ARMAGEDDON 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 Upon the War 
 Preached in Norwich Cathedral 
 
 BY 
 
 H. C. BEECHING, d.d., d.u». 
 
 Dean of Norwich 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. ; 
 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. ; 
 BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET. 
 1914 
 
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 
 in 2014 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/armageddonsermonOObeec 
 
ARMAGEDDON 
 
 And they gathered them together into a place called 
 in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. — Rev. xvi. 16. 
 
 I have chosen my text from the description of 
 the great battle at the end of the world foretold 
 by St. John, not merely because the war in which 
 we are engaged is a war of many nations, but 
 because the issues at stake are the final issues ; 
 those which will one day be the only issues to 
 be settled, as they are now the only issues of 
 importance ; the supreme issue of good and 
 evil, right and wrong. "St. John took the name 
 he gave to this last great battle from that 
 historic fight in the plains of Megiddo, when 
 Barak under the inspiration of the prophetess 
 Deborah led the Israelites to a complete 
 victory over the terrible Canaanites. The 
 Israelites were few, and the Canaanites were 
 many ; moreover, as the historian tells us, 
 they had " nine hundred chariots of iron " ; 
 but the cause of Israel, despite their back- 
 sliding, was the cause of God, and He 
 championed them to victory. 
 
4 
 
 " The Kings came and fought ; then fought the 
 Kings of Canaan by the waters of Megiddo. 
 
 " They fought from heaven ; the stars in their 
 courses fought against Sisera. 
 
 *' The river of Kishon swept them away, that 
 ancient river, the river Kishon." * 
 
 In the new battle of Megiddo, at the end of 
 the world, which St. John describes, all the 
 good forces of the world arc arrayed on one 
 side, and all the evil forces, inspired by the 
 Beast and the False Prophet, on the other, 
 and then the evil is completely overwhelmed 
 and destroyed. 
 
 Now it may seem that in daring to speak of 
 our present terrible war as an Armageddon, I 
 am falling into a kind of blasphemy not un- 
 common when nations go to war ; and a 
 familiar theme of satire. In every war, it is 
 said, both sides appeal to God as though He 
 were merely their national deity, pledged to 
 fight for His own people. We all remember 
 that when some victory was gained by the 
 Crown Prince's army, the Emperor of Germany 
 telegraphed, " How magnificently God sup- 
 ported him ! " The teaching of the Bible, 
 however, on this matter is very plain. In the 
 time of the prophet Amos, the Israelites were 
 entirely confident that Jehovah was supporting 
 them, because they had gained some victories 
 * Judges v. 19-21, 
 
5 
 
 over Damascus ; but Amos assured them that, 
 on the contrary, God was bringing up the 
 Assyrian army against them, because of their 
 cruelty and injustice. He said to them, " Pre- 
 pare to meet thy God, O Israel." God was not 
 leading them to victory. He was at the head 
 of their enemies ; and they would have to 
 meet Him in battle. The lessons which Amos 
 tried to teach the people of Israel — lessons 
 which it is to be hoped we have learned — were 
 first, that God is not the God of any one 
 nation exclusively, however much he may have 
 favoured it and chosen it for some special 
 work in the world ; and secondly, that He is 
 a God of righteousness, Who will punish all 
 nations alike for their wickedness. Conse- 
 quently, in any war in which we are engaged, 
 the one question of paramount importance is, 
 on which side is the God of righteousness ? 
 There is a fine story told about Abraham 
 Lincoln in the American Civil War,* which puts 
 this point plainly. He was asked whether he 
 was sure that God was on his side ; and his 
 reply was : "I have not thought about that ; 
 but I am very anxious to know whether we are 
 on God's side." That is the question of con- 
 sequence ; and on that point it behoves us all 
 to have a clear mind and conscience. May I 
 * Quoted in the Spectator. 
 
6 
 
 give you the reasons which constrain me to 
 believe that we are on God's side in this war, 
 and that we are justified in speaking of it 
 as an Armageddon, and in claiming the divine 
 assurance of ultimate victory, through what- 
 ever chastening discipline we may be led ? - 
 
 (i) My first reason is that this is, on our side, 
 a war against war ; a war on behalf of peace- 
 ful arbitration. When individual men quarrel 
 and cannot make up their dispute they are no 
 longer allowed to fight it out, they must go to 
 law, and the side that is beaten at law must 
 accept the decision ; the Government of the 
 country compels him to accept it. But when 
 nations quarrel, there is no Government above 
 them all that can compel them not to fight ; 
 and as long as nations remain free there can be 
 no such Government over them. The possi- 
 bility of wars is part of the price that we pay 
 for national freedom. When the Roman Em- 
 pire was mistress of the world, it could and did 
 prevent the subject nations from fighting, and 
 the " Roman peace " kept the civilised world 
 from war for many centuries. But the nations 
 under the Roman Empire were not free ; they 
 had no power of self-government ; they were 
 ruled by magistrates sent from Rome, who 
 might be honest men, but might quite as 
 likely be men like Pilate and Felix and Festus, 
 
of whom we read in the New Testament. In 
 recent years it has been suggested that nations, 
 instead of going to war, should submit their 
 disputes to the arbitration of judges from 
 neutral nations, and we can all remember the 
 great hopes which attended the setting up of 
 the tribunal at The Hague. But clearly nations 
 cannot be compelled to submit their differences 
 to arbitration except by going to war with 
 them. Now, the little nation of Servia appealed 
 to The Hague Tribunal against two of Austria's 
 demands, while accepting all the rest ; it was 
 just such a case as The Hague Tribunal was 
 appointed to meet ; but Austria, backed by 
 Germany, refused to allow the appeal, and 
 declared war. ^Clearly, then, Russia and 
 France and England are fighting in this war 
 for the cause of arbitration against brute force ; 
 they are fighting for international justice, for 
 the extension of the Kingdom of God over the 
 kingdoms of the world ; and if this war ends, as 
 we trust in the God of righteousness that it will 
 end, in the victory of the Allies, the cause of arbi- 
 tration must have better success in the future. 
 
 (2) In the second place, this war is a war on 
 God's side, because it is a war for truth, for 
 the sacredness of pledges. When France and 
 Gennany were on the verge of war, the question 
 was put to each of them by our Foreign Minister 
 
8 
 
 whether they would respect the neutrality of 
 Belgium, because obviously it was to the 
 advantage of both to make their way into the 
 other's territory through the country of Bel- 
 gium. France agreed ; Germany refused. And 
 we have since heard of the astonishment 
 expressed by the German Chancellor that 
 England should think it worth while to go to 
 war with Germany for breaking her pledge. He 
 called it going to war " for a scrap of paper." 
 Now realise what that expression means. From 
 time immemorial agreements between indi- 
 viduals and nations have been written down 
 on parchment or paper, and signed or sealed. 
 The most solemn obligations ever entered into 
 by men or nations — our Magna Charta, or our 
 Declaration of Rights— might be described as 
 ." scraps of paper." That is all they would be 
 to a savage. But a civilised man regards them 
 as the most sacred things in the world. How 
 could society hold together if a promise which 
 a man signed to-day he laughed at to-morrow 
 as a mere " scrap of paper" ? 
 
 When Belgium was made an independent 
 kingdom, its neutrality was guaranteed by the 
 Great Powers ; and that guarantee was ratified 
 before the Franco-Prussian war in 1870.* 
 
 * The charge is sometimes made that the English 
 indignation at the invasion of Belgian neutrality is 
 
9 
 
 Now, because it proves inconvenient to Ger- 
 many, she repudiates her obligation, and smiles 
 at the simple-minded people who expected her 
 to keep it, when it was inconvenient. i( This is 
 to undo all the work of civilisation, by which 
 the human race has been slowly raised above 
 savagery. But worse even than that, it is to 
 undo all the work of religion. The name by 
 which God has revealed Himself to us is the 
 God of truth ; the God Who keeps promise ; 
 the God of the Covenant. And therefore for a 
 king or his people to claim the support of God 
 at the same time that they break the most 
 solemn covenant is cither hypocrisy, or it 
 means that the God whom they worship is not 
 the God Whom Christians worship. ) 
 
 (3) In the present case, it may be the 
 latter. Indeed, this contempt for international 
 justice, this contemptuous repudiation of solemn 
 pledges are only striking symptoms, to which 
 the progress of the war has largely added, of a 
 definite renunciation of Christianity among the 
 ruling classes in modern Germany. Germany 
 is no longer a Christian country, and does not 
 recognise Christian standards, either in peace 
 
 affected. It may be well then to remember that the 
 feeling was no less strong in 1870 when that neutrality 
 seemed threatened, as appears plainly from a cartoon 
 in Punch for August 13th, that year. 
 
ro 
 
 or war. Her religion is now a religion of Force, 
 with Falsehood as an ally. brilliant teacher 
 of history, recently dead, who knew modern 
 German literature and the modern German 
 temper better than any other Englishman, 
 quotes in his last book from a German writer 
 their new beatitudes as follows : " Ye have 
 heard how in old times it was said, Blessed are 
 the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ; but 
 I say unto you, Blessed are the valiant for they 
 shall make the earth their throne. And ye 
 have heard men say, Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven ; but 
 I say unto you, Blessed are the great in soul 
 and the free in spirit, for they shall enter into 
 Valhalla. And ye have heard men say, Blessed 
 are the peacemakers ; but I say unto you, 
 Blessed are the war makers, for they shall be 
 called, if not the children of Jehovah, the 
 children of Odin, who is greater than Je- 
 hovah ! " * In plain words this writer tells us 
 that the leaders of the German people have 
 refused to accept any longer a religion which 
 comes to them from the despised Jews, and 
 have deliberately gone back to their own 
 ancestral religion, that of the war-gods, Odin 
 and Thor. It may not be possible to find in 
 
 * " Germany and England," by Prof. J. A. Cramb, 
 p. 117. 
 
1 1 
 
 many books* so clearly tabulated a creed as 
 that which I have read ; but you will find 
 many statements of faith which come to the 
 same thing. You may not find God appealed to 
 by the name of Odin or of Thor, but when God 
 is named, the only attributes you will generally 
 find ascribed to Him, are those of Power and 
 Intelligence ; not Righteousness and not Pity. 
 ' The modern German says : We are the best 
 race of men on the earth, the strongest, the 
 bravest, the most intelligent ; no nation is so 
 warlike, or so scientific ; " We are the best 
 colonists, the best sailors, the best merchants." 
 The future of civilisation therefore depends 
 upon us, and us only. God clearly intends to 
 bless the world by us, as in times past He 
 blessed it in some respects by the Greeks, in 
 others by the Romans. We are now the 
 chosen people. We must therefore gain the 
 mastery of the world, so that our civilisation 
 may spread through the world. Nothing must 
 stand in the way of our mission. The beneficent 
 end justifies any means, even the most aggres- 
 sive and treacherous and bloody war. That is 
 what the German Emperor meant when he 
 said, " Our German people will be the granite 
 block, on which the good God may complete 
 
 * See Fricdrich Nietzsche by M. A. Miigge (T. C. & 
 E. C. Jack). 
 
12 
 
 His work of civilising the world." The conquest 
 of the world is therefore put forward as the first 
 duty of the German people ; the second duty 
 is to give it the blessing of German civilisation. 
 You will remember that this was the policy 
 suggested to our blessed Lord by the devil at 
 the opening of His ministry ; a policy which 
 He instantly rejected with a " Get thee behind 
 me, Satan." We can understand that if the 
 mission of Christ was to put His divine spirit 
 into the hearts of all men, that spirit of His 
 would have become an altogether different 
 spirit, if He had decided to win them by the 
 sword instead of by the Cross ! His spirit 
 could have been then neither the spirit of 
 righteousness nor the spirit of love. The spirit 
 of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life 
 for the sheep is a very different spirit from that 
 of the wolf. And so our reply to the claim of 
 Germany must surely be this : — We acknow- 
 ledge your admirable intelligence ; for your 
 poets of a century ago, before you abjured 
 Christianity, we have a high respect ; for 
 your Christian musicians, like Bach, we have 
 a high respect ; we have respect for your 
 thoroughness in science, and are glad to 
 learn of you. But your new religion of 
 anti-Christ, your new God of Force and 
 Falsehood, your new doctrine that self-interest 
 
13 
 
 is the only right, we loathe and abominate. 
 Do you tell us that you will give the world 
 civilisation, when you have hacked your way 
 to power ? Why, in the process you will have 
 renounced all the civilisation you ever had. 
 You have already trampled under your armed 
 feet everything that raised humanity above 
 the brutes. Belgium devastated, pillaged, its 
 people massacred or homeless, its most ancient 
 and beautiful city burnt to the ground, is an 
 object-lesson to the world of the new civilisation 
 you have in store for them. It is a civilisation 
 without liberty, without justice, without chiv- 
 alry. It is civilisation, like that of the ancient 
 Canaanite, in honour of whose god women were 
 debauched, and children thrown into the fire. 
 Nay, it is worse, for they knew no better, and, 
 indeed, their chariots of iron were used only 
 against opposing armies ; while your bombs are 
 used against peaceful citizens, your mines are 
 laid in the path of quiet nsherfolk and mer- 
 chantmen ; and you reckon up the tale of your 
 slaughtered peasants as though they were merely 
 a huntsman's prey. No, in the name of freedom, 
 in the name of justice, in the name of truth, in 
 the name of humanity— which are all names of 
 our God, we will fight to our last drop of blood 
 against you, and may God defend the right I. J 
 It is a holy war in which we have taken 
 
14 
 
 our part ; a war of Christ against anti-Christ. 
 Our young men, who at the eleventh hour are 
 coming forward to fight against the common 
 enemy, must come in the spirit of crusaders. 
 I take it as of good omen that our two cross- 
 bearers here in the mother church have enlisted ; 
 for the battle is indeed for the Cross, " against 
 principalities and powers, and the rulers of the 
 darkness of this world," and it must be waged 
 in the spirit of the Cross. It is a great and holy 
 thing to fight for one's country, and we thank 
 God that large numbers of the enemy of the 
 simpler sort, who know nothing of the causes 
 of the war, have this consolation ; they are 
 fighting for their country ; they are fighting, 
 we must think, with a good conscience, though 
 the orders they carry out may be devil's orders. 
 
 In our case the patriotic motive, strong and 
 deep as it is, is strengthened and purified by a 
 still deeper motive ; fwe are fighting for others 
 as well as for ourselves, for the weak against 
 the strong, for right against might, for Christ 
 against anti-Christ. And so the battle is not 
 only ours, it is God's, it is indeed Armageddon. 
 Ranged against us are the Dragon and the 
 False Prophet •) but the issue is sure. 
 
 The arrows of Almighty God are drawn ! 
 Angels of death stand in the low'ring heavens ! 
 Soldiers, prepare ; our cause is heaven's cause ; 
 Soldiers, prepare ; be worthy of our cause. 
 
i5 
 
 And we others, who from age or sex or 
 infirmity cannot be soldiers, we also must be 
 worthy of our cause. We must help the good 
 cause in all ways that are possible ; and we can 
 all help in one way, at least, by keeping a 
 strong heart to endure and an open hand to 
 relieve distress. Let us not expect to avoid 
 suffering. Europe cannot be saved without 
 suffering. We are signed with the Cross, and 
 the Cross means suffering. It cost much to 
 redeem men's souls. Moreover, we can all help 
 also, by refusing to hinder. For example, 
 we may strengthen the hands of our magis- 
 trates in their effort to remove temptations 
 from the path of our young soldiers. Their 
 cause is a divine cause ; but they are only 
 men and perhaps hardly that ; and why 
 should we allow the snares of intemperance and 
 sensuality to be strewn in their way ?- I would 
 appeal especially to Christian women. Do not 
 let the sacred cause in which we are engaged 
 be dragged through the mire, by the shameless 
 animalism of the undisciplined girls in your 
 city. /I appeal also to parents and wives. 
 You too may help by refusing to hinder. Do 
 not try to hold back your sons and husbands 
 from giving their yo\mg strength and en- 
 thusiasm to the great cause. Remember that 
 the war is being waged in defence of everything 
 
i6 
 
 that you hold dear, everything that makes life 
 worth living ; in defence of freedom, justice, 
 honour, religion. It is a battle for God and 
 His ChristJ And Christ may well be saying 
 now, as He said two thousand years ago to all 
 selfish or double-minded Christians : " He 
 that lovcth father or mother more than Me is 
 not worthy of Me, and he that loveth son or 
 daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me " 
 (St. Matt. x. 37). If we would fight in the 
 Lord's battle, we must pray Him to purify our 
 hearts. 
 
 [September C'.h, I9 T 4-] 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, WM1TED, LONDON AND Bill