“Our Lord Jesus declared, ‘His servants ye are unto whom ye render service.’ Some may be rendering service to Satan and to error, who claim to be rendering service to God and to righteousness; and some may serve ignorantly, as did Saul of Tarsus, who ‘verily thought that he did God service,’ in persecuting the Church. The same principle holds true reversely. As an earthly king does not hold himself responsible for the moral character of each soldier who fights his battles, so the Lord does not vouch for the moral character of all who enlist and fight on His side of any question. His servants they are to whom they render service, whatever the motive prompting them.
“The same principle will apply in the coming Battle of Armageddon. God's side of that battle will be the people's [pg 253] side; and that very nondescript host, the people, will be pitted at the beginning of the battle. Anarchists, Socialists, and hot-headed radicals of every school of reason and unreason, will be in the forefront of that battle. He who has any knowledge of army life knows that a great army is composed of all classes.
“The masses will be restless under their restraints, but will be conscious of their weakness as compared with the kings and princes, financial, social, religious and political, who will then hold sway. The masses have no sympathy with anarchy. They realize truly that the worst form of government is better than none. The masses will seek relief through the ballot and the peaceful readjustment of earth's affairs for the elimination of evil, for the placing of monopolies and utilities and the supplies of nature in the hands of people for the public good. The crisis will be reached when the hitherto upholders of the law shall become violators of the law and resisters of the will of the majority as expressed by the ballot. Fear for the future will goad the well-meaning masses to desperation, and anarchy will result when Socialism fails.
“The Lord's saints are not to be in this battle at all. God's consecrated people, longing at heart for Messiah's Kingdom and the glorious Year of Jubilee and Restitution which it will inaugurate, will patiently abide the Lord's time, and wait unmurmuringly for it. Their lamps trimmed and burning, they will not be in darkness respecting the momentous events of the impending battle; but they will be of good courage, knowing the outcome portrayed in the ‘more sure word of prophecy,’ to which they have done well to ‘take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the Day dawn.’—2 Pet. 1:19.
“The question now arises, Why did not God send His Kingdom sooner? Why is Armageddon necessary? We answer that God has His own times and seasons, and that He has appointed the Great Seventh Thousand-Year Day for the reign of Christ. Divine Wisdom has withheld until our day the great knowledge and skill which is breeding at the same time millionaires and discontents. Had God lifted the veil of ignorance a thousand years sooner, the world would have lined up for Armageddon a thousand years sooner. God did not bring these things before the present time because His Plan has various parts, all of which are converging at the same time. In kindness God veiled the eyes of mankind until the gathering to Armageddon would immediately precede Messiah's taking to Himself His great power and beginning His reign.” (Rev. 11:17, 18.)—D. v-xvi.
16:14. For they are the spirits of devils.—See Eph. 6:12. “We are naturally led by the analogy of the influence of evil spirits as described in the Gospels to compare the effect produced by the demons referred to in this verse, with the instances of possession of which we read elsewhere in the New Testament.”—Cook.
Working miracles.—It is very possible that the strongest “proof” of the immortality of man will yet be obtained by the false prophet through materializations of evil spirits, perhaps first at preachers' meetings, and afterwards in public. We will wait and see. Meantime: the mental invasions indicated in Rev. 7:3 and 2 Thes. 2:11 will surely come, whether the physical materializations come or not.—Rev. 13:13, 14.
“The newspapers far and near are publishing the following item: ‘Fred E. Foskett, a young machinist of Orange, Mass., has attracted the attention of Prof. James, of Harvard, and other leading members of the Boston branch of the American Society of Psychical Research, who gave him tests recently. Foskett poured a quart of alcohol into the basin, lighted it and then washed his hands, bathing them for nearly ten minutes in the burning fluid, washing it up over his arms and to his face—literally bathing himself in blazing alcohol. As soon as they were finished the physicians present examined Foskett, and they could not find the slightest trace of a burn or blister. Foskett then told them that the flames did not give him the slightest sensation of burning, that he felt comfortably warm and pleasant, and nothing more. The second tests were made at the home of Prof. James in Cambridge. A scientist who was there said that Foskett performed all of his experiments of the day before, and then “absolutely and positively dematerialized”. He seemed to dissolve into thin air as we watched, was gone forty-one seconds and then materialized.’ ”—Z. '09-83; Matt. 24:24; 2 Thes. 2:9.
Which go forth unto the kings of the [earth and of the] whole world, to gather them to the battle of [that] THE great Day of God Almighty.—Of which the present horrible European war is only the preliminary skirmish.—Rev. 17:14; 19:19.
“This battle, which will end with the complete overthrow of earth's present rulership, is already commenced. The gathering of the armies is plainly visible from the standpoint of God's Word. The Sword of Truth, already sharpened, is to smite every evil system and custom—civil, social and ecclesiastical. The internal conflict is already fomenting. It will ere long break forth as a consuming fire; and human systems, and errors, which for centuries [pg 255] have fettered truth and oppressed the groaning creation, must melt before it. Yes, truth—and widespread and increasing knowledge of it—is the Sword which is perplexing and wounding the heads over many countries.” (Psa. 110:6; B. 101.) “Not until great Babylon is utterly overthrown and her influence over the world broken—will the great mass of mankind come to realize the true state of the case. Then they will see that the great trouble through which they will have passed was that symbolically termed ‘The battle of the great Day of God Almighty;’ that in proportion as they have aided error and wrong, they have been battling against the law and forces of the new Empire and the new Ruler of earth; and that in proportion as their tongues, and pens, and hands, and influence, and means, were used to support the right and the truth on any subject, they had been to that extent fighting on the Lord's side. And during all the trouble there will be in the world those who will bear witness to its cause, declaring the Lord's presence and the setting up of His Kingdom which is in opposition to the powers of darkness to be the real cause of the trouble and shaking and overturning of society.”—B. 141.