Famine in the "Have" Nations
As long as the nation of Israel remained in obedience to God, they were blessed and prospered in every way. But God warned Israel if they began to disobey and to go after other gods, He would curse them. In the pages of this magazine we have pointed out to you many times that the prophecies of the Bible are DUAL. What happened to ancient Israel happened only AS A TYPE of what would happen in the final end time before Jesus Christ would return. In the 26th Chapter of Leviticus, God shows the great blessings He gave His people for obedience to His law. It also shows exactly how God would bring about punishment upon His people if they would stray from Him and begin to DISOBEY His laws.
Modern Israel — the United States, Britain, South Africa and Australia — have not turned to obey God. Our societies run rampant with crime. Sickness and disease are prevalent even in these prosperous nations. We have gone astray from our God!
Because we have not heeded, God prophesies, "I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; AND I WILL MAKE YOUR HEAVEN AS IRON, AND YOUR EARTH AS BRASS (the Bible symbols for drought which brings about famine): And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits" (Lev. 26:17-20). The handwriting is on the wall — these things are beginning to happen. After the tremendous display of power of the United States in World War II, we were the most respected nation on earth. However, as the years began to go by, the world began to respect us less and less. The gum-chewing, camera-toting American tourist became despised in virtually every nation. Our raucous personality and way of life began to irritate people who didn't have as much as we did. In the early 1950's, Russia announced they also had the atomic bomb. At that same time, the Chinese hordes pushed across the Manchurian border into North Korea and nearly pushed us off the peninsula — we finally fought to a draw at the 38th parallel. That was the war we did not win! The pride of our power began to be broken. Since that time, the world's public opinion of the United States and its citizens has slowly diminished to where now we have very little respect in foreign lands, And God said that He would bring a drought that would begin also to cause our land not to yield her increase. Can we remember the "seven years' drought" (as United States News and World Report called it) that extended from 1951 through 1958? Can we deny that there is a drought right now in many states right in our own nation of the United States? We may say, "there will be a great brighter day tomorrow," but God says that it is going to get worse! Yes, a prophesied drought and the resultant famine are in store for our own people of Israel.
We Are Ruining Our Land
The handwriting is on the wall in other ways, as well. A leading professor of botany at the University of Liege, Belgium, Raymond Bouillene, in a paper published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, stated "Mankind is gaining 120,000 mouths to feed each day and losing 20 million acres of food-producing land each year — almost 55,000 acres a day. Man, the great destroyer, having wiped out hundreds of animal and plant species, is embarked upon a course which threatens his own kind with extinction.
"Mankind apparently has not tumbled to the elementary fact that homo sapiens and all other animal species are dependent upon vegetation. Green plants are the only basic producers of foods. All flesh is grass. Yet, to extend the crop or pasture land, human beings have attacked the forests with fire and axe. The result has been that the soil, laid bare, turns to dust or rock, or is carried away by erosion. We are in the throes of an apparently irreversible progressive reduction of the surface of cultivatable lands" (New York Sunday News, March 11, 1962).
In Our Plundered Planet, a widely read book on this vital subject, Mr. Fairfield Osborn warns, "The people of the world are compelled to live off 18 inches of topsoil around the globe. From this 18 inches we get all of our food — from bread to steak. Man has abused his resources to the point where his topsoil is blown on the winds of the world, his oil and coal resources are depleted, and he talks hopefully of ersatz (substitute) food as though science could invent a pill to take the place of milk and wheat." It seems, even apart from the prophecies of the Bible, MAN is MARCHING IRREVOCABLY TOWARD HIS DOOM by creating a situation that would STARVE HIM TO DEATH in a very few generations.
Result of a Famine
The Prophet Jeremiah looked down into our time today — at what will take place in America and Britain within the next 10 to 15 years. The picture is not very pretty — but it will happen.”The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately (and what nation has eaten better than we have) are DESOLATE in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet (wore fine clothing) embrace dunghills. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people (God's chosen nation of Israel) is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. Her Nazarites (priests and ministers who didn't teach God's true way) were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: (now) their visage is blacker than a coal (dying of starvation); they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field" (Lam. 4:4-9). As tragic as it may seem, this is what God says must happen to His people UNLESS they wake up and repent and TURN TO HIM!
How Man Would Solve the Problem
As the severity of the world's population problem increases, men devise, often frantically and without thought, scores of ways for HUMAN BEINGS to solve this imminent problem. Let's analyze a few of the proposed solutions:
Perhaps the first step in solving the problem — many believe — is to distribute all of the surpluses produced in the United States and other nations which have an abundance. These surpluses, they say, could be distributed to the poor and underprivileged of the world. Is this the answer?
Offhand, it seems like it might help, but as Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman says, "If all our stored-up abundance of food were made available abroad to people with inadequate diets, it would not close the food gap for even one year." That is how underfed some nations are. Even though we spend billions for storage of surplus, if we depleted our entire stock it would not help for more than a year. That, evidently, is not a workable solution.
Most experts in food and population are in agreement that universal BIRTH CONTROL is the answer. The first step is to control the population. Then, through science and technology and common sense, we would begin to solve the problem, they believe. But of course the question now is: how can we bring about and enforce universal birth control? The obvious answer is that it's going to take a lot of doing.
In many areas of the world that are overpopulated the religious issue is a great question. As a result of the "moral controversy" over birth control, nothing can be done and so the population increases more rapidly than ever. Other areas of the world which are not religiously opposed in any way to birth control do not have the PROPER EDUCATION. We have set up clinics and study groups to bring education to these people. But even then, there are teeming millions in all areas of the Far East and Africa that we cannot reach. In many cases, it would be impossible to bring this knowledge to the people behind the Iron Curtain because of government restrictions. No, there are too many insurmountable barriers for this to be a workable solution either.
What Is the Solution?
Most authorities on this vital subject realize the only true solution to this seemingly insurmountable problem is to bring TRUE EDUCATION to the "have-not" nations. One respected leader said, "You can give a man a fish today and he will be fed today; you can teach a man to fish and he will be fed the rest of his life!" How true this is!
Many of the "underprivileged" nations have food supplies all around them, but don't know how to cultivate or use them. Superstition darkens the minds of many. For example, while millions starve in India they sit and watch their "holy cows" eat up valuable crops and wander loose in the streets of every city. The native Hindu looks for the blessing of the Gau Mata (the cow goddess). But the blessings never come. Instead starvation increases. And it would be unheard-of to eat the flesh of such a "sacred cow."
Superstition likewise darkens the minds of the starving millions of Africa and China. And they just don't know the way to peace and happiness. They have not had the blessings of Almighty God.
The land in many of these areas could be used to much greater advantage. Once again, the bare, essential knowledge of soil conservation has never been taught to many of these people.
Try as we may by sending representatives from the United States, we still cannot educate the entire population of the earth in these matters. We cannot overcome the barriers of ignorance and superstition in a short period of time. In fact, through years of effort the world is still progressively getting worse! The facilities we have tried have only slightly altered what irrevocably was happening anyway.
Man may begin to know the solution of the problem, but he does not have the power to bring it about!
God Solves the Problem by the Year 2000
Jesus Christ said in Matthew 24:22, "Except those days (the days of famine and war) should be SHORTENED, there should no flesh be saved (alive): but for the elect's sake THOSE DAYS SHALL BE SHORTENED!" And He added in verse 33, "So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, KNOW THAT IT IS NEAR, even at the doors." Yes, the time is near when God is going to cut short man's race to destroy himself! Economically, agriculturally, militarily — any way you want to look at it — mankind could be destroyed within a very few generations. If he didn't blow himself up by mass nuclear weapons, if he didn't bankrupt himself on the world market economically, he would starve himself to death! The only possible solution IS THE INTERVENTION OF GOD ALMIGHTY AND THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST!
And that is just what is going to happen.
Peter gives us the answer in the book of Acts — we are not only told what is going to happen, but how we can be an active part in establishing peace and prosperity and ending starvation in this world.”Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, WHEN THE TIMES OF REFRESHING SHALL COME from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive UNTIL THE TIMES OF RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:19-21). Here is the only solution! A time when God is going to restore the knowledge of His way. A time of REFRESHING.
When Christ comes, men are going to seek Him to find His way. And one of the very first items that Christ will begin to teach will be AGRICULTURAL REFORM. Notice it in Isaiah 2:4, "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: AND THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES, AND THEIR SPEARS INTO PRUNINGHOOKS: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." Man has spent multiple billions of dollars — far more than on any other facet of life — on war machines! These myriad implements of war are going to be smelted down and manufactured into implements of agriculture. And all of this will be governed under Christ's direction.
This vast program will be well underway by the year 2000. At that time, "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; AND THE DESERT SHALL REJOICE, AND BLOSSOM AS THE ROSE" (Isa. 35:1). Vast areas of land now unable to be cultivated will be blooming beautifully. Through the proper amount of rainfall — through increased knowledge on conservation — the waste areas of this world will become productive.
Right now in the United States, only eight percent of the population produces our food supply. At that time, "They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken it" (Micah 4:4). The majority of the population is going to have at least enough property that each may produce many food commodities on his own land. The world will once more be productive as it was thousands of years ago when God first created man upon the earth.
Men will at last be happy — all men will be well-fed! There will be no fear of war or starvation! But man cannot bring this about through his own efforts! He has been trying for nearly six thousand years to erase human suffering and misery — while all the time it has only increased in intensity and become worse and worse!
It is going to take the intervention of God. It is going to take Jesus Christ to force the world to be happy! But when this does happen — and it is just around the corner, probably within fifteen to twenty years or less — man will learn the true values of life. In the WORLD TOMORROW there will be no threat of annihilation by the hydrogen bomb or extinction by starvation!