1952 April.pdf - God's Generals

in Prophecy
0
NE of the signs of the end-time was that there should be a great increase of
knowledge. Daniel 12:4 reads, “But thou, 0 Daniel, shut up the words, and seal
the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge
shall be increased.” Our text implies that out of the phenomenal increase in
knowledge at the end-time, there would be developments which would enable
men to travel to and fro over the earth with great celerity. ’
For many centuries men have dreamed of
flying, but until very recent years, it remained
.entirely a dream. Men ascended in balloons as
‘early as the Eighteenth Century, but this was
far from flight of heavier-than-air craft. Not
.till December 3, 1903 did the Wright brothers
.at last turn the trick, when one of the brothers
:flew.for a number of seconds on that historic
.day over the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk,
. ‘North Carolina. Since that time, prodigious
strides have been made. Great luxurious airlinen
now traverse the globe at 300 ‘miles
an hour. The writer well remembers a flight
.from Stockholm, Sweden, to New. York City,
zwo summers ago. Because the plane was
flying away from the sun, it took about
,eight hours from the beginning of .dawn until
rhe sun rose. Jet planes, which are just being
introduced, have increased the speed of commercial
travel to 500 miles per hour. In
:specially built jet and rocket planes, men
!have flown over a thousand miles per hour-
.much faster than the sp,eed of sound!
Though flying has been a comparatively
recent innovation, yet it was foreseen in the
Scriptures. Perhaps the most outstanding allu-
.sion to the airplane is found in .Isaiah 31:5,
.where the Lord speaks of defending Jerusalem
..as birds flying: “As birds flying, so will the
Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also
He will deljver it; and passing over He will
. preserve it.
In the year 1917, the Britishrunder Gen-
,era1 Allenby moved up from Egypt to contest
possession of the Holy Land. The Turks
were determined to defend Jerusalem to death,
for there was located their sacred shrine, the
Mosque of Omar. “Jerusalem will be ours undl
the water of the Nile flows to the city,”
‘was an old Arab proverb. That the water
‘of the Nile could ever reach Jerusalem they
.considered an utter impossibility, since the
4ty was over a hundred miles away, and also
’ the land was many feet above sea level. How-
.ever, realizing the need of water in the suc-
’ cessful prosecution of the Palestine campaign,
British engineers started a pipeline which carried
water from the Nile, and the pipeline
‘was extended as the armies advanced. When
the Turks saw that water was actually being
‘brought from the Nile River, it startled them
and exercised a strange, demoralizing effect
upon their soldiers. ’
As Allenby neared the city, himself being a
.devout man, he earnestly prayed that the
Holy City would be spared damage. ‘He dekcided
to play further upon the superstitious
-fears of the Turks. So before laying siege to
.Jerusalem, he sent several ’of his scouting
planes’over the city. Most of the Turks had
inever seen a plane before, and when the squadron
appeared in the sky, it was too much for
-them. They didn’t know what was coming
next; They quickly evacuated the city, and
Jerusalem came into British hands without
,the firing of a shot. .
By Gordon Lindsay
ONE OF THE LATEST HIGH-SPEED PLANES
Great strides have been made in the science of aviation so as to make possible
production of this B-47 Stratojet capable of speeds exceeding 600 M.P.H.. thus
makiig possible the fulfillment of Zechariah 14:16.
It is interesting to note that the taking of
Jerusalem, which had been in Mohammedan
hands for many centuries, took place only
a little over a month from the time that Lord
Balfour prodaimed that the British nation
looked with favor upon making Palestine a national
home for the Jews.
. .Thus was the remarkable prophecy of Isaiah
31:5 fulfilled. “As birds hing, so will the Lord
of hosts defend Jerusalem.” Surely this was
fulfilled when Allenby’s planes caused the
startled Turks to flee from the city in terror,
without the firing of a single shot.
The Seventh Vial Poured Out
-From the Air
The fact that the Seventh Vial, the last of
the Vial judgments, is poured out into the air,
(Rev. 16:17), is significant. Judgment is now
ready to fall upon the nations from the air,
especially by means of the atomic bomb. As
a result of this judgment “the cities of the nations”
are to fall. (Verse 19). Other parts of
the context indicate by the scope of the judgment,
atomic destruction. Atomic bombs are
carried by means of the airplane!
Some prophetic writers see the airplane
symbolically described in Rev. 9:7-11, where
it speaks of the destroyers as “shapes of
locusts,” roughly the shape of an airplane.
“Their faces were as the faces .of men”-the
pilots. “They had breastplates as it were
breastplates of iron”-armor protection. They
had “wings” and “tails,” as have airplanes.
They had “stings in ther tails”- tail guns.
Thuswise do some interpret this passage.
One thing is certain, prophecy indicates
that there will be strange developments in the
air at the time of the end. The so-called flying
saucers, which though in many cases have been
accounted for by a natural explanation, yet
in some well-documented cases are shrouded
in a cloak of mystery. Even some conservative
magazines, with millions of copies of circulation,
have admitted that there is an element
of mystery about them. Somehow the
“saucers” seem to have a tie-in with the fulfillment
of prophecy at the end-time.
THE AIRPLbE DURING THE
MILLENNIUM
An indirect allusion to the airplane is found
in Zechariah 14:16-17. We are told that during
the Millenium delegates from all over the
world would go up to Jerusalem year after
year, to worship the King. One hundred years
ago, this prophecy seemed almost impossible
of fulfillment. People in remote areas would
have to spend a large part of the year traveling
back and forth, if they went in the sailing
vessels of Bible days. Those traveling by land
in distant parts of Asia could never make the
trips back and forth, even if they spent the
whole time traveling. But the advent of the
modern airliner changes the picture. The
trip to Palestine by air can right now be
accomplished from America in 24 hours, if
the right connections are made. It took
Mary and Joseph much longer than that to
go from Nazareth to Bethlehem!
Isaiah, the prophet, writing of the glorious
Millenium tells of the glory of that wonderful
time. He speaks of the ships of Tarshish
bringing Israel’s sons from afar. Many shall
come and build up the walls of Zion. (Isaiah
609-10). The prophet, looking through the
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3 1 4 THE VOICE OF HEALING April, 1952