By Rev. H. R. Gough, M.A.
These extracts are taken from a pamphlet entitled “Is it War or Peace?” which is gaining a wide reception. Its writer clearly points out where the danger lies for our country, and the way to avoid it—ED. Living Links.
DURING these months of Crisis there have been many calls to Prayer. There is, however, another call for which many have been waiting, but it has never come, and that is the Call to Repentance.
In my own mind the question which has been nagging at me during these last critical months is: “Do we as a nation really deserve peace?” History, both Biblical and secular, seems to teach that Peace is a blessing bestowed upon a nation as a reward for godliness and uprightness of character. For those who know anything about the moral and spiritual condition of our country today.
The outlook is indeed alarming.
The vast majority of our people never attend any place of worship. (Indeed, in a recent survey of the population of London it has been estimated that 90-95 per cent of the people of London are non-church-goers). It is not surprising that this lack of worship is accompanied by a very serious lowering of moral standards. Large numbers of our people have no sense of sin at all; they may not be actually immoral themselves, but they have no morals. Conscience has become so dulled by continual disobedience to its promptings that there is no longer a sense of right and wrong it may be argued that we are no more sinful than previous generations but, whilst that is a very debatable point, the real danger lies in the fact that we seem to be no longer ashamed of our sins. When a people come to that point disaster is close at hand.
Britain is rapidly degenerating,
not only into a pagan country but also into a wicked one. Conditions do not seem to be very much better than they were in the eighteenth century, when the people of every-class had sunk deep into the pit of licentiousness. It was the Revival associated with the name of John Wesley that saved that generation. The message of that Revival was one of Repentance. It is the message needed today. When will our leaders in Church and State face up to these things and arrange not merely a day of Prayer but a day of National Repentance? We are all crying for peace, but God cannot bless a people who deliberately flout His laws and ignore His love. The Prophet Isaiah on more than one occasion warns His people: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
The nineteenth century was a remarkable era of prosperity and advance in every direction. This fact was undoubtedly due to the Evangelical Revival. Men were putting into practice the teachings of Christ.
Men were putting God first
and seeking His Kingdom and His Righteousness, and so received the fulfillment of the promise, “all these things shall be added unto you.” But by the end of the century there were signs of spiritual and moral decline, and immediately God graciously began to send warnings. The new century opened while the South African War was being fought. Since then disaster after disaster has followed. There is no space to enumerate them here, but it is clear to any thinking person that through these events God has been seeking to call our people back to Himself. He has seen fit to withdraw His protecting Hand from over us on occasions and to allow the messenger of death to visit us. Such occasions have been
Warnings of greater disaster to follow
if we persist in our wicked ways. It is not so much a question of God forsaking us but of our forsaking God. If we refuse to allow the rule of God over us and prefer our own ways, thinking in the pride of our hearts that we know better than God, we must take the consequences. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:1212There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12)).
During the last war it cost four years and more of bloodshed and indescribable agony before we learned the lesson. For it was not until 1918 that a National Day of Prayer and Repentance was observed. As soon as that was held the tide began to turn, and in a few months the war was over.
Is it War or Peace? The answer depends upon man’s attitude, towards God. It depends, therefore, partly upon your attitude and mine.
With acknowledgements to Living Links.