Ten years is a comparatively short space of time when compared with man's history. One decade seems almost infinitesimal against the background of more that 4000 years since the language barrier separated the sons of men into families, communities, and finally into rival and often warring nations.
It is now just one decade since the cessation of hostilities of the last great world war—Germany surrendered May 7th, and Japan on August 14, 1945. Let us briefly examine the doings and results of these years. Have they brought peace to the earth? Has the awful reality of war's destruction, brought home so forcibly by that world holocaust, caused nations to "beat their swords into plowshares"? Has the war been fought that will end wars? It is all too evident that the answer to these questions is "No," but we shall look at some details of the history of the decade.
One of the early happenings of the period was the dissolution of the old League of Nations (formed after the First World War to safeguard the world from another war), and the formation of the United Nations, which it was hoped would succeed where its predecessor failed. Great hopes were expressed at its founding that it would guarantee peace in the world, yet its inception was devoid of prayer to God in deference to atheistic Russia. Very little can be said for its accomplishments, and at some times of crisis it has seemed almost impotent.
1945 ushered in the atomic age with the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6 and 9. This revolutionary development, together with faster-than-sound means of delivery, and many other contemporaneous inventions of war have urged on the leaders of nations seeking to learn the latest methods of destruction. It touched off the greatest armaments race in history, and instead of nations beating their swords into plowshares, they are doing the reverse (which according to prophecy must come first:
Joel 3:1010Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. (Joel 3:10); then Isa. 2:3, 43And 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: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:3‑4) and Mic. 4:2, 32And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 3And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Micah 4:2‑3)). The potential for mass destruction is now so great that scarcely anyone is able to comprehend it-from A bombs and H bombs to chemical and bacteriological warfare the prospects are frightening. Perhaps no mere decade in history has witnessed such revolutionary changes-changes which have antiquated the weapons of the world war of ten years ago.
In this short span great empires have shrunken: France has lost Indo-China and is having great trouble holding possessions in Africa; the Netherlands lost Indonesia; Great Britain lost India, and Egypt, and South Africa, except that some of these retain very slim ties with the Commonwealth.
Great Britain withdrew from Palestine after forestalling many attempts of Jewish immigrants to land there, and then the Jewish people declared the formation of the nation of Israel. This was ultimately acknowledged by many nations, but the Arab countries declared war against the fledgling state. War finally terminated in the Israeli's conquest of the Negeb desert area in the south of Palestine, but left Jerusalem divided and the old city still in the hands of the Arabs, a standing witness to the Lord's words in Luke 21: "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." An uneasy truce rests upon the whole Near East, and the Arabs will not officially renounce a state of war with Israel. Trouble may flare up there again at any time.
Tremendous changes have taken place between nations; former allies and friends are now enemies, and former enemies are now staunch allies. In 1946 the United States proposed a treaty with England, Russia, and France to keep Germany disarmed for 25 years, and yet in a few years has reversed herself and has helped rebuild the former enemy's cities, and now has promoted a treaty to permit her the right to rearm; yes, and more, to help her do it.
A "cold war" has been the order of the last few years, which many times has almost flared into a shooting war. Russia through devious means has gained most in the decade, and through her alliance with the Communists of China has enabled them to subjugate all of China, North Korea, and a sizable part of Indo-China. In these years Russia has never demobilized, and has continued on a war footing. Her constant threat to world peace has brought Western Nations into an alignment once thought impossible.
We shall not speak much on the subject of religion in this period as we have taken that up in other issues, except to point out that Roman Catholicism has been squeezed out of the Russian orbit and has gained strength in Western areas. This is in keeping with the place that the prophetic word gives to her. In fact, her power may well furnish much of the cohesion of the revived Roman Empire so soon to flourish in this world.
So as we look back just ten years to the end of World War II, we see it as a period of tension and strife, of far-reaching developments which presage the last days of Christendom and the coming of "the great and terrible day of the Lord." Perhaps no decade in all history has produced changes of such magnitude, and that in many fields. As the period comes to a close there is some talk of peace and prosperity ahead, but we should not be deceived thereby. The time is coming when men shall have made things so secure, according to their thoughts, that they will say, "Peace and safety," just before "sudden destruction" shall come upon them (1 Thess. 5:33For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:3)).
There is one line of truth that has been very much before us in writing this brief summary; that is, that God is behind the scenes and ordering them all according to His plans. In Daniel 7, the prophet said, "I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea." He was given to see the effects of the winds upon the sea. These winds represent God's providential dealings with the earth-they are "the four winds of heaven." They are currents that are allowed by God to affect the courses of the nations. Policies and public opinions, circumstances, great and apparently trivial, all work out His will. The sea represents the restless moving masses of people who are acted upon by these things. When John, looking ahead, sees these four winds in Revelation 7, they are being held back until a remnant of Israel are sealed before the time of Jacob's trouble. John speaks of the winds as "the four winds of the earth." The difference between Daniel and John is that the former spoke of the source from which they come, and the latter, the object on which they act.
In Daniel 7 the activity of these winds upon the seas produces the agitation that brings forth great empires, and this commotion has always preceded great changes among the nations. Sometimes seemingly unrelated happenings prove to be but the workings of a divine providence to produce certain complex situations out of which arise great leaders and great nations. Look back through history and see the background from which sprang those great beasts of Daniel 7-the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires. All came up from the tossing of the peoples, which were brought about by the providential winds of heaven.
Then when we come to Revelation 13 we find that the future beast—the great and terrible Roman Empire of the future-will arise out of the sea, no doubt troubled by the winds of the heaven acting upon the earth. Surely the last decade has witnessed the blowing of the winds of heaven upon earth, and the changes have been momentous and drastic. Stormy winds have been fulfilling His will, and soon the final actors in this scene of man's day will come forth ready to fulfill their appointed parts. But let us not forget how the picture of prophecy everywhere closes—with the coming and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Daniel says, when contemplating the four Gentile kingdoms, especially the revived Roman Empire, that "in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and IT SHALL STAND Forever." Dan. 2:4444And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (Daniel 2:44).
If the reign of our Lord is so soon to supplant the militant forces of Gentile sovereignty, then His coming to receive His own must be at the very doors. Any day we may hear that summons: "Come up hither." May He not come and find us sleeping, but waiting and watching.