What was the greatest atrocity of the 20th Century? For some, the Holocaust immediately comes to mind. If you are of Japanese descent, Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may rank at the top of the list. Those of the African Diaspora may point to the genocide in Rwanda, the conflict in the Republic of Congo, or the tribal clash in the Sudan. Although the examples of butchery that have been noted above are worthy candidates for discussion, they all pale in comparison with other documented evil that has been unleashed on innocent populations of the world. According to Norman Davies’s Europe, A History, he demonstrates an orgy of violence over the last century that sadly depicts man as a beast:
· 27 million European civilians killed during WWII;
· 27 million Soviet citizens killed during WWII;
· 22 million victims of the Soviet Gulag;
· 12 million deaths during Russian Collectivization (Historian Roy Medvedev claims that as many as 40 million perished under Stalin[1]);
· 6 million died during the Ukranian Terror-Famine;
· 6 million Polish citizens killed during WWII;
· 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust;
· 5 million European civilians killed during WWI;[2] and
· Under the Regime of Mao Zedong in the People’s Republic of China, between 45 million and 72 million were killed (20 million died in the labor camps).
Discussions of human carnage will inevitably bring up other cases of mass killings that do not rise to the level of victims as the above, like September 11th. However, they are all nonetheless choruses in a symphony of evil where dissolute men perpetrate wickedness over innocent people. If we simply consider the nearly 3,000 people who perished in the terrorist attacks on September 11th; this number is an astonishing demonstration of maliciousness carried out by other humans. Although relatively speaking, September 11th does not compare in scope to the Holocaust, or the Soviet Gulag, or Mao’s regime, and this is not to diminish its effect on society; most people still cannot fathom the level of depravity that is necessary to launch a plan that would target a few thousand people for death.
If September 11th is difficult for most people to grasp, then the 60 million +/– people killed by Mao Zedong borders being far-fetched, and if it was not for documented proof, many people would deny that the most extreme examples of human cruelty ever occurred. Even limited trust in human nature makes it difficult to believe that men are as barbaric as history describes. Notwithstanding the years of scholarship that has been exhausted in studying the Holocaust, there are still academics who deny its existence. Certainly, it would be more credible for Holocaust revisionists to argue that the number of deaths were fewer than 6 million; however, to completely deny the Holocaust is to reject a mountain of evidence to the contrary: the gas chambers; testimony at Nuremburg; testimony from participants; testimonies from survivors; photographs; and the results of perhaps the most studied subject of the 20th Century.
Unfortunately, the world that we are bequeathing to our children is full of theft, destruction, and murder.
Despite the horrors of the 20th Century, the Scripture warns us of a period in the not too distance future that can only be described as the genocidal beginning of the end of the human race. According to Revelation 6, there will be contingency plans by men that will eliminate at least ¼ of humanity and possible as much as ½ of the human race. As you can see, I am fishing for a word in our English lexicon to describe these men, because words like evil, like wicked, like depraved, or like corrupt does not seem to be the right choice for men who have plans to rid the world of large segments of its population. We use words like these to describe men like Jeffrey Dahmer; a serial rapist loose in one’s community; terrorists who kill hundreds of people; or men like Hitler, Stalin or Mao. Although the limitations of English will not offer me a proper adjective to describe the men in Revelation chapter 6, I’ll use “evil” for lack of a better word.
Revelation 6 is shrouded in metaphors and symbolism as it describes the beginning of the end of human life as we know it on the earth:
1.And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. 2.And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. 3.And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. 4.And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. 5.And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. 6.And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. 7.And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. 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 sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth (Revelation 6:1-8).
Considering the above, how does one eliminate between 2 billion and 4 billion innocent people? I mean, these men will dissolve entire nations from the map with the indifference of a cook at a fast food restaurant, flipping burgers for the afternoon lunch crowd. This will be a masterpiece of wickedness that is unprecedented in human history. As we saw earlier in this article, men have always imposed their will on others with instruments of barbarity; however, never have we seen it on a scale described in the Scriptures above.
In the next few months, I will be publishing a 12-part series on the Rise of the anti-christ titled, Prelude to the anti-christ. This series will attempt to describe how evil men attained ambitions to annihilate the human race. Man’s craving to destroy himself did not happen as an afterthought. It has been a cleverly weaved plan that has been in an incubation stage for more than 1,000 years, and if we are in fact living in the “last days,” then the arrangement to eliminate half the population of the planet is about to be unleashed on humankind.
Prelude to the anti-christ will be divided into three series: First, The Mystery of Iniquity will be a 3-part series that demonstrate that there has been a furtive hand in the affairs of humanity to create the rich soil for the anti-christ to rise; second, Western Civilization’s Unrelenting Expansion will be a 6-part expose on Western Civilization’s effort to control the destiny of human civilization; and third, The Rise of the anti-christ will be a 3-part series on the rise of the global leader who will lead humanity over the precipice into oblivion. The first article will be published on Sunday, January 30, 2011, and each subsequent article will be published on each successive Sunday through April.
In Revelation chapter 2, John admonished the church at Thyatira that there were some who did not “know the depths of satan.” Because of their naiveté, he was unable to give them deep, mystical insight into God’s Word through his writing: 24.But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. 25.But that which ye have already hold fast till I come (Revelation 6:24-25).
I close this introduction by saying; I trust that the end-time church has not lost its ability to discern good from evil. If so, what I will be advancing will border on the absurd.
…to be continued
[1] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NWYvGYcxCjYC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=conquest+victims+million+stalin+wheatcroft+nove&source=bl&ots=4GwMCPSQZz&sig=6F2zvOt80xKNs-19FPlER0NiMjo&hl=en&ei=BjP8ScrwJIeO_Qa3yszJBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=conquest%20victims%20million%20stalin%20wheatcroft%20nove&f=false.
[2] Davies, Norman, Europe, A History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 1,329.
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