Arizona sun., 1948-12-24
Gods Fight

Gods Fight
HE Bible shows us that this
l. fight is not one in which we
human beings are left to defend
ourselves alone We have an enemy,
Satan; and we have an ally, God.
Whenever a man lines up against
anything that is wrong, hateful,
deceitful, destructive, and on the
side of what is creative, just,
brotherly and true, he finds that
this is not private fight, it is not
even the struggle of mankind
alone. It is a cosnic conflict.
Gods universe is not a neat
garden in which only flowers
grow; he has to work cutting
down the weeds. His universe is
not realm at peace, with no
need even for police; treason is
abroad, rebellion breaks out
here and there.
The Greeks used to think that
the gods never went to any trouble.
they ruled without effort. But the
Christian Bible tells of God who
does have troubles, who meets op-
position and fights against it.
Bright Books for Dark Times
TWO books in our Bible bring
l. this out in a startling way:
Daniel and Revelation. We have
been thinking through three months
now about various kinds of litera-
ture in the Bible The kind repre-
sented by these two books is
called "Apocalyptic. Scholar s
have discovered number of SIM
liar books, but these two are in
comparably the greatest and were
the only two to be admitted to the
Bible. One feature of all apocalyp-
tic literature is that it always ap-
pears in dark times, and its first
readers are people down at the bot
tom of the heap, people beyond all
human hope.
Daniel, long before the time
Of Christ, and Revelation, two
generations later than Christ,
came as lights in a very dark
world. The first of these books
circulated when the Jews were
hard pressed by Syrian perse-
cutOrS, and when the other
came out, the Christians were
about to be crushed out of ex-.
istence by cruel Roman em-
perOrs.
Observing what went on in those
days, you might have thought the
Jews, or the Christians as the case
might be, had no prospects of sur
viving. But these books brought
brighter message: Have courage!
God will not lose!
A Code in Pictures
nANIEL and Revelation are
~ both hard to understand, and
for the same reason Their mes
sages are framed not always in
plain language but in symbols.
Hidden meanings abound.
This had to be SO; if one of
these books fell (as sometimes
they did) into the hands of the
prosecuting agents of the Syr-
ian or Roman governments, it
would not get the owner into
trouble, for the agent would
hardly be able to interpret the
strange language.
ALI sorts of weird creatures and
events move through these mySte-
riouS pages. and they often prob
ably refer to persons or events
known to the writer's and the first
readers: beasts with iron teeth and
horns with eyes; flaming throne
set on river of fire; golden vials
filled with the wrath of God; red
dragon sweeping the stars down
with it's tail
Gods Victory
WE NEED not be distressed
w now at not being able to un-
lock all the code in which these
extraordinary books are written.
We can read them for their sheer
beauty and force of imagination,
for one thing, and we cannot miss
their main truth. The bright picture
OF the New Jerusalem in Rev. 21,
2" is one of the loveliest and most
comforting passages in the entire
Bible
f(Copynght by the International Council
Of Religious Education on behalf of 90
Protestant denominations Released by
WNU FeatureS.)