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Editorial: Mankind's Impossible Dream?
Mankind's Impossible Dream?
Will humanity ever experience lasting
peace?
As the countdown continues toward a new millennium, we seek assurance that the next
century will bring an era of hope and promise, an oasis of peace in man's violent,
troubled history. We hope new leadership, new technologies and new thinking will
lead us away from our chronic dilemmas.
But we shouldn't hold our breath. The indications are not good. We find instead that
the world is an increasingly dangerous place.
No sooner had the NATO bombing stopped in Kosovo than fresh blood flowed in an insurgency
in the former Soviet republic of Dagestan, in a series of terrorist bombings in Russia,
and in East Timor's move for independence from Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Communist China asserted its avowed right to instigate aggressive military
action should Taiwan further assert its independence from the Chinese mainland. North
Korea again threatened its neighbor to the south, and Indian and Pakistani soldiers
skirmished over a disputed border region.
What is so unnerving about these developments is that many of these hostile neighbors
are armed with nuclear arsenals and have the means and will to use them to achieve
their aims should other means fail. The nuclear nightmare, far from being over, threatens
to turn new corners of the globe into a bed of ashes.
Man's most valiant efforts to find peace in this century have been tried and found
wanting. Horrified by the butchery of World War I, the world's leaders formed the
League of Nations to try to forestall any such future bloodbath. But in less than
a generation World War II set the world aflame again. This time leaders established
the United Nations. United in name only, it has failed to halt the scores of wars
that have erupted in the last half of this century.
Our collective record is far from encouraging. Left to ourselves, we seem able to
find only the peace and quiet of the grave.
Jesus Christ Himself predicted the inevitable outcome of our inability to find peace:
"For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the
world until now--and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short,
no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened"
(Matthew 24:21-22, New International Version).
Humanity, however, will not be left to itself--and for that we can be thankful. If
it were up to us, human extinction, said Jesus, is the course we have unwittingly
chosen. Nonetheless, our age will not end in the destruction of all human life.
As a new millennium approaches, we would do well to consider what the Bible reveals
about our future. It, too, speaks of a new Millennium--not the third thousand-year
period since the supposed birth date of Jesus Christ on our calendar, but the glorious
future the world will experience under His reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
What does that future hold for us, our families, our loved ones? Through the prophet
Isaiah, God gives us a glimpse into that coming world:
"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion
will eat straw like the ox.
"The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his
hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea"
(Isaiah 11:6-9).
In spite of our best efforts, this world will never come to peace by human attempts
to outlaw war. In this issue of The Good News you can discover how humanity's
impossible dream--a world of lasting peace--will become a reality.
--Scott Ashley
©1999 United Church of God, an International Association
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