Today In Prophecy

A Safer World
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“For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

In 2002, South African President Nelson Mandela wrote in the introduction to the World Health Organization’s study on violence and health, “The twentieth century will be remembered as a century marked by violence. It burdens us with its legacy of mass destruction, of violence inflicted on a scale never seen and never possible before in human history.” The report estimated 1.6 million peo-ple died in violence in the year 2000 — nearly 28.8 per 100,000. Twenty percent died in armed conflict. Today, civil unrest claims lives from Africa to Pak- istan. Murder by drug cartels in Mexico continues. But overall death by armed conflict has diminished.

In fact, today’s world is less violent than at any time in recorded history. Twenty-four hour news aimed at sensationalism has distorted the reality that global conflict, both in terms of number and magnitude, has been declining steadily since the end of the Cold War. A series of empirical analyses done in the United States and Canada has consistently shown that the number of wars of all types — interstate, civil, ethnic, and revolutionary — declined throughout the 1990s and into this new century. The risk of the average person dying violently at the hands of enemies has never been lower.

Everyday Life is Also Safer

The lower violence is not just a result of fewer war deaths. A decline in violence in everyday life is supported by another recently published study reported by The Washington Post, based on data provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Post headlined this plunging crime rate in the United States as “the most important social trend of the past 20 years.” Some of the findings:

• Between 1991 and 2010, the homicide rate in the U.S. fell 51 percent, from 9.8 per 100,000 residents to 4.8 per 100,000.
• Property crimes such as burglary also fell sharply during that period.
• Auto theft dropped an astonishing 64 percent.
• FBI data released December 19 show that the trends continued in the first half of 2011. The U.S. could soon reach its lowest homicide rate of the modern era.

Europe, which has historically been the most war-prone of continents, is entirely calm, without even the threat of — or planning for — interstate conflict. Today, a far greater percentage of the world’s population lives in peace than at any time before in history. The only active conflict in the entire Western Hemisphere is the ongoing civil war in Colombia, but even that is occurring at a far lower level than a decade ago. By most measures, the world is living in a relatively golden age of peace and security, but there is no guarantee that it is a permanent change.

Peace Does Not Raise Quality of Life

• In 2011, world population grew to 7 billion, yet there were over 40 million abortions.
• In the U.S. alone, over 7 million people — 0.1 percent of the world population — are imprisoned, paroled, or on probation.
• Eighty percent of global humanity survives on the equivalent of less than $10 per day, with 40 percent of the world’s population accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s income.
• According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. “They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world”.
• More than 27 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted, mostly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
• An estimated 40 million people suffer from HIV/AIDS resulting in over three million deaths annually.
• Nearly 500 million annual cases of malaria result in one million deaths.
• About half the population of developing countries ail due to lack of clean water and basic sanitation, with 1.8 million children dying annually from the results of diarrhea.

Despite fewer deaths in war, painful disease and abject poverty continue to plague mankind. While leaders dedicate resources toward minimizing war through a global balance of power, their subjects continue to experience the curse of sin and disease. No amount of spending or efforts can reverse this trend. Only God can remove this curse.

God’s Kingdom Brings Individual Peace 

“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”(Micah 4:1-3). Here, in symbolic language the prophet describes the redirection of resources from violence toward the beneficial care of humanity.

Man’s efforts, when channeled constructively, will result in a bountiful earth for all. As predicted in Isaiah 35:1, even “the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Today, misery, heartache, suffering, selfishness, sickness, and pain persist. These are the results of the death sentence that came upon Adam and his posterity, “and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it — dying thou dost die” (Genesis 2:17, Young’s Literal Translation). No one but God can take away these problems. And He will. Soon the stains of sin will gradually be removed. The nighttime of suffering will be over. “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalms 30:5).

The Bible describes this as a time when every individual on the earth will be blessed:

• Health. “And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick” (Isaiah 33:24).
• Happiness. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
• Eternal life. “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection”(Luke 20:36).
• Righteous judgment. “He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).
• Security. “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it” (Micah 4:4).

Let us continue to look forward to that time of blessing and the brightness of God’s Kingdom!