Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 01:1 (Mar 1958)
Article: The Twentieth Century And Prophecy
Author: Elmer Johnson

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CenQ 1:1 (March 1958) p. 10

The Twentieth Century And Prophecy

Elmer Johnson

“I am God, declaring the end from the beginning and things to come.” Isaiah 46: 9-10.

Prophecy is the mold of history. This is more than a figure. History is formulated by unseen causes. There are certain facts that come to be known — not because we are particularly interested in them, but they bear directly on prophecy itself. God has revealed Himself in the accord between history and prophecy. “Declare unto us and show us things to come that we might know that thou art God.” Isaiah 41:22–23.

History performs strictly in harmony with Bible prophecy. The nations of the past have completed their life cycles. We call the complete course of a nation’s history, its cycle. Thus the following nations: The Ancient Maya, Inca, and Aztec Indian civilizations, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Imperial Rome and Chaldea have had cyclic courses and now they are dead cultures. God appoints a day of death to every sinning nation. In our own time, the Lord has greatly hastened the judgment of Italy, Spain, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Japan and Poland. Our century has seen the rise and fall of various political ideologies and isms. The Lord of Hosts has seemingly permitted the forces of evil full sway. The decline of the British Empire, the tottering end of the twelve nations which were formed by the Versailles Treaty; the sudden rise and fall of fascism and the emergence of communistic totalitarian states in many parts of the world make this century unique. The causes of the “rise and fall” appear to be beyond human control. The Lord calls them His plans and purposes. “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattered abroad the inhabitants thereof.” Isaiah 24:1. “Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure, yet have I set my king upon the holy hill of Zion.” Psalm 2.

Secular scholars see the “handwriting on the wall” for western civilization. Patterson, author of “The Nemesis of Nations,” says that the previous nations have declined because of over-specialization in their culture pattern. Our specializations today have sensuous objectives and a technological economy and a great dearth of spiritual values. There is a great disparity between man’s material and scientific achievement and his spiritual and moral capacity to assimilate and integrate that technology to a full balanced culture.

Petrim Sorokin, Russian educator and sociologist, with a thorough academic back ground together with a “telling experience” of political upheavals o...

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