THE 
 
 PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 ' By 
 
 Pastor C. H. Brunner 
 
 u. G. P. Co., 
 
 Box 398 , CLEVELAND, OHIO. 
 
 / 
 

 A 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/presentoutlookOObrun 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 This is the day of man. For many thou¬ 
 sands of years the world has been groaning 
 and suffering under the rule, or rather the 
 misrule of man. God in love and pity sent 
 His own Son to give better conditions to 
 man. But when He came the whole world 
 arose in rebellion against Him and crucified 
 Him. Of this all the world has become 
 guilty before God, for it was written in He¬ 
 brew, Greek and Latin, “Jesus of Nazareth, 
 King of the Jews’’ (Rom. 3:19; John 19:19, 
 20). The religious world, the intellectual or 
 educational world, and the political world, 
 all agreed to cry “Away with Him.” 
 
 Therefore the world has for two thousand 
 years more been under the rulership of man. 
 Concerning these rulers we are told first^ that 
 the world-rulers of this darkness are in an¬ 
 tagonism and conflict against the Spirit- 
 filled child of God (Eph. 6:12); and second, 
 that the religious rulers through ignorance 
 “killed the Prince of Life,” although they 
 heard the prophets read every Sabbath Day 
 (Acts 3:15,17; 13:27,-28). 
 
 Therefore a Christless Christendom as well 
 as a Christless world have demonstrated 
 their hostility toward the Son of God before 
 the eyes of heaven and earth in the rejection 
 of Him as their King. 
 
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Well what do we have now, and what are 
 the conditions around us at the present time? 
 Let men who speak not to a few, but to 
 whom the world turns for counsel, speak. 
 
 A LIFELESS RELIGION 
 
 An English writer of world-wide fame, 
 dealing'with the effects of war on religion, 
 says in the Expository Times: “The war 
 has been a disappointment. Before it be¬ 
 gan there had been for sonae time a depres¬ 
 sion in religion. Clmrch-going was falling 
 off. Meetings for prayer had often been 
 abandoned. When the war began we be¬ 
 lieved that all that would be changed. We 
 had thought that men would go to church in 
 order to understand the meaning of the 
 calamity. * * It has all been a disappoint¬ 
 ment. After two and a half years of war 
 and unparalleled suffering, religion in the 
 land is as lifeless as ever.” Is not this a 
 dark, gloomy, discouraging outlook? 
 
 A GODLESS MESSAGE 
 
 This statement is equally true and no 
 doubt accounts for the former. A Ger¬ 
 man minister has stated lately that before 
 the war he had tried to find out how many of 
 Germany’s ministers believed in the literal 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ the Son of God, 
 and could not find three! An English min¬ 
 ister makes this statement: “Say what you 
 like, the Gosjoel is not preached in England. 
 I have the best of all reasons for knowing. 
 I have spent six months listening to preach- 
 
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ors in various parts of the country, and, as 
 God is luy Avituess, I did not hear a sermon 
 in any church that was even designed to lead 
 a sinner to the Saviour!” 
 
 What do we conclude from tins'? Results 
 will tell; the fruit will show the planting. A 
 message Avithout the Gospel leads to a mem¬ 
 bership Avithout conA^ersion, and produces 
 an organized religion Avithout life. Is not 
 this Laodiceanism? Is not this the condition 
 of Christendom to-day? Has not this brought 
 forth the lukewarm conditions of the present 
 day, nauseating and sickening to God, ready 
 to be spued out? 
 
 What is to be done? A certain writer 
 says, “To reform, revive, unite or improve 
 present-day conditions is futile. Our duty 
 is to examine ourselves and turn in true¬ 
 hearted ‘first love’ to the old Gospel and the 
 ‘hot’ fervor of olden days.” 
 
 A HOPELESS OUTLOOK 
 
 Well what do the great men of the Avorld 
 say who have the reins of government in 
 their hands, such who are standing in the 
 place and position that is coveted and 
 aimed at by so many? This is man’s day. 
 These men have access to all the resources of 
 the world to make their schemes and plans 
 valid. They have the history of nations be¬ 
 fore them. They know the points of strength 
 and Aveakness of every form of government 
 from the days of Nimrod who founded the 
 first kingdom, down to the multiplied forms 
 
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of government existing amofig all the na¬ 
 tions of the earth to-day. They know the 
 causes leading to the rise and fall of dynas¬ 
 ties and nations of all history. Why should 
 they not be well able to wisely guide the af¬ 
 fairs of state of all nations to the highest 
 state of peace, prosperity, contentment and 
 happiness of all the inhabitants of this 
 globe? Why should not six thousand years 
 of experience, the gist of which these men 
 have in their minds, bring forth all the con¬ 
 ditions for the making of a paradise of this 
 world? The world looks for this. 
 
 But what do we see? The illustrated de¬ 
 scriptions of the awful scenes in war-torn 
 suffering, bleeding, dying Europe give us, 
 we fear, only a small portion of the awful 
 truth! 
 
 The Hon. Lloyd-George, Premier of Great 
 Britain, speaking at an American luncheon 
 in London on April 12th said: “I can see 
 peace coming now—not a peace which would 
 be a beginning of war, not a peace which 
 would be an endless preparation for strife 
 and bloodshed, but a real peace. The world 
 is an old world, and it has never had real 
 peace. It has been rocking, swaying like 
 an ocean, and Europe—poor Europe—it has 
 always lived under the menace of the sword. 
 * * To-day we are waging the most devastat¬ 
 ing war that the world has ever seen. To¬ 
 morrow—not perhaps a distant to-morrow— 
 war may be abolished for ever from the 
 category of human crimes.” 
 
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This is the vision of man. It looks much 
 like the golden image in the plain of Dura 
 (Dan. 3). Such a speech sounds well at a 
 banquet, but the student of God's Word sees 
 things in quite a different light. There can 
 be no peace while the Prince of Peace is 
 in exile and a usurper is on the throne. If 
 six millenniums of government of or by 
 man have developed ^ffhe most devastating 
 Avar that the Avorld has ever seen," if this is 
 the climax of civilization, then the picture 
 looks dark and the outlook is gloomy indeed! 
 
 Tlie cry of the world may be “Eureka!" 
 but they admit that they have not yet found 
 the solution to meet the world's greatest 
 need. 
 
 When a person takes sides with the dis¬ 
 couraging conditions as they exist, he is 
 called a “pessimist," one who always looks 
 on the dark side of things. Well, the Bible 
 shoAvs us two sides, one is exceedingly bright 
 and encouraging, while the other is extreme¬ 
 ly dark, gloomy and discouraging. 
 
 Hopeless is the outlook when we think of 
 nations, governments, proposals, treaties, in 
 the past, so in the future, all a failure! 
 When the solemn, oath-bound treaties of na¬ 
 tions are regarded as “scraps of paper;" 
 Avhen the tramp of soldiers, the beating of 
 drums, the bugle call, the roar of cannon is 
 heard among the foremost, most enlightened 
 nations of the earth; when there is fighting 
 on land, under ground, on the sea, under the 
 sea, and in the air; when the indications 
 
from the Scriptures regard all these troub¬ 
 les simply as “the beginning of sorrows’’ 
 l^reparatory to the coming of the “great trib¬ 
 ulation,” could the outlook be more gloomy? 
 
 But HOPEFUL is the outlook as we look up, 
 knowing that for us our “redemption draw- 
 eth nigh,” “The King Eternal” or “The 
 King of the Ages” (I Tim. 1:17, R. V., 
 marg.) will soon be here and destroy the 
 “man of sin,” the “super-man,” put an end to 
 all human authority and misrule and relieve 
 the groaning creation. Under His beneficent 
 sway “Nation shall not lift up sword against 
 nation, neither shall they learn war any 
 more” (Is. 2:4). Then, and not before 
 then, shall they “beat their swords into plow¬ 
 shares and their spears into pruning hooks.” 
 Then shall be brought to pass the words of 
 the prophet, “The earth shall be full of the 
 knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover 
 the sea” (Is, 11:9; Hab. 2:14). The Jews 
 Avho have been robbed, plundered, perse¬ 
 cuted, killed ever since the day they cruci¬ 
 fied their Lord, shall then “return and shall 
 be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make 
 them afraid” (Jer. 30:10; 46:27). Then 
 shall be fulfilled what Isaiah says, “The 
 whole earth is at rest, and is quiet; they 
 break forth in singing” (Is. 14‘:7). Lord, 
 hasten that day! 
 
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