BOOK: "What The World Is Coming To" by Chuck Smith ( Commentary on the Book of Revelation) Pg 2

What The World Is Coming To 

A Commentary on the Book of Revelation 

by Chuck Smith

PAGE TWO

Also, the Scriptures tell us to "prove all things" and to "hold fast that which is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21).

Forewarning "THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR." 

That statement used to be associated with old, gray bearded men walking barefooted in long robes with sandwich boards over their shoulders. The front of the board read "Repent" and the back read "The end of the world is near."

We used to pass them off as crackpots and laugh at such a thought or idea. But lately I've been reading not the wild fanatical statements of some old, socalled prophet but, rather, the statements of men of science, men with a Ph.D. who are highly respected for their knowledge. These men have studied the environmental conditions of the earth.

Do you know what they're saying? They're saying, "The end of the world is near."

In fact, these experts are saying that man has anywhere from fourteen to forty years left upon this planet until we have so totally raped our natural resources that we can no longer survive. These men with their doctorates, who are carefully studying the balances of nature, are saying that the end of the world is near.

Is this possible? Can we really believe these ecologists? Are we really destroying nature's balances? Are we really wiping out hundreds of species, are we depleting our energy resources, and destroying the environment around us? Is it true that certain birds cannot hatch their eggs because of the DDT deposits in the eggshells? Is it true that the earth's ozone blanket is steadily disappearing? Are such things really happening?

 Maybe they're just trying to scare us. 

However, they aren't the only ones warning us. 

Our militarists are telling us that the end of the world is near. 

They're warning us that if man engages in a fullscale atomic war, we'll exterminate ourselves from the face of the earth and it will be the end of civilization. In the face of these warnings, the United States continues to maintain its atomic arsenal and the systems to deliver atomic bombs upon our enemies.

By the same token, our enemies are maintaining their atomic arsenals and the means of delivering them upon the United States. The real danger is the widespread proliferation of nations now possessing atomic weapons.

We're in this mad war of building these huge atomic arsenals. And already there are enough atomic weapons stockpiled to obliterate mankind from the face of the earth. Not only are the ecologists and militarists warning us, but so are the diplomats.

Those analysts who study world conditions tell us that the world is sitting on a powder keg - and the fuse is being lit in the Middle East.