are assaulted and over one million robbed at school every year. Some teachers keep tear-gas canisters, police whistles, and even firearms in their desks to ward off assailants. It is almost incredible that three years ago a congressional study reported that “self-preservation rather than education” has become the prime concern of students and teachers in many U.S. schools.
And, lest it be thought that conditions in the newborn, nationally proud State of Israel must surely be different, hear what the Jewish Journal recently reported (January 26, 1979): “There is hardly a single public telephone of the 4,000 or so situated in streets and other public places [of Jerusalem] that has not been vandalized. … Receivers are ripped out, coin boxes are smashed open and looted, and the booths themselves are wrecked.”
What is the cause of all this senseless violence and savage crime? One writer suggests a number of reasons: loosening moral standards, a weakening of the influence of orthodox religions, permissive attitudes of many parents and authorities toward misconduct, and bitterness on the part of those who feel they have not shared in the nation’s prosperity. (U.S. News & World Report, December 11, 1978) “As for cures,” the article concludes, “nearly all experts confess to be at a total loss.”
“Unless Inflation Is Solved, …”
Another problem causing havoc with the lives and economies of the peoples of the world is inflation. When Germany’s brilliant chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, was asked, “What are the greatest problems facing the world economy?” he placed first and foremost among them “The general notion in most countries … to consume more than we produce and to fill in the gap by printing money.” This remark is, of course, a simple definition of true inflation. Speaking of the situation in our own country, Eric Severeid, noted commentator, recently stated, “Unless the problem of inflation is solved, this nation will be in turmoil.”
Having recognized the crippling impact of inflation on every citizen, one of Mr. Carter’s principal campaign promises was to fight and eventually to eliminate inflation. So far, that fight has been singularly unavailing, with the rate of inflation in this country the highest of any in the Western nations, and presently rising. The primary reason is that this nation continues year after year to operate its national budget at a substantial deficit. National defense, interest on the federal debt, social security, health and education, public works—all these and other programs take great and growing bites out of the federal income. So does welfare, the cost of which is already substantial, and it increases each year by leaps and bounds.
It is widely believed that the welfare system is rife with fraud, adding greatly to the cost of a necessary function of government. Mitchell I. Ginsberg, dean of the Columbia School of Social Work, has estimated that 5 to 10 percent of welfare recipients are ineligible—many, admittedly, through administrative mistake. But it is generally agreed there is no politically feasible solution. “Welfare reform has become a search for the Holy Grail,” says Prof. George Sternleb, of Rutgers University; “there is no way out.”—New York Times
Racism—“Perhaps No Solution!”
Another of America’s problems (as well as the world’s) is racial discrimination. Progress in improving the relationship between the various races has, indeed, been made. Africa, perhaps, is the chief area wherein gains have been achieved. Colonialism, with all its evils, has now been largely eliminated in that great continent, with native Africans increasingly assuming power and direction of their own affairs, their own lands, and their own lives.
But much remains to be done. In Rhodesia, for instance, the struggle continues, although token concessions have been made by the ruling white class in the form and constitution of the government of the nation, which is overwhelmingly black. In South Africa, also predominantly black, but still ruled with an iron hand by whites, the bloody strife goes on, with no early end in sight.
Sometime ago, at a discussion attended by four learned South African professors, the question was put to them, “What is the ultimate solution, the way out of South Africa’s racial dilemma?” According to the account, there was silence. Then someone said, “Perhaps there is no solution.” And the professors went home. Seymour Topping, managing editor of the New York Times, suggests that perhaps there are, indeed, two choices—“compromise, or Armageddon.”
In Soviet Russia, a nation bloodily founded on the communistic ideal of a classless society in which all members would share equally of its goods and services, racism assumes a form different from the ordinary. “Soviet leaders claim they have rid the nation of bigotry,” says U.S. News & World Report, September 11, 1978; “Yet Russians still warn of a ‘yellow peril.’“ The supposed yellow peril, of course, is the ancient antagonist, the great nation of China, with its nearly one billion people.
The sorry plight of Jews in the Soviet Union plainly reveals the existence of Russian anti-Semitism. “Of course they’re racists,” says a Western diplomat who has dealt with the Russians for years. “They’re anti-black, anti-Semitic and anti-Asiatic.”—U.S. News & World Report, September 11, 1978
Even in America, while desegregation has made considerable progress, racial discrimination in housing and job opportunities still reveals itself in the existence of spreading ghettoes and in the unemployment statistics.
U.S. News & World Report recently published a letter from a reader (May 28, 1979) who neatly put his finger on the entire problem of racism. He wrote: “Something more is needed to correct the imbalance which exists against the black community, something intangible and more important than the nuts-and-bolts issue treated in the articles. There comes to mind the statement of President Eisenhower when he called out federal troops to enforce court-ordered desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. He said, in effect: ‘Statutes, court decrees and federal troops are necessary in their place; but true race equality in America will not occur until there is a change in the hearts of men.’“
“No Way Out!”
The common thread running through the conclusions of these and other thoughtful people as they consider the tribulation and distress abounding in the world today is frustration, helplessness, discouragement, and perplexity. It is becoming continually more clear that human wisdom can discover no way out of the dilemmas confronting the world today.
But this does not come as a surprise to close students of God’s precious Word! In Luke’s account of Jesus’ prophecy of events and conditions that would mark the end of the Gospel Age, our Lord stated that at that time there would be upon the earth “distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.”—Luke 21:25,26
The word here translated “perplexity” is from the Greek aporea, which literally means, according to Dr. Strong, to have no way out! How well this prophecy describes the feelings and sentiments of worried people all over the world today—feelings of distress, perplexity, and utter helplessness, with men’s hearts filled “with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world,” because they can see no way out!—Luke 21:26, RSV
Also, in Luke’s account of this wonderful prophecy by our Lord, we are given additional, hope-inspiring details not found in the accounts as recorded by Matthew and Mark. Luke alone of the Gospel writers reports our Lord Jesus as saying: “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. … And … know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” (Luke 21:28,31) We believe we are even now seeing the beginnings of these things coming to pass, and we rejoice in the expectations of the blessings promised by the Heavenly Father to all mankind.
The Apostle Peter tells us that beyond the troubles of these closing days of the Gospel Age a wonderful new world will open up and a glorious new age will offer the blessings of everlasting life and health and joy to the entire resurrected world of mankind.—II Pet. 3:10,12; Acts 3:19-21; Rev. 21:1-5
The missing element in all of man’s present efforts to solve the problems of the world is love—love for the Lord, love for righteousness, and love for one’s neighbor as for himself. We recall again the perceptive and gracious words of President Eisenhower in connection with the blight of racism: “True race equality in America [and we might say, in the whole world] will not occur until there is a change in the hearts of men.” Indeed, what this foresighted man has suggested as a cure for race discrimination is just what is needed to correct all of the world’s ills! If men’s hearts were right, there would be no more wars, no more want and hunger, no more race discrimination, no more stealing, crime, corruption, and murder!
And this is precisely the change the Lord God of heaven has promised to bring about when Christ’s kingdom is established in the earth; for at that time Jehovah God will write his perfect law of love in the hearts of all mankind. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God made a wonderful promise that applies to the whole resurrected world of mankind: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts: and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jer. 31:33,34
In that day “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14) In that day every man will truly love his neighbor as himself. I n that day “Many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.”—Isa. 2:3
Selfishness and greed; crime and corruption; sin and sickness; hate and racism; poverty and hunger and wars; yes, even death will be no more in that wonderful kingdom of the Lord. For all mankind will rejoice together in the blessed peace, abundance, joy, and everlasting life of that glorious kingdom, where Christ and his faithful followers will reign in judgment and justice, and love will fill the heart of every grateful human being. What imperfect man is learning he cannot do for himself, our loving Heavenly Father has promised abundantly to provide!
“It is this portion that God has elected to give to the human race. And what a glorious portion! Close your eyes for a moment to the scenes of misery and woe, degradation and sorrow that yet prevail on account of sin, and picture before your mental vision the glory of the perfect earth. Not a stain of sin mars the harmony and peace of a perfect society; not a bitter thought, not an unkind look or word; love, welling up from every heart, meets a kindred response in every other heart, and benevolence marks every act.
“There sickness shall be no more; not an ache nor a pain, nor any evidence of decay—not even the fear of such things. Think of all the pictures of comparative health and beauty of human form and feature that you have ever seen, and know that perfect humanity will be of still surpassing loveliness. The inward purity and mental and moral perfection will stamp and glorify every radiant countenance. Such will earth’s society be; and weeping bereaved ones will have their tears all wiped away, when thus they realize the resurrection work complete. (Rev. 21:4)”—“The Divine Plan of the Ages,” pp. 191, 192