THE BIBLE AND CURRENT EVENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22833, 18 March 1936, Page 7

THE BIBLE AND CURRENT EVENTS

TO THE EDITOR. .Sir, —A few weeks ago your Sunday Circle notes contained the following extract from D. L. Aloody:— “ The Bible is the only real news book in the world. The newspapers tell us what has taken place, but the Bible tells us what will, take place: and for people to be shutting it up, and saying that we can be guided without it, is just as reasonable as to shut out the sun because we have the electric light.” The number of people there are who are content with artificial lights so far as current international events are concerned is surprising. Hardly a day passes without the daily newspaper publishing some article, news or letter that reveals this artificial light—knowledge, based on human understanding that is unable to anticipate events with any degree of certainty, and yet is relied upon as if it was infallible. One reads of a “no more war movement," while the international situation moves in that direction. Air A. DuffCooper (Secretary for War), in a speech in presenting the Army Estimates in the House of Commons, said: “There was no certainty that in some future conflict Britain would not have to send, at very short notice, a well-equipped force to take part in war on the Continent.” Nobody wants war. The predominant note in the world to-day is peace and security.

The Bible’tells ua what will take place “when they shall say, peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them” (1 Thess. v. 3.) “Alen’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” (Luke xxi, 26.) The League of Nations looks on helplessly as one nation after another defies it. Why is it that “the best laid schemes of ... men gang aft

agley"? It is simply because they are men’s schemes and God is left out of account.

Expediency is the basis upon which all national and international problems are solved only to be resolved over and over again. “ The best of men are but men at their best,” and unfortunately for the world at large, the best of men are not always at their best when the lives of nations are in their hands. AH are very aptly described in Rom. iii, 10-12: "There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” A better description of some could not be found than that recorded in the succeeding verses, 13 to 18: —“Their throat is in open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are jn their ways: Anti the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Is it any wonder that there is uncertainty abroad about the future of international affairs when they are in the hands of imperfect humanity which is too proud to admit that the present state ot affairs is beyond it and calls for humiliation and repentance before God. God’s laws are derided and superseded by laws governed by economic, social, and monetary considerations, officially approved or condoned by many Church governments. The leaders of the nations ■ have yet to learn that they cannot repudiate the laws of God and prosper. “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” (Afatt. xxiv, 6.) The only people in the world to-day who are entitled to be optimistic regarding the future are real disciples of Jesus Christ, whose peace of heart and mind does not depend on present or future prospects in the world, but future prospects out of the world. —I am, etc., J. C. M.