Chapter 11 -THESE ARE THE LAST DAYS!

FEATURES OF THE LAST DAYS

"Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom."  (Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:4) Writer Ernest Hemingway called World War I  "the most colossal  murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth."  According to the book The World in the Crucible -1914-1919, this was  a new scope of war,the first total war in the experience of mankind.  Its  duration, intensity, and scale exceeded anything previously known or generally expected."   Then came World War II, which proved much more destructive than World War I.  "The twentieth century," say professor of history Hugh Thomas,  "has been dominated by the machine gun, the tank, the B-52, the nuclear bomb and, finally, the missile.  It has been marked by wars more bloody and destructive than those of any other age."  True, much was said about disarmament after the Cold War ended.  Still, one report estimates that after proposed reductions some 10,000 to 20,000 nuclear warheads will remain -more than 900 times the firepower used during World War II.

"There will be food shortages."   (Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:5, 6, 8) Since 1914 there have been at least 20 major famines.  Afflicted areas include Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan.  But famine is not always caused by a lack of food.  "The world's food supply over recent decades has grown faster than its population,"  concluded a group of agricultural scientists and economists.  "But because at least 800 million people remain in deep poverty, . . . they are  unable to purchase enough of the abundance to life them out of chronic malnutrition."  Political meddling is involved in other cases.  Dr. Abdelgalil Elmekki of the University of Toronto cites two examples in which thousands starved while their countries were exporting massive amounts of food.   The governments seemed far more concerned with raising foreign currency to finance their wars than with feeding their citizens.  Dr. Elmekki's conclusion?  Famine is often "a matter of distribution and government policy."

"Pestilences."  (Luke 21:11; Revelation 6:8) The Spanish influenza of 1918-19 claimed at least 21 million lives.  "The world had never in history been ravaged by a killer that slew so many human beings so quickly,"  writes A.A. Hoehling in the Great Epidemic.  Today, pestilences rage on.  Each year, cancer kills five million people, diarrheal diseases claim the lives of more than three million.  Respiratory infections, mainly pneumonia, annually kill 3.5 million youngsters under five years of age.  And a staggering 2.5 billion-half the world's population-suffer from sicknesses that stem from insufficient or contaminated water and poor sanitation.  AIDS looms as a further reminder that man, despite his significant medical accomplishments, is incapable of eradicating pestilences.

"Men will be . . . lovers of money."  (2 Timothy 3:2)  In lands around the world, people seem to have an insatiable hunger for greater wealth.  "Success" is often measured by the size of one's paycheck, "accomplishment" by how much one owns.  "Materialism will continue to be one of the driving forces in American society . . . and an increasingly important  force in other major markets as well, declared  the vice president of an advertising agency.  Is this happening where you live?

Next time: Continue with: FEATURES OF THE LAST DAYS

The Book -KNOWLEDGE That Leads To Everlasting Life, 1995