by Arthur H. Giles, Pastor, Greysolon Church, Duluth, Minnesota
A t t h e t im e o f C h r is t , the population of the world is estimated to have been about 200 million. The popu lation is said not to have reached the one billion mark until the early 19th century. In less than 100 years, the population rose to two billion and today it is said be three billion. According to a United Nations report, by the year A.D. 2000 the world population will be six bil lion. God is not capricious. He would never destroy men for the sake of solving an economic problem. However, the Bible does reveal how, through God’s provision for His church and the judgments that are to fall upon a sinful world, the population of the world could and likely will be greatly decreased. Consider the following: 1. The rapture (I Thessalonians 4:13-18; I Corin- thians 15:51-?52). We believe that in the rapture God will not only take His church, but also all infants and all children under the age of accountability. This will be a tremendous exodus. When God’s sheep and lambs are safely in His Fold, let us look at the coming judg- ment predicted in the Scriptures. There will be a depopulation by: 2. The “ four horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Revela tion 6:8: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and with hunger and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.” 3. Many that are left will die from the trumpet judgments of Revelation, chapters 8 and 9. “By these three were the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of JULY, 1965
their mouths” (Rev. 8:11; 9:18). 4. One third of the army of 200 million will be killed according to Revelation 9 :15-18. 5. Those who attempt to kill the two witnesses of Revelation, chapter 11, will themselves be killed (Rev. 11:5). 6. 7000 men will be killed in Jerusalem by the earth quake of Revelation 11:13. 7. Many will be killed by the beast out of the sea (Rev. 13:7). 8. When the seven angels of Revelation, chapter 16, pour out of their vials, many will die. 9. Five-sixths of the hordes of the Northern con federacy which will invade Israel will be destroyed. (See Ezekiel 39:1-4.) 10. Two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Holy land will die, according to Zechariah 13:8. In Isaiah 24.6, referring to the end of this age, the prophet wrote, “ Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhab itants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” As Noah, his wife and their family, became the nucleus that founded a new civilization after the destruction of the world by the flood, so those compara tively “ few” that are “ left” after the judgments that just precede the return of the Lord to the earth, will be the forebears of that new civilization which will con stitute the millennial kingdom. Perhaps the “ population explosion” should not concern us as much as it does. God is able to take care of that too in His will and way. What is needed is to evangelize the population we do have. ii
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