TAKE COURAGE AS DELIVERANCE DRAWS NEAR - "Critical Times Hard to Deal With"

"Critical Times Hard to Deal With"
Since this 20th century has experienced greater suffering than any other, there is a greater need for deliverance now than ever before.  Today, well over a billion people live in dire poverty, and that number increases by some 25 million annually.  Each year about 13 million children die from malnutrition or other poverty-related causes-more than 35,000 a day!  And millions of older people die prematurely from various diseases. -Luke 21:11; Revelation 6:8.

Wars and civil disorders have caused untold suffering.  the book Death by Government says that wars, ethnic and religions strife, and mass murder by governments of their own citizens have "killed over 203 people in this century."  It further says: "The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague.  And indeed, it has, but a plague of Power, not germs."  Writer Richard Harwood observed:  "The barbarian wars of centuries past were alley fights in comparison." -Matthew 24:6,7; Revelation  6:4.

Adding to the distressing conditions of recent years is the huge increase in violent crime, immorality, and family breakdown.  Former United States Secretary of Education William Bennett noted that in 30 years the U.S. population grew 560 percent, illegitimate births 400 percent, divorces 300 percent, and the teenage suicide rate 200 percent.  Princeton University Professor John Dilulio, Jr., warned of the growing ranks of young "super-predators,"  who "murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize and create serious communal disorders.  They do not fear the stigma of arrest, the pains of imprisonment, or the pangs of conscience."  In that land, homicide is now the second-leading cause of death among those 15 to 19 years of age.  And more children under the age of four die from abuse than from disease.

Such crime and violence are not confined to one nation.  Most lands report similar trends. Contributing to this is the surge of illegal drug use  that corrupts  millions.  Australia's Sydney Morning Herald said:  "International drug trafficking has become the world's second most lucrative business after the arms trade."  Another factor is the violence and immorality that now saturate television.  In many countries, by the time a child reaches the age of 18, he as seen tens of thousands of violent acts on TV and countless immoral ones.  That is a significant  corrupting influence, since our personality is shaped by what we regularly feed our minds. -Romans 12:12;  Ephesians 5:3, 4.

Bible prophecy accurately foretold this awful trend of events in our century.  It said that there would be global wars, disease epidemics, food shortages, and increasing lawlessness.  (Matthew 24:7-12; Luke 21:10, 11)  And when we consider the prophecy recorded at 2 Timothy 3:1-5, it is like listening to nightly news reports.  It identifies our era as "the last days" and describes people as 'lovers of themselves, lovers of money, disobedient to parents, disloyal, having no natural affection, without self-control, fierce, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God.'  That is exactly what the world is like today. As William Bennett acknowledged: "There are just too many signs of . . .civilization gone rotten."  It has even been said that civilization ended with the first world war.

The situation now is even worse than before the Flood of Noah's day, when "the earth became filled with violence."  back then, people in general refused to repent of their bad ways.  Thus, God said: "The earth is full of violence as a result of them; and here I am bringing them to ruin."  The Deluge ended that violent world. -Genesis 6:11, 13; 17:24.

Next time: TAKE COURAGE AS DELIVERANCE DRAWS NEAR - No Deliverance by Humans

The Watchtower, 1997