Pagină:Obadiah-part-I-1936.djvu/12

188 heaven} is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots shall be with flaming torches for, flash with steel] in the day of his preparation [Jehovah’s preparation], and the fir trees shall be terribly shak- en.’’—Nahum 2: 1-3. In keeping with his usual mode of procedure, Satan the enemy prepares for war, and he does so with great noise and boasting and at the same time keeps the peoples in ignorance of his purpose. Christ Jesus, God’s great Prophet, caused the apostle John to make a record of this prophecy, namely: ‘‘ And I saw three unelean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almiehty.’’—Rev. 16:18, 14. The three unclean spirits here mentioned are lik- ened unto frogs. A frog swells up, is bombastic, and boasts of what he is goin to do and makes much noise about it. The noise of a bullfrog strikes terror to the mind of one who does not know whence the noise emanates. The Devil has the whole world in fear and distress beeause his bullfrogs are bellowing forth their noise. The ‘dragon’? mentioned in the above-quoted text represents the entire satanie organization, while the ‘‘beast’’ is symbolic of the visible part of that or- ganization, and the ‘‘false prophet’? particularly rep- resents the great political mouthpieee and spokesman which all observant people today ean plainly see is the joint power of the British Empire and the United States. With one aecord all these elements of Satan’s organization boast and make much noise of what they are doing and are goine to do. In substance they say: ‘The certh is ours, and we are going to fix everything to our liking; and when we get through the people will like it.’ This is but voicing the sentiment of the Devil, who is symbolized by the dragon in the river, as deseribed by the prophet Eze- kiel (29:3), and which says: ‘‘My river is mine own, and IT have made it for myself.’’? Here the river is symbolie of the peoples on whom Satan has held. The visible part of the Devil’s organization makes peace paets and boldly announces: ‘We have outlawed war and hence there will be no more war, and let the people be assured to that end.’ When the Paris Peace Pact was pending before the United States Senate for ratification, its chief sponsor in Ameriea was prancing about like a well-ercomed horse that wanted to show itself. Even moving pietures were made of his antics, and these were exhibited be- fore the people throughout the land. At the same time the war organization was pushing the lawmaking body both for the ratification of the peace pact and for more battleships. The political whip was brought to bear to earry out the purposes of those in power, this being symbolically deseribed in Nahum’s propheey (3:2) fhe WATCHTOWER. BRookiyn, N.Y. in these words: ‘‘The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots.” Within a few days after the United States Senate ratified the Paris Peace Pact by an almost unanimous vote, the lawmaking machinery provided for the build- ing of a more powerful navy than has ever before been had, and provided for the expenditure of $275,- 000,000 for new war vessels, to say nothing about the great expenditure for other military preparations. Public press dispatches, dated February 18, 1529, announced that the president signed a bill that day to authorize the construction of fifteen modern war- ships, and within a few minutes thereafter the build- ing program was begun. The clergy and the religious leaders loudly applaud the action of the political and eommercial powers, and say to the people, in sub- stance: ‘There will be no more war, because we have outlawed war. At the same time we must prepare by building more ships.’ It is rather difficult for the common people to un- derstand the consistency of such actions and declara- tions. The building of war machines proeceds upon a gigantic seale in every nation of so-ealled ‘‘Christen- dom”’. ‘The politieal factors, in the saddle, make the legal provision ; the commercial giants arrancve for the money; and the clergy provide the sanctimonious smoke sereen which their ‘father’? (whom Jesus de- elared to be the Devil) employs to blind the people to the truth. Just as the prophet says, all three are like bullfrogs; but the loudest one, and the most sane- timonious among the three, is the elerey of the great “false prophet’’? system, Britam and America. The preparation goes on and Satan eauses his agents, the rulers of the carth, to take counsel together against God and against his Anointed, and to say, in sub- stance: ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and east away their cords from us, and fix the world to suit ourselves,’ To this Psalm 2:4 replies: ‘We [Jcho- vah] that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.”’ Returning now to the consideration of Nahum's propheey relative to the preparation, it is found to he exactly in accord with the propheey of Revelation, above cuoted. Jehovah spcaks through Nahum and says: ‘‘The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broid wass: they shall scem lke torches, they shall run bke the lightnings,’’—-Nah. 2: 4. The chariots mentioned in this last-quoted verse are not the same chariots as those mentioned in the ina- mediately preecding verse, which declares thet ‘the chariots shall be with flaining torehes for, shall flash with stecl] in the day of his preparation’, These chariots flashing with stecl are shown to he oufside of the city (that is, outside of the Devil's oreaniza- lion) and are preparing to lay siege to the Devil's organization. The chariots mentioned in t'.e next