The First World War and the Bible: Paralleled
As a Christian, I always believe that the Bible is the compilation of books recorded by the messengers of God that consist the true Words of him. God’s Words recorded in the bible are the Truth and are capable of correcting errors and reproof.
In line with that, when the bible recorded the events happened from the creation of the world, it also records the future and the things which will happen to human races in the whole world. When the Book of Genesis recorded the creation of the world, the Book of Revelation, on the other hand, tells us the coming of the world’s destruction as it is destined to be and about the Judgment Day.
The Book of Revelation, moreover, recorded the events in the Christian era, that is, the birth of Christianity and up to the end of the world. One of which is the symbolic event paralleled to the world’s first worldwide destructive war – the World War I, which broke out on 27th of July 1941.
The Bible has this to say:
“After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree.
Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea,
saying, "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
Revelation 7:1-3
Obviously the ‘wind’ being mentioned in these verses is not the literal wind, which can be held back. The Bible has its own interpretation of the ‘wind’.
“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "A dry wind of the desolate heights blows in the wilderness toward the daughter of My people; not to fan or to cleanse;
a wind too strong for these will come for Me; now I will also speak judgment against them."
"Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. woe to us, for we are plundered!"
O my soul, my soul! I am pained in my very heart! My heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.”
Jeremiah 4:11-13, 19
"Wind as mentioned in the preceding verses came "not to fan or to cleanse" as the literal wind does, but it came up with "chariots like a whirlwind" and "horses [that are] swifter than eagles". The use of these instruments or weapons of war, as described, is heralded by the sound of a trumpet that was prophesied to cause pain in people's hearts. "Wind", therefore, refers to war.
This wind or war is what the four angels, as mentioned in the prophecy, must stop or hold back. No man can stop the blowing of the natural wind. However, the war referred to by "wind" can be stopped and such is the work of the prophesied four angels.
The expression "four winds" does not refer to the number of wars but to the magnitude of the war which, as prophesied, would involve all directions - the four corners of the earth; the war, as fulfilled, involved the whole world. That war is a world war. The textual proof that the expression "four winds" does not refer to four wars is in the contents of the same verse - "that the wind [not "winds"] should not blow..."
History books made some remarks regarding the First World War:
The First World War was the first general war, the first war to involve most of the members of the world state-system since the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon a century earlier...
The Great War, as it was called, was unlike any men had fought. As the first war fought with modern equipment and scientific devices, it was bloody and destructive... Its cost in life, in prosperity, and in human suffering were beyond comparison with previous experiences. Even the attempts to keep the peace after this war were difficult.
Man's Culture, p. 281
This war, as the Lord Jesus Christ pronounced, is just the beginning of birth pains (Mt. 24:6-8). As to the use of modern equipments:
The First World War was unlike any war in the past... This was the first war 'in three dimensions', the first war in which cities were bombed from the air and winged warriors fought among the clouds. Of course the airplanes of 1914 were not so fast, so formidable, nor so numerous as those of today. They were really more important as scouts (a kind of aerial 'cavalry'😉... the British had invented the tank, or land battleship - an armored automobile which could move on rough ground because it was built like a tractor.
World History, pp. 478-479
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