PEACE OR WAR?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 28, 22 August 1949, Page 4

PEACE OR WAR?

Sir,—No, less an authority than the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Trygve Lie, states: “I have never felt so free from apprehension .... There is no crisis . . . . There is good hope of a peaceful settlement of the world’s problems within a few years.” {Heraid 15.8.49). This reads strangely coming so soon after the impassioned appeals of the Compulsory Military Training campaign, in which this Dominion was convinced that he oposite was true, and that urgent action was absolutely necessary if we are to continue as a free people. On one hand we have: “No crisis” and peace around th ecorner! On the other hand, such dire threat of world war that we must arm, and quickly. What does it all mean? The answer was written over 2,000 years ago! Read Isaiah 2:2-4: “And it shall come to pass in the last days . . . .

And many people shall go -and say,

. . . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks, nation shall not lift up sword against ._.ition, neither shall they learn war any more.” Note? particularly that this is what “many people shall .go and say,” (not what they will do), in the “last days.” Jiel’s parallel prophecy reveals what the nations will actually do: “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears .... For the day of the Lord is near in.the valley of decision.” (Joel 3:9-14). These ancient Bible prophecies tell us that man will talk peace and prepare war. Is not this fulfilling right before our eyes? Is not this, as Tible students and so many world leaders are convinced, the prelude to Armageddon? Yours etc., CHRISTIAN.