By Pastor J.C. O’Hair
“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).
The whole creation is groaning for deliverance. All humanity should be conscious of the bondage of corruption. Even the redeemed man is clothed with a corruptible body. In that earthly tabernacle he groans, being burdened, not for that he would be unclothed, but to be clothed upon.
All who are fortunate enough to enjoy good health and live in plenty or comfort are grateful for such blessings and feel that things could be much worse; but how about the other nine-tenths, the unfortunate multitudes who are in ill health, misery, sorrow, trouble, want or poverty? How about the billion heathen in ignorance, darkness, suffering and despair? How about the thousands who are in asylums, sanitariums and behind prison walls?
Surely the condition of this sinful, suffering, dying world is properly described: “…groaning and travailing in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:22). The Bible has pictured the wreck and ruin in these words: “…the whole world lieth in wickedness (1 Jn. 5:19); that is, the whole world lieth in the evil one. That evil one is elsewhere in the same Book called “the prince of the world,” and again “the god of this age.” That is one reason why this age is called “this present evil age.”
There are some very learned men who tell us that it has required a million years or so to bring this world to its present high state of civilization. Mr. Will Durant wrote an article entitled, “Is Progress a Delusion?” He answers the question in the negative and presents as his proof: l. Speech, 2. Fire, 3. The Conquest of Animals, 4. Agriculture, 5. Social Organization, 6. Morality, 7. Tools, 8. Science, 9. Education, and 10. Writing and Printing.
What one of us is not thankful for all these advantages and blessings? Mr. Durant acknowledges in his article that number 6 … Morality, is the very heart of the problem. And he asks and answers this question: “Are men morally better than they were?” His answer: “In intelligence we have certainly improved but so far as character is concerned, we have probably retrogressed.”
Now, the fact of the matter is that apart from the people who are designated in the Bible, “the salt of the earth and the light of the world” the intellectuals, as Mr. Durant calls them, including our modern philosophers and scientists, have been so seriously engaged in the study of the stars and heavenly planets and in analyzing the elements of the earth. They are so occupied with the development of labor-saving machinery, so fascinated with the investigation of bugs, worms, monkeys and time looking for the missing link in their passionate determination to disprove God’s record of creation and the fall of man, that they have not had time to carefully diagnose the disease of the human heart. The malady called human weakness is because of a universal, spiritual disease of the human heart which the Creator calls “sin.” The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. The present ruler of this evil age is accused of the crime of deceiving the whole world.
We would not be ungrateful enough to withhold our sincere thanks from anyone and everyone who has contributed knowledge, sacrifice, time, soil or money to provide for our comforts and temporal happiness. But if we should meet Mr. Durant and have the opportunity to ask him a few questions, we would consider his ten points and ask him if it is not a fact that the prince of this world has used all ten of them to bring added curse and sorrow to the human race, while many have used, rather than abused, these modern inventions and improvements. I read a well-written article by another intellectual who gave abundant proof that nothing has contributed more to the increased death rate of men and women between forty and sixty years of age than modern conveniences: such as, steam-heated apartments, automobiles, etc. Has any one instrument or agency ever been used by Satan to demoralize young men and women more than the automobile? Our forefathers did not have the wonderful moving pictures of this century. On the whole, have they proven more of a blessing or a curse? What about the labor-saving machinery that is throwing multitudes out of employment and making hands instead of heads out of the great multitudes in our factories? Is a man or a woman benefited by standing at one machine doing one thing for eight or ten hours every day in the week?
What real benefit has come with the flying machine (airplane) that has not been off-set by more than one harmful result? Of course, with them more human lives can be destroyed in the time of war and perhaps thereby shorten the duration of the conflict. Millions have been cursed, wrecked and ruined by means of the printed page while other millions have been blessed.
So we might argue and answer, but after all, the creation is not groaning for deliverance from the bondage of corruption because of these modern improvements, or the lack of them, but because of the fact that the creature was made subject to vanity, and is today under the universal Law of Sin and Death.
Every thinking person knows that the world needs fixing. There is something radically wrong with this present order of things. Who would deny that the present state is one of chaos? Who would deny that a crisis must come? Everyone knows or feels there must be deliverance from this present condition. But there is not unanimity of opinion as to how the deliverance will come. The agreement is that things cannot go on as they are. The scientists tell us they are hopeful but their remedy is a long, slow process.
Dr. James Harvey Robinson, another of the intellectuals, prescribed this remedy, “liberation of intelligence,” “mind reconstruction,” “intellectual regeneration,” and “the creative mind.” But he agrees with Mr. Durant, who says: “Psychology has hardly begun to comprehend, much less control human conduct and desire.” Their hope is in the coming generations. It may require hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of years of added scientific research and application to bring relief. The thing upon which we are all agreed is that relief is needed. .
Socially, politically, commercially and religiously, the situation is complex. The whole world is talking of federations, unions, leagues and combines, and these are rapidly taking place in an effort to relieve this four-fold complex situation. The world seems to be waiting for a world leader, a superman who can head up affairs internationally. One of the Chicago daily papers wrote an open letter to America’s ambassador at the Naval Parley in London in this language:
“Now that your practical American mind has seen the fizzle of this latest attempt to set off the fireworks of well-meaning American Pacifism, under the drenching downpour of realism in a war-minded European world, send the American delegation home … It is time for the delegation to come home. And it is time to stop futile and farcical chattering about disarmament with nations which will not disarm and about naval limitation with nations whose only object is military and naval increase until they reach the ultimate and inevitable climax of another murderous conflict?”
So here is another intellectual who is sure another murderous conflict must and will come. Humanity seems to learn little by experience. Cannot and will not a crisis happen that will save the world from another murderous conflict? Can we not put a stop to the tremendous war tax upon the nations? About eighty-five cents out of every dollar is spent in some nations, either paying for past wars or preparing for future wars. Will psychology deliver us from this?
The chain-store system is putting out of business more than four-hundred small retailers in the United States every twenty-four hours. Will psychology deliver humanity from selfishness, greed and covetousness?
Soviet Russia declares that the solution for the ills of humanity is to propagate Bolshevism and Atheism; they are making, as their goal, about 15,000,000 new Atheists during the next few years, and they say it is better to begin on the young.
We read a story in the newspapers that forty young high school boys and girls were found in a love cottage in Ventura, California, in such a condition that it is better not to describe it. But such conduct no longer startles the average person; it is becoming so common. With the present state of unrest, lawlessness and crime, there is a reign of lust and licentiousness that beggars description. But yet, we have the wise ones who tell us that all things remain the same. They do not take into consideration that we have had nineteen Christian centuries.
I read recently where the Governor of Michigan stated that about three-fourths of the eight-thousand prisoners in the penal institutions of his state are young men. This is true in many states. Can you bow in prayerful sympathy with as many thousand mothers and fathers?
Must we wait for centuries and permit the intellectual scientists to work out a psychological remedy to deliver the groaning creation, or shall we believe that there is to be deliverance by a Deliverer from this present chaos and the impending crisis?
Once a king cried, “My kingdom for a horse.” The rider was there … but no horse. Now the leaders are crying, “My kingdom for a rider.” There are two riders coming. They are each to be mounted on a white horse. The first one will be the world’s man; the Second will be God’s man. Hear the prophecy of God:
2 Thessalonians 2:3-11
“For the mystery of Lawlessness doth already work. Then shall that lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His month and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.”
He is called “the son of perdition,” “the man of sin,” whose coming is after the working of Satan. And let us not forget that Satan is transformed into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).
God’s cure for man’s spiritual disease is the glorious Gospel of Grace wrought out through the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Lord of Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. The custodian and dispenser of this one and only remedy is the Church of God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth.
But alas, behold, professing Christendom, apostate and compromising, is sold out to Satan, so far .as most of the big denominational leaders are concerned. Modernism, with its emasculated gospel, with its compromising program of religious education, with its Christianized agnosticism, is helpless to cope with the situation.
The modern interpretation and application of the Bible by the so-called Liberals of the Church is the most damnable Bolshevism in the world today. These religious gentlemen are rapidly fulfilling the Scriptures, going in the way of Cain, Korah and Balaam, turning the Word of God into a fable. Having crept in unawares, they are bringing in the damnable heresy denying the Lord that bought them, and many are following their pernicious ways; blind leaders and blind followers all headed for the ditch.
This ungodly, lawless age is getting ripe for the reign of the first white-horse rider, the Antichrist. The crisis is approaching. The same Christ who died on the Cross is coming. He will call His redeemed ones to meet Him in the air. Then after He removes the true Church from the scene of earthly judgment, He will visit this earth with a mighty scourge and His Divine wrath culminating in the Battle of Armageddon and the binding of the prince of this world. The glorious Millennium will then be ushered in. It is Christ who shall deliver this groaning creation, from the bondage of corruption.
My friend, do not be bluffed by so-called modern scholarship. Pray tell, what has any scientist discovered or developed that will disprove the Bible record of the Deity, sacrifice and bodily resurrection of the Son of God? Because we can ride seventy miles an hour in a high-powered automobile, or because Lindberg could cross the ocean in an airship, or because we have electric lights, telephones and radios, or labor-saving machinery, or because the astronomers think they have discovered another great planet in the heavens, wherein is the fact of the bodily resurrection of the Son of God invalidated? When Science conflicts with the Bible, science is only science-falsely-so-called.
The Bible is always right. “The Word of the Lord endureth forever.”
The Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary’s Cross for your eternal redemption. Accept Him now as your own personal Savior.