Comment By Torchlight

Whither World?

Where is the world being led by scientists and their discoveries? This question is frequently being asked and forecasts given, with the end of the century in mind. All these forecasts leave out of reckoning the divine purpose, revealed in Scripture, to intervene once more in human history. At God's right hand sits our exalted Lord awaiting His Father's bidding to descend from heaven for His saints. The promise, "Behold, I come quickly" (Revelation 22.12), stands, and for the Christian has greater substance than all forecasts of human progress.

We return to our question, Where is the world being led? Undoubtedly, knowledge is being acquired which, if properly applied, will relieve human suffering and be of great benefit to mankind. But has the pursuit of knowledge, in itself, always been for the good of the human race? Some of the most wonderful inventions have placed in the hands of evil men powers which have brought misery and death to countless millions. As knowledge increases so does responsibility. But sinful man is unable to control the machines he is creating. He fails to do so because greed and lust for power outweigh humanitarian considerations. These evident facts are the basis of our query, Whither world?

Recently, in a little publicised speech in the House of Lords, Lord Gladwyn expressed what must be the doubts of many as they contemplate the course mankind is taking. With the end of the century in view, he asked.

"Shall we be happier when we are being hurled about the world at supersonic speed? Or can hear what is happening at any moment of time in any quarter of the globe? Shall we be happier when, thanks to computers, we have no longer to read or write? When there is no more countryside? And we can all live to be 200 by buying other people's organs? Would it be a better world when babies come from test tubes? and love between the sexes is looked on as some kind of infantile disorder? and we spend our days in boredom on our way to uninhabited planets? But if that is to be our fate, we can do nothing about it. It is something inherent in our modern type of society. We might desperately try to avoid it by breaking up all this machinery and becoming a nation of new Luddites. Yet that might be even worse."

These are the words of a man of the world viewing with a questioning eye the trends of modern civilization. They leave out of the picture the prospect of divine intervention to which we have already alluded.

Whatever course human history takes in our times, the oracle of the ancient Hebrew prophet has a timeless relevance:

"He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what

doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly,

and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

Whither Christendom?

About 70 years ago a book was published entitled, "The Buddha of Christendom", by Sir Robert Anderson, K.C.B., LL.D. Ten years later the book was enlarged and re-issued with the title, "The Bible or the Church?" Dr Anderson's books are mostly out of print, although there has been a recent reprint of his classic, "The Coming Prince", which is a "must" for Bible students interested in the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel 9. He was a shrewd Christian thinker who discerned in his day the drift from Scripture truth recovered at the time of the Reformation. In the preface of "The Buddha of Christendom" he wrote, "In this flippant age we seem to be letting slip what the Reformers won for us. For a national lapse toward superstition upon the one hand, and rationalism upon the other, is one of the marked characteristics of the day. And altogether apart from religious controversy these movements deserve the earnest attention of the thoughtful. For the dethronement of the Bible eliminates the most important factor in the formation of our national character, and it is not easy to estimate the effect which this will have on the life of the people of this country. The drift which Anderson discerned in his day has now reached floodtide and the effect is patent for all to see. Let none be deceived. The reunion of Christendom which is the goal of the World Council of Churches will be attained only at the cost of sacrificing the authority of Scripture which was the corner-stone of the Reformation. What is not based on Scripture is bereft of divine authority.

What was accomplished in Britain by the Reformers was well put by the late Dr Ryle:

"The Reformation found Englishmen steeped in ignorance, and left them in possession of knowledge - found them without Bibles, and left them with a Bible in every parish - found them in darkness and left them in comparative light - found them priest-ridden, and left them enjoying the liberty which Christ bestows-found them strangers to the blood of atonement, to faith, and grace, and holiness, and left them with the key to those things in their hands - found them blind and left them seeing - found them slaves and set them free."

We believe the Reformers fell short in their recovery of Scripture truth but that does not cancel the great debt we owe to them. All who love God's word cannot but look with dismay at the casting aside of its authority in matters of faith and morals. Surely there can be no question that the born-again believer should take his place "outside the camp" of so-called Christendom!

unknown | May 1969
Comment By Torchlight