When Will the Terror Cease?

IN COUNTRIES like the United States where organized terrorism seldom shows its hand, there are, nevertheless, human time bombs primed to explode in race riots, youth revolts or other forms of social anarchy. These upheavals shake social and political structures even in strong nations. They fear that professional agitators might seize control of rioters and lead them on in organized terrorism.

In some countries terrorists are armed with modern weapons. These range from sophisticated fast-action machine guns, high-explosive bombs, Russian-made SAM’s and hand-held antiaircraft missiles to the air-and-ground paraphernalia of war possessed by the PLO in its war with Israel. In most countries chemical weapons capable of poisoning a city’s water supply are available. But, most of all, nations dread the day some terrorist group might come into possession of a nuclear bomb. Could it then hold entire countries hostage? Or fool nuclear nations into thinking one had attacked another?

Fear is the ultimate weapon of terrorists. Fear of death makes hearts faint in the mightiest of nations. When a rumor spread that Colonel Qaddafi (American leaders view him as a terrorist) was sending “hit men” to the United States to kill President Reagan and others (whom Qaddafi views as terrorists), a Washington news bureau reported that “nothing like the Libyan scare ever has descended on this city, at least not in peacetime.”

To All Men Bitter in Soul

Is there no way to banish fear? No power to meliorate the distrust, the hatred, the bitterness that poison the hearts of men? Maybe they were hoping for such a blessing when men graced a wall opposite their United Nations building with these words from the Bible:

THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES, AND THEIR SPEARS INTO PRUNINGHOOKS: NATION SHALL NOT LIFT UP SWORD AGAINST NATION, NEITHER SHALL THEY LEARN WAR ANY MORE

Two contemporary prophets, Isaiah and Micah, recorded those words more than 700 years before Christ. (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3, Authorized Version) In their terrible enmities, some nations and some men might scorn anything from the Bible. But the Bible is not a “Jewish book,” any more than it is a “Christian book.” Look farther back in history before there were any Jews. Look back some 2300 years before Christ​—to Noah’s son Shem. The God of the Bible is “Jehovah, Shem’s God,” states Genesis 9:26. True, Shem was grandfather to Eber, the ancestor of the Jews. But Shem, according to Bible scholars, was also forefather of the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Elamites, the Aramaeans and the Lydians. Those ancients occupied parts of what are now Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. The time was when Jehovah, Shem’s God, had His witnesses in those lands.a

He has His witnesses in those lands today. They are in fact over all the earth. Millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses are joined in a global peace. Many of them were once like those who fled to young David when he himself was a fugitive from King Saul of Israel. “All men in distress and all men who had a creditor and all men bitter in soul began to collect together to him, and he came to be a chief over them.” On two occasions some encouraged David to assassinate Saul. In time David became king, but not by terroristic tactics.​—1 Samuel 22:2; 24:4-6; 26:8-11; 2 Samuel 5:1-3.

Men who hope in the United Nations may not realize that what they etched on the UN Plaza wall is a divine prophecy. It is bound to be fulfilled, not in the fashion of the meliorist​—one who believes that the world naturally tends to get better and, especially, that it can be made better by human efforts. The prophecy points to the coming of God’s Kingdom. Men do not set God’s Kingdom up for him by political means. The Almighty brings in his Kingdom from heaven through his Son, the heir to “the throne of David.”​—Luke 1:32; Isaiah 2:2-4; Daniel 2:44; 7:13, 14.

Before that Kingdom exerts full power over the earth God has his witnesses announce it as a testimony to all the nations. The people who heed that good news are demonstrating already that by God’s power they can melt their war spirit into a spirit of peace. They are learning war no more.

Two other Bible prophets, Ezekiel (38:21) and Zechariah (14:13), foretold that in the winding down of the world it will go into its finale with each man’s hand against his neighbor. Who knows what role the terroristic “wars within” may play in that? But this world’s way of releasing the bitter animosities and hurts in men’s hearts only by draining their lifeblood need not be your way. In whatever land you live, no matter what your circumstances, why not share with Jehovah’s Witnesses in the accurate Bible knowledge through which our very nature is transformed into a new personality “created according to God’s will in true righteousness and loyalty”?​—Ephesians 4:22-24, 31, 32.

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 9]

People who heed God’s Word are learning war no more