DISTRESS OF NATIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 941, 7 April 1930, Page 14

DISTRESS OF NATIONS

WORLD POLITICS FORESHOW COMING OF CHRIST FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY Taking for his text St. Luke xxi., 25 and 26: “There shall be signs . . . upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity. Men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,” the Rev. A. S. Wilson preached on the present state of politics as a sign of the second coming of Christ. It was clear to the casual observer that nations todaj' were perplexed and distressed, Mr. Wilson said. Statesmen were troubled and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald after a tour of European countries said: “There is a complete unsettlement in Europe, a sense of political insecurity in every country I visited.” In commercial life, in industrial life and other phases of human existence people felt that thej' - were living in strange times with queer happenings. Mr. Lloyd George had said: “The world, instead of learning lessons from the Great War, has not learned a single syllable. I am filled with genuine alarm at the outlook.” In the second place the preacher asked the audience to consider the evident failure of democracy as a governing principle. England’s Prime Minister declared that instead of the war making the world safe for democracy it had, in fact, delivered the most shattering blow democracy has received in recent times. In speaking of -world empires fortold in the image in the Book of Daniel, Mr. Wilson instanced the iron power of Rome and the belief of students that the ten toes of the image would be seen in ten world states, five in the East and five in the West. There was to be an admixture of iron and clay. The two types of people were with them today, the iron type standing for inherent authority and the clay type for extreme democracy. The outstanding feature of the day was that governmental authority had broken down everywhere. Mussolini was about right in saying: “Masses cannot rule masses.” Two nations, Russia and Italy, by different, routes had reached a tyranny of the most advanced type and these nations would be in separate camps in the groups of nations which were forming. In Italy the iron operated; in Russia the clay. It was autocracy’s day. Democracy had run its course. Italy, Turkey and Yugoslavia were more or less under absolute dictatorships. France was tending that way and so was Germany. The United States of America was finding it difficult to rule. Dictatorship and not democracy seemed utterly necessary for the avoidance of collapse and chaos. Many Christians believed that the. removal of true Christians and of the Holy Spirit from the earth was imminent and if this happened the control of lawless masses by dictatorship was the only method. In the third place, Mr. Wilson said that the very effort to procure and declare “peace and safety” was an evidence that this dispensation of grace .was nearly run out. Statesmen on the signing of pacts were cabling to each other their congratulations, but men’s hearts were failing them for fear. While professing peace and safety the nations were making most according to Scripture, could only be diabolical preparations for war. Peace, temporary. Soon the rider on the red horse -would go forth and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth. Armageddon was on the way. Students of the Bible prophecy said that that war to which the last led up would crash and then a silence w'ould prevail—that civilisation in that day would be laid aside like a discarded garment and all earth’s values and achievements would be piled up, a medley of confusion. The world that had rejected the gospel of God's dear Son was going to feel the mighty hand of God upon it. He urged every unsaved person to push into this day of Grace of which the door was nearly closed. The service closed with the hymn, “It Must be the Breaking of the Day.”