9. World Peace

The pre-eminent issue, absorbing the thoughts of the masses, is world peace. It is impossible that anybody anywhere should be unconcerned about it. It affects the life, the home, the future of every man, woman and child. A miniature object lesson on modern warfare has been enacted before our eyes in Spain. The scourge of death, bereavement, blindness, maiming, terror by night and by day can never really be imagined; it must be felt. We in England are living in comparative tranquillity and comfort, but we are continually having it brought home to us that at any moment we may be engulfed in war with all its consequences. If we recollect the tension that preceded the Munich agreement and the relief that followed it we may estimate in some degree what the masses think about war. What is the answer of the Christian church to such a situation? It may at once be said that clergy and ministers of all denominations are most deeply concerned about this menace. If it were left to them Europe would soon be free from the horrors of war or the fears of it. There is within organised religion a will to peace, continual prayer for peace, ballots for peace, meetings for peace, resolutions for peace, sermons for peace, posters for peace. Some would secure it by pacifism, many by disarmament, and some by a change of government. The very painful fact, however, from which we cannot escape, stares us in the face. With all the various efforts and remedies, the spirit of war is increasing and the fear of war grows. So far, with the best will in the world, the leaders of religion have made no appreciable impression upon the rulers of the nations as a whole.

What has the second Adventist to say to such an appalling situation? He addresses himself to the problem from the standpoint of a plain reading and understanding of the Scriptures. He opens his Bible believing it to be the infallible revelation of God and, without amending it in any way, disputing its accuracy, rearranging its contents, qualifying its authority or minimising its claim to inspiration, he firmly believes that the Scriptures are the revelation of the mind and will of God, not merely up to A.D. 70 but right up to the time when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. He believes them to be prophetic, that they declare God’s purpose through all time, and that it is a profound mistake to suppose that God carefully guided men by prophecy foretold and then fulfilled up to the death of Christ but thereafter flung the world out to get on as best it could in dependence on the assumed authority of an ecclesiastical system. Hence to understand the present situation he turns to the Word of God to see what the Scriptures have to say concerning the hour in which we are living.

Our Lord looked into the future and He foresaw a time when men’s hearts would fail them for fear and for looking forward to those things which are coming on the earth. 1 We will not necessarily assert that He was looking into 1938 or 1939, we will only say that certainly in the future as He saw it there would be such a feeling in the hearts of men, as we know exists at this very moment. His words meant much more. So far from things getting better and peace increasing with prosperity, He declared with all the unique authority which was His that things would get worse and worse until hope would give place to fear. There is not a single word from the lips of our Lord that suggests that He anticipated the nations rallying to the Gospel with the consequence that wars would cease amongst men. On the contrary He saw desolation, war strife, conflict and discord. Not only so but He added a word of importance to His disciples. “When these things begin to be fulfilled, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh.” They were to look up. Men would be looking down but the disciples on the earth were to be looking up. Catastrophe would be facing the world, but world catastrophe would be the hour of deliverance for the disciples. Nowhere does He identify the prospects of the church with the world, but always He saw that those who separated themselves from God in unbelief would most surely pass into commotion, strife and war as the inevitable fruit of their attitude to God. To all this He gave the solemn seal: “Verily, verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” 2 That is to say the generation that should see the beginning of these terrible things should be the same generation as would see their consummation in the coming of the Lord and the resurrection and rapture of the Church.

As far as the world is concerned therefore the Scriptures declare that this present age is destined to end in disaster. There will be wars and rumours of war until the great battle of Armageddon, which will end in the personal appearance of our Glorious Lord on Mount Olivet. At the same time there is much in Scripture that speaks of world peace. If these passages are taken as snips from their context and offered to men in their sin as promises of God they will do incalculable harm to religion, but if they are taken in their context and expounded to men then many amongst the masses will begin to perceive the nature of the situation. The Second Adventist believes in world peace and is certain it is coming. He believes that God has promised it to the world. “He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” 3 That is a glorious promise which is destined literally to be fulfilled but it will be fulfilled in God’s way. The Scriptures have at least seven conditions concerning world peace. It is simply amazing that our religious leaders never make the slightest reference to any one of them.

1. There will be no world peace until the Lord Jesus returns in person. In that wonderful day when He smites the nations at Olivet “the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be One Lord, and His Name one.” 4 Link with this the utterance of Jeremiah as God’s messenger in chapter 23, verses 5 to 8. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as King and prosper, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is His Name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our righteousness.” Is there any other who can fulfil those glorious titles and offices but Jesus? He certainly has not done this yet. It is what the world needs and longs for, and it is He who can and will do it. What a glorious day it will be when He executes righteousness and justice on the earth. That will indeed be the era of peace. That will be a work, declares Jeremiah, greater than when God divided the Red Sea, and its effects will be peace upon the earth, for none shall be able to resist the Holy One who reigns in Mount Zion. God has decreed that when world peace comes the throne that matters shall be in Jerusalem and its occupant His Beloved Son who died at Calvary. It is He and He alone that shall rebuke the nations, and it will be by His command that they will turn their armament factories into the production of the implements of peace and husbandry. That is very significant because it looks as if the nations will almost starve themselves in the effort to be adequately armed, so that the very first task of His personal administration will be the provision of the means of agriculture. Of course this position is ridiculed by the unbeliever and by very many Christians, who never think it strange when their outlook coincides with that of the worldling. In the meantime every honest judge of the situation will be compelled to admit that as events are moving today there is not a scintilla of evidence that the anti-Second Adventists are right. Free Church ministers have lately been sitting at the feet of Mr. Lansbury. He has made great efforts for peace by visiting many European statesmen, but his gospel of disarmament is as dead as a dodo. There is not a single responsible statesman in Parliament who would dare at this critical time to trust the policy of disarmament for world peace. And the Second Adventist who sees war as the fruit of sin insists that you must deal with sin if you would deal with war, and the only One Who can deal with sin is now in heaven, having finished the work on the Cross. He Himself is coming to rebuke the nations and to usher in the millennial era of peace. Outside of Him there is no hope of world peace. It is well that we should learn that prayers offered contrary to the teaching of Scripture have no avail with God. The ecclesiastical rank of the man who prays, whether the prayers are to be “said” or “sung,” whether they are ordered to be said in all churches by the Privy Council or not, all these considerations are of no avail, bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, Free Church ministers who pray against the teaching of Scripture are not heard in heaven. He and He alone is destined to usher in world peace at His coming.

2. There will be no world peace until He is the World’s Dictator in Jerusalem. The greatest industry in the world today is the manufacture of armaments. Germany is taking huge financial risks in an effort to be impregnable. She hopes to be such a menace to her neighbours that nobody will dare to go to war with her. With Italy and Japan in close partnership she is compelling all other nations to follow her example. We are therefore likely to see the development of the idea of central control. Governments rule over their own nationals, but the masses are now thinking that some central control over governments is needed. Geneva, with its Parliament of the League of Nations, expressed this growing conviction, but everybody today recognises that the League as a really effective instrument has passed into the records of history. We are destined to see the development of Dictatorship as the one solution to the world’s international difficulties. In principle, dictatorship is probably right. The masses of the people cannot govern, for apart from varying mental capacity they are not in possession of a tithe of the facts that govern any situation. Let me repeat very clearly that, in principle, dictatorship is probably right, but let me also add that it is of immense importance who the dictator is. As men are taught by the very peril of humanity to put their trust in personal leadership, Satan will step in to provide his instrument for their need. He will be the antichrist, but his policy will lead the masses right into the most terrible war the race has ever known. Then will be the moment of God’s deliverance, when His chosen Dictator, the One Who has proved His love for the world by dying for it, will return to reign in its midst in life, resurrection life. Who has a greater right to the throne of the world than Jesus? When Satan offered Him the kingdoms of the world for an act of worship He refused them, but He took them by the shedding of His blood, and if there is One Man in the Whole universe who has the right to the confidence of the peoples and the wisdom, the love and the power to reign over them, that Man is the God-Man of heaven, even Jesus our Saviour and Lord. Blessed be God He is destined from all eternity to become the world’s Dictator, and we hail the day of His enthronement in Jerusalem 5 with joy and thanksgiving.

3. There will be no world peace until Satan is bound. I do not expect statesmen to entertain such an idea for a moment, but I am greatly surprised that professing disciples of the Lord Jesus who claim to preach His gospel should be silent on this matter. Let us see what a strange situation has developed in recent months. Immediately after the Munich agreement, when one would have thought that men everywhere in Europe would have been glad to have laid in the dust every divisive issue, Poland stepped in to claim her share of Czecho-Slovakia and as she made her grab in the north so Hungary pressed in the south. General Franco advanced rapidly in Spain, Great Britain agreed to recognise the conquest of Abyssinia, and then Italy proceeded to make new claims upon France. Notice how it is done. There is what seems to be a spontaneous demonstration in the Italian Parliament, which grovels at the feet of Mussolini, it is followed by a bitter Press campaign, and finally in due course Mussolini makes a pronouncement which gives ground for grave fears that nothing but huge concessions in Tunisia and on the French frontier will satisfy him. Since then Japan has made a serious demarche in the Pacific, filling Great Britain and France with grave apprehensions. Yet all the time everybody wants peace! Recently there was an article in the “News Chronicle” which declared that diplomacy consisted very largely of deceit and make-believe. Is it possible that statesmen can indulge in make-believe when millions of lives are at stake? One would suppose that statesmen observing the formidable piling up of armaments and knowing their possibilities would be unwilling to take responsibility before God for the awful slaughter such weapons envisage. What makes this mass hysteria? Why do common folk when massed together behave so strangely? The reader of Scripture has no hesitation in providing an answer. There is another power working amidst human life. St. Paul saw it and named it as “the spirit now working in the children of disobedience.” 6 It is Satan with his host of demons who is exercising such a terrible influence in the affairs of men, and until he is dealt with “common sense” as men call it can never rule the world. There is nobody who can deal with Satan save Jesus. He alone has taken complete and absolute victory of this demon spirit who works so incessantly in the hearts of men. Satan was defeated in the wilderness, he was defeated on the Cross, and he is destined to be removed from the place of influence in the experience of men, but none can do it save Jesus, and He will deal with him effectively when He comes and ultimately casts him into hell. The man who envisages world peace and plans his campaign without thought of Satan is as utterly foolish as a man who would try to beat the British navy in a rowing boat!

4. There will be no world peace until the saints rule the world. Very clearly our Lord taught the fact of the saints ruling the world in His “Parable of the Pounds.” 7 The servants who had been faithful with the pound were made rulers over cities. The saints are destined to rule the world, but they are impatient about it and want to rule it now. Instead of confining themselves to be witnesses to His Cross and Coming the saints are for ever trying to order an unchristian society to live as if it were already redeemed. I might as well try to make a horse bark like a dog. The duty of the saints while Jesus is in heaven is to be witnesses unto Him. “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.” 8 When our Lord comes again to the earth and establishes His rule in Jerusalem His redeemed saints will be His representatives throughout the universe. The world today is in the hands of men of all creeds and none. Dictators have no thought of God, and the masses who elect their Parliaments agree with the Dictators at least in religion. More and more political meetings are being held on Sundays and less and less is thought of man’s responsibility to God. Such people are utterly useless in the real, living, progressive government of the earth. If this is God’s earth, then it needs to be governed God’s way and in accordance with His will. the will of God is vested in His Beloved Son Whom God has already made heir of all things. 9 Through Him He will judge the world for its wicked rejection of Him and its terrible misrule of the earth. 10 But then the earth is to have an experience of what Divine government really means and in that day when Jesus is here He will come with His saints, from whom He will never again be separated, and through them He will administer the will of God in righteousness. While the Lord is absent in the heavenlies our task is witness, holy living, but when He returns it will be government. Know ye not the saints shall judge the world? 11 God speaks these things so clearly in His Word, but we let them fall away from our minds like autumn leaves, preferring to set up cinema councils to decide what shall be shewn in the local cinema while the saints are at worship, protesting against this, protesting against that, making ourselves to be killjoys for those who have no hope In Christ. We deliberately want to deny them what little pleasures they have got while we tell them there is nothing in the blood of Christ. We make a terrible fuss because they will not fill our chapels and churches, but we are silent about the glorious life of the Holy Spirit and the blessings of salvation. What a strange Christendom confronts us today!

5. There will be no world peace until the temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem. Ezekiel had the vision of that marvellous temple yet to be 12 of which Solomon’s was an anticipation. It is God’s intention that His Beloved Son shall be in the midst of His temple, and that the Jew shall then go forth to tell the nations that a greater than Solomon is in the midst of His people. Romanism is making a desperate effort to become the centre of worship. Multitudes go to Rome to be allowed the extraordinary privilege of kissing the Pope’s foot! It is the dearest desire of the Mohammedan that he may be able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life. Of course the Christian believer could not possibly recognise such mass movements today. This is the day of the Lord’s rejection. If they have hated Me they will hate you. Therefore the day of universal worship can only ensue upon acceptance of the Lord Whom it rejected. In the day when our Lord returns a nation shall be converted in a day, 13 and through that nation the nations of the earth will learn of His glorious presence and seek His face to worship Him in Jerusalem. That will be a day when no passports will be needed and trade restrictions will have gone. It will be a day when there shall be security over the whole earth because of great David’s Greater Son Who reigns and rules in Jerusalem.

6. There will be no world peace until the animals are at peace. The wild beast in man is a sufficient problem at the moment that animals are forgotten, but there are no one-sided views in Scripture. Part of world-wide peace in Scripture is peace in the animal world. The animal world shares the curse of sin. If they are wild and fierce they owe it not to themselves but to man. When our Lord was in the wilderness we are told He was with the wild beasts. They were under His control and subject to Him. It was an anticipation of the day that is yet to be. In the providence of God there shall yet be a time when the wolf and the lamb shall feed together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord. 14 Clergy and ministers very discretely leave this matter alone, but the Scriptures do not. When the Bible speaks about peace it means peace. He has made peace by the blood of His Cross, and there is nothing parochial about that mighty achievement. It includes every living creature, and the animals that have so grievously suffered at the hands of man are to enter into the blessing. When He reigns over the earth nothing shall hurt or destroy, and the spirit of peace that comes over the hearts of men when He reigns and Satan is bound will be communicated to the suffering animal world as well, for the peace He brings is peace indeed.

7. There will be no world peace until creation itself is renewed. Olivet will cleave in the midst when His glorious feet touch it, 15 and that will be the signal for many remarkable changes all over the earth. Water shall run down from the sanctuary, like a broad river, rivers indeed, says Ezekiel, until they reach the Dead Sea whose waters shall be healed. 16 Today those waters are 26 per cent. salt, four times as salt as sea water, but they will be renewed so that fish will live in them and there shall be fishermen on the banks thereof. Creation will be so blessed that new impetus will be given to industry, the desert shall blossom as the rose. The mighty Sahara will be transformed, the barren wastes will be fertile and productive, and everything shall live in beauty and abundance. The creation cursed by sin, shall enter into the blessing enjoyed through that Man Who reigns in Jerusalem. The peace programme revealed in the Scriptures shews that the peace programme of the modernist preacher is a very sorry and pitiful proposition. It is entirely out of correspondence, both in content and measure with the broad and glorious programme unfolded in the Word of God. And yet we are called the people with the narrow minds!

The Second Adventist stands for a real peace policy. That policy is vested in the Prince of Peace by virtue of His blood. The first step to peace is peace with God through Him. No person in the wide world has any authority whatever to commence a peace campaign except it begin with peace in the heart through the laying down of all rebellion against the will of God. That is the starting point of peace in the Gospel. We have peace with God in the knowledge of sin confessed and forgiven, in the reception of life from heaven in Jesus the One and Only Prince of Peace. With the heart at peace with God in salvation the foundations of peace are truly laid. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” 17 The believer knows that peace already and is sure about it. He looks forward with confidence to the day when peace within shall be matched with peace without, when the Lord of Glory shall reign over the whole earth, when every pulse of the whole creation will be a pulse of perfect peace in the will of its Redeemer and Lord. That is the peace the world needs, it is the peace envisaged in the Word of God, 18 and it is the only practical peace that the Christian church is authorised to proclaim.

1

Luke 21:26-28

2

Luke 21:32

3

Isaiah 2:4

4

Zechariah 14:9

5

Acts 2:29-30

6

Ephesians 2:2

7

Luke 19:17-19

8

Acts 1:8

9

Hebrews 1:2

10

Revelation 11:17-18

11

Revelation 6:2

12

Ezekiel 43:1-12

13

Zechariah 3:8-9

14

Isaiah 11:6-9

15

Zechariah 14:4

16

Ezekiel 47:1-12

17

Isaiah 26:3

18

Isaiah 26:9 and 12