Man's Only Hope for Peace (1953)
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MAN'S ONLY HOPE for PEACE
Man's science makes war more horrible Man's greed makes peace more remote God's goodness provides sure hope for permanent peace
MAN'S ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE
Total war or lasting peace—which do you choose? But what normal person does not want peace? Then to whom will you turn for it, to God or to man? Man's record as a peacemaker remains dismal, even in this age of apparent progress. It is too bad. Scientific knowledge can measure and weigh our earth and tap its resources for every conceivable invention. Every type of human rule and religion has been introduced to mankind. But nothing tried welds the diverse peoples together in harmony. Man seems able to do everything with the earth but live on it.
Men have ever been quick to label their own schemes with divine approval. This ancient practice was first carried on by Adam's immediate descendants outside the garden of Eden, who sought to call down the name of Jehovah upon their selfish attempts to rule. (Genesis 4:26) Of course, this availed nothing, since God is no partisan politician who can be "pald off" with fair speeches. For its godlessness that old world was washed out in the flood of Noah's day.-Genesis 7:2 Peter 3:5, 6.
However, the political elements that sprang up after the Flood quickly forgot its lesson. Politics and false religion went back into business and have kept going right into this modern twentleth century. World War II saw the nations divided into two great camps. Victory prayers were numerous but meant little, since the same religions offered them on both sides of the battle lines. As further inducements, "Holy Years" come and go every twenty-five years They are loud and gaudy but do little for peace.
Why Man Has Failed
No wonder! The political systems that religious prayers and sermons, "Holy Years" and rituals have been so long blessing are rooted in the hands of sinspoiled men, subject to the influence of the wicked "god of this system of things", who induced the disobedience of our first parents in Eden.
This one is Satan the Devil. (Genesis 3; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 5:19) Hate, selfishness and greed for domination over others, the elements that create strife among individuals and wars among nations, all originate with this one. So the Bible tells us in James, chapter four. All the seven great world powers from Noah's day to ours and all their "satellites" have been subject to this world's spiteful god. How could their fragile human might ever conquer or destroy him? Destroy him? They could not even see him!
What has been true of the nations individually must certainly be true of them when grouped together. Thus as a "League of Nations" and the "United Nations" they continue to fall in their modern-day aims of 'making the world safe for democracy' and establishing the "four freedoms".
Religious approval of such failures has not helped. Labeling the United Nations a "temple of peace" and an instrumentality through which might come "the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom of God" has not made it such. Not God, but only the clergy of worldly religion have called it in this manner. Then is its failure to win peace a mockery of God's power or of that of the combined clergy of Christendom, heathendom and Jewtrue prophet, Jeremiah, said: "They have healed also the
When Jehovah God's onetime name-people, Israel, violated his covenant and he warned them of disaster to follow, deceptive prophets of peace rose up and held that human ingenuity would keep the peace and security. Of these frauds, Jehovah's
"god of this system of things", who induced the disobedience of our first parents in Eden.
This one is Satan the Devil. (Genesis 3; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 5:19) Hate, selfishness and greed for domination over others, the elements that create strife among individuals and wars among nations, all originate with this one. So the Bible tells us in James, chapter four. All the seven great world powers from Noah's day to ours and all their "satellites" have been subject to this world's spiteful god. How could their fragile human might ever conquer or destroy him? Destroy him? They could not even see him!
What has been true of the nations individually must certainly be true of them when grouped together. Thus as a "League of Nations" and the "United Nations" they continue to fall in their modern-day aims of 'making the world safe for democracy' and establishing the "four freedoms".
Religious approval of such failures has not helped. Labeling the United Nations a "temple of peace" and an instrumentality through which might come "the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom of God" has not made it such. Not God, but only the clergy of worldly religion have called it in this manner. Then is its failure to win peace a mockery of God's power or of that of the combined clergy of Christendom, heathendom and Jewtrue prophet, Jeremiah, said: "They have healed also the
When Jehovah God's onetime name-people, Israel, violated his covenant and he warned them of disaster to follow, deceptive prophets of peace rose up and held that human ingenuity would keep the peace and security. Of these frauds, Jehovah's
and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this."—Isaiah 9:6, 7.
The last twenty-seven books of the Bible prove eloquently that Jesus Christ is this foretold "Prince of Peace". Wisely knowing that the headstrong rulers and people who rejected his message could never establish lasting peace and happiness, he taught his followers to pray for God's kingdom by Christ, which would do so. (Matthew 6:9-13) To the scoffing Jewish nation that refused him, Jesus left only the prospects of desolation. And just such befell them at the hands of the Romans A.D. 70.
For the "last days" of this old "system of things" this true and greatest prophet sent from God foretold multiplied world sorrows heaped up by global wars, pestilence, famine and fear within one generation. At the same time must come attempts at world government, preaching of Christ's kingdom and hatred for its proclaimers. (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) Though all such occurrences have together stricken this dying world since A.D. 1914 for the only historical fulfillment of this prophecy, scoffers continue to insist that God does not know what he is talking about. They choose man's way out. Man was wrong in Eden, wrong in Noah's
time, wrong in Christ's day on earth, and wrong in foretelling lasting peace after World War I in this
generation. But he insists now that God, who has never been wrong, will be this time, and that man will succeed as peacemaker.
Man is imperfect and dying and can sponsor only a perishable hope.
That is not the sound hope for you. Your opportunities for everlasting life upon a paradisaic earth in a new world where "righteousness is to dwell" (2 Peter 3:13) rest with Jehovah God and Christ Jesus. Their destruction of the Devil will end the 6,000-year-long universal "time for war" and usher in a lasting "time for peace". "The zeal of Jehovah of hosts" will perform these great acts and extend the blessings of life and peace to all parts of the earth with its many nations and families.
Scriptures quoted herein are from the "American Standard Version" for the Hebrew Scriptures or the "New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures".
MAN'S ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE
Not the U.N., nor any other man-made substitute, but the kingdom of God is man's only hope for peace. That Bible hope is made clear as never before in the New World Translation of the Octateuch (first eight books of the Hebrew Scriptures, from Genesis through Ruth) and the Christian Greek Scriptures, the "New Testament". In modern everyday English, based on latest findings of Biblical research, and replete with marginal references, footnotes and valuable appendix, the two volumes, bound in green cloth, gold-leaf stamped, are available on a contribution of 3.00, singly1.50.
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