Vol 4:10 (Oct 1958)
Current Events
Tokyo, Japan: Communist China’s Premier Chou En-lai called upon the United States to resume ambassador level talks in an effort to defend peace. At the same time Red China increased its naval activities in the Formosa Strait. This strategy reminds one of the deceitful Joab: “When Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth rib, that he died” (2 Sam. 3:27).
We read of the Antichrist, that he will appear “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.” Deception, a highly developed art with some nations, will increase until it meets a just end through Him Who sits upon a white horse, the Blessed One called Faithful and True.
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Utrecht, Netherlands: Moscow’s Metropolitan Nickolai said he would recommend that the Russian Orthodox Church join the World Council of Churches. They had previously rejected such a union. It appears that the Russians are to send observers to future meetings of the World Council. The Metropolitan also stated that there were 22,000 Russian Orthodox Churches in his country.
The World Council represents some 165 religious denominations mostly Protestant.
There seems every evidence in the Word of God that Christendom eventually will be united, that divergence in philosophy and theology will not keep its various sections long apart.
Even although the Metropolitan Nikolai may be only another voice for Communism, religious leaders of the Western world probably will welcome this amalgamation, and consider it a triumph of their religious tolerance and diplomacy.
Such developments are indications of the end of this age. God in His Word pictures a united Christendom, a woman upon a nondescript beast which she at first controls. Of this figure of Christendom, God says, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth” Rev. 17:1).
All believers should heed the Lord’s call, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).
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Dayton, Ohio: Psychologists are interested to know what was the first word spoken by man. Linguists have studied the unique character of human speech. Some believe that man first imitated animal sounds, and that in the evolution of speech, man indicated different experiences by different sounds. Recently, some very wise men (?) concluded that the first word uttered by man was “mama”. They base their conclusion on the fact that “mama” is the most universal word for mother; it can be found in both ancient and modern cultures.
The Bible does not record the first word uttered by man, but it does prove that man, as he came from the hand of his Creator, possessed the power of speech. His first God-given task was to name the animals.
The earliest words of Adam recorded are most significant; they were spoken after the creation of Eve. “And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh’.” The divine comment upon this is very important in this day of moral delinquency and divorce. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. The speech of modern man has sadly departed from this.