A(i)r-mageddon: the “great hail” of Revelation 16:21

THE AFTERMATH: COLOGNE 1945

“The 'fall of hail' is to be viewed as accompanying, not following, the fall of cities . . . As hail-stones are symbolical of divine judgments, and as there may be allusions here to another of the plagues of Egypt, (Exod. ix. 18:) so more especially may the facts of history supply the figurative language with which the judgments of the vials terminate. If any escaped the destroying sword in the battle of Armageddon, they are overtaken by these ponderous hail-stones out of heaven . . .”

(From: Notes on the Apocalypse; With An Appendix, containing dissertations on some of the Apocalyptical symbols, together with animadversions on the interpretation of several among the most learned and approved expositors of Britain and America, by David Steele, Sr., Pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation, Philadelphia; Philadelphia: Young & Ferguson, No. 14 South Seventh St., 1870; p. 246).

Moving on from a work detailing some of the prophetic interpretations of some of “the most learned and approved expositors of Britain and America”; to the actual “facts of history”, and the aviators of Britain and America:

“A(i)r- mageddon in West”

“FROM dawn onwards yesterday the thunder of massed aircraft filled the sky over the north German plain as the greatest tactical air blitz in history gained momentum.

“Bomber Command, the Eighth & Ninth U.S.A.A.F. And the entire strength of R.A.F. Second T.A.F. were flying into yesterday's onslaught, in which well over 6,000 sorties were flown.”

(From a newspaper clipping reproduced in John S. Fox's Today, Tomorrow and the Great Beyond – newspaper and date of publication not stated.)

The British historian Andrew Roberts, in a chapter (entitled, “The Cruel Reality”) concentrating on the Anglo-American air offensive against Germany (to be found in his latest history of the Second World War), remarked that the “division of labour between [the USAAF's] daylight and [the RAF's] night-time bombing automatically solved a number of possible operational problems [that would have otherwise existed between the two allied forces].” And went on to state that: “On 6 March 1944 the Americans began daylight raids on Berlin, which was now being pounded almost round the clock.”

“they have no rest day nor night . . .” (Rev. 15:11).

Andrew Roberts concluded the aforementioned chapter, on the following note:

“The fact that more than ten times the number of Germans died – some 600,000 in all – in the retaliation against the Blitz than Britons who actually died in the Blitz itself echoes the biblical phrase about David multiplying the numbers killed by Saul. . . . Whereas the Luftwaffe flattened 400 acres of London, the RAF and USAAF turned 6,247 acres of Berlin into little more than rubble. Total War did not allow for what is today called 'a proportionate response'. No fewer than sixty major German industrial cities suffered colossal material damage during the Second World War. Yet Germany is today such a model democracy, and so pacific in her foreign policy, partly because of the terrible retribution that that war visited upon her. If the Second World War had not seen civilian casualties on German soil, just as the Great War had not, a new spirit of revanchism might have been rekindled there. As it was, the Germans looked into the face of Armageddon, and it has instilled an aversion for foreign military intervention that might occasionally frustrate NATO policy-makers today, but is overall a very welcome development for the world.”

(The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, 2009; pp. 459-460).

Williamson Murray, writing in War in the Air 1914-45 (Cassell History of Warfare series, 1999, 2002), first remarks that:

“[T]he most controversial aspect of Anglo-American air power [during the Second World War] had to do with the Combined Bomber Offensive, the strategic bombing effort against Germany. This author at least would rate its contribution as one of the four essential elements in Allied victory over Nazi Germany, the others being the Eastern Front, the battle of the Atlantic and American productive superiority.”

He then goes on to state:

“It is hard to measure the impact of bombing because, in contradiction to many of the tenets of air power, so much of its effect was indirect. . . . The responses that the Nazi government made to the night-bomber offensive suggest the profound indirect impact of the Combined Bomber Offensive. The growth of the Flak (anti-aircraft fire) forces defending the Reich at a time when on any number of fronts German ground forces were confronting increasingly numerous and effective opponents suggests the impact the bombing made on the minds of the Nazi leadership and their worries that the home front might again collapse as in 1918. The number of Flak batteries rose from 791 guarding the Reich in 1940, to 967 in 1941, 1,148 in 1942 and 2,132 in 1943. By the end of 1943 the Germans had nearly 10,000 high-velocity anti-aircraft guns and 500,000 men firing huge numbers of shells into the skies over the Reich and hitting little. The impact of such weapons and manpower on other fronts in 1943 or 1944 hardly needs emphasis.

“The second indirect effect of 'area' bombing also occurred in the minds of the Nazi leadership. Worried by the bombing's impact on German morale, Hitler and his advisers hit on a strategy of retaliation. . . As a result, the Germans poured enormous resources into the so-called revenge weapons, the V-1 and V-2. The former did not require a huge investment, but the latter made no sense at all. The V-2 demanded complex technological support; it was inordinately expensive; it used scarce resources; and its production overloaded the instrument and electrical-component industries. . . . After the war the US Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that the industrial effort and resources devoted to these weapons was roughly equivalent to that of the production of 24,000 fighter aircraft. A more recent analysis has calculated that the V-2 programme was roughly equivalent in proportional terms to the cost of the Manhattan project (the atomic bomb) in the United States – all in order to produce a one-way weapon that carried a ton of explosives and needed a target the size of the entire metropolitan area of London.” (pp. 180-182).

AFTERMATH

After the “great hail” of the aerial bombardment that laid waste so many of the cities of Europe during the Second World War, the post-war record adequately testifies to the abandonment of the belief of organising society on Godly principles. The Council of Europe, in a poster from circa 1990, thought it fit to symbolise the construction of the new Europe, by showing the image of the Tower of Babel being rebuilt. Based on the famous painting by the Flemish artist Breughel it ominously showed 11 of the 12 stars of the EU flag inverted. (The twelfth star's position was obscured by the structure of the 'Tower'). Christopher Story in The European Union Collective – Enemy of its Member States, writes: “The upside-down pentagram, often superimposed on a goat's head, is a commonly used symbol in occult and satanic rituals. The distorted circle of upside-down stars in the poster conveyed the subliminal message that the European Union is bound to and by a Force that is defiantly opposed to the Truth.” The wording of the poster was also in open defiance of God's judgement at Babel – it read: “Europe: Many tongues, one voice.”

Whilst doing some research on Duncan Sandys and flying saucers (see my first posting on this blog, Churchill, Sandys and flying saucers, from 31/08/2009) I happened to chance upon an interesting document, dating from just a few years after the close of the Second World War, that indicates that an anti-Christian zeitgeist was noted to be at work – by some of those at the very heart of the project to unite Europe – and was present within the movement from the laying of its initial foundations.

First a brief quote to give the historical setting:

“In summer 1948, Duncan Sandys, British Conservative MP and President of the International Committee for European Unity, gives an initial assessment of the Congress of Europe in The Hague and identifies the areas which are not entirely satisfactory.”

Now to quote the relevant part of Sandys' assessment:

“(c) the failure to recognise that our civilisation has broken down because our standards and values have been too low, and an unwillingness to recognise that we must draw fresh inspiration from those spiritual resources which we, each in our own way, consider adequate and valid.

Two disquieting consequences followed from this.

(i) the belief that all that is needed is to apply the same ideals, seek the same goal, and work the same machinery on a bigger scale, and all will be well.

(ii) an indifference and insensibility to Christian values and convictions. Here I speak with restrained but deep concern. The strain put upon some of us was heavy and at times almost unbearable. The to us almost blasphemous use of the 'Annunciation' and 'the Nativity' in the Report of the Political Commission was almost intolerable. In private I was informed that it was not the report of the Commission but a personal statement of M. Ramadier, but it was never publicly stated to be such. And this did not stand alone. In the Cultural Commission there was a definite resistance to the inclusion of the very word Christian, and the dialectics of the Chairman as to its use added to the tension under which some of us laboured.”

(Source: Archives historiques de l'Union européenne, Florence, Villa Il Poggiolo. Dépôts, DEP. Mouvement européen. ME 1183.)

Sandys was not alone in expressing these sentiments: the same year The Hague also witnessed the final debate on the United Nations Organisation's “Declaration of Human Rights”, at which the representative from the Netherlands gave the following speech – in which he addressed, what he thought was the document's major flaw and deficiency:

“I only want to stress one particular aspect which, to our great regret, has not obtained due recognition in this document. I am referring to the origin of these rights. The fact that man's rights and freedoms are based on his divine origin and immortal destiny. The fact that there is a Supreme Being who is the fount of these rights, increases their value and importance. To ignore this relation would mean the same thing as breaking a plant from its roots, or building a house and forgetting its foundations.” (Our rights as human beings – A discussion guide on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 3rd revision, United Nations Dept. of Public Information, New York., 1953).

A few years previous to his attendance at The Hague, whilst Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Supply, Sandys had been tasked with eliminating the V-1 and V-2 menaces – against which the full onslaught of Bomber Command was swiftly turned. A year after final victory had been achieved - in what was the twentieth century's second great global conflict, the British Daily Sketch ran a leading article in its 5th June 1946 edition, entitled, “To Whom is the Victory?”, and asked, “Are we a nation of infidels or 'an acceptable people in the sight of God'? Have we no gratitude in our hearts? No faith?” In answer to these pivotal questions, the following discourse was provided:

“It would seem as if uncertain answers would have to be given to each of these important questions.

“On Saturday next, June 8, 1946, this nation will celebrate, in the streets of London, its glorious victory over two great enemies. That dual triumph, whatever unbelievers may hold to the contrary, we believe to be due solely to the mercy of Almighty God. We believe that but for His Divine Intervention we should be fed with the bread of tears, biting the dust in humiliation and degradation. Defeat and all the sorrows that wait on the vanquished would have been our lot.

“Pick up your official programme. Search its twenty pages from end to end. You will find a single reference to God on its front page in the motto of the Kings of England – Dieu et mon droit.

“In the days of our trial, in the dark and terrifying years through which we had to pass, we felt it necessary to organize, throughout the land, twenty-six days and two whole weeks of urgent prayer. We filled our churches with congregations kneeling in genuine devotion and faith to the great Mediator and Advocate, imploring His forgiveness for their sins, pleading for help in our tribulation and the danger of others than ourselves. He answered our cry. Now that victory has come, we adorn our houses and streets with decorations, make the night brilliant with illuminations. . . . Could we not have spared two minutes for prayer to God?”

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“And the cities of the nations fell . . . And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven... and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”

(Revelation 16:19, 21).

* * *

Envoi

From Canon Wordworth's, Lectures on the Apocalypse (3rd edition; 1852) :

“What shall we think, when we see that some Nations of Christendom no longer promote the Religion of Christ? CHRIST Himself has declared, All Kings shall bow down before Me, all Nations shall do Me service; but many now venture to proclaim Religious Indifference as one of their principles of national Law. The political Equality of all Religions — this is their Shibboleth. All Creeds are to be treated as equally true — and therefore all Creeds may be regarded as equally false. They denounce all opposition to this impious principle as bigotry and intolerance! They vaunt and glory in this principle as if it were a noble privilege! And so they appear to be ready, and almost eager, to erase the cross of Christ from the forehead of Christendom, and to make it into a Pantheon!

“What, again, are the words of men, blending the holiest names with unholiest acts, making Christianity a watchword of Socialism and Communism, and using the Gospel itself as a lever to shake the World, and even, if it were possible, to subvert the throne of God?

“Are there not here some sounds of a gathering together of armies, some blasts of the trumpets of war, some unfurlings of hostile banners, some noise of chariots and trampling of horses rushing to the battle?

“In a word, is not the World at this hour on the eve of an Armageddon?

“Observe now what follows.

“The plague of the Frogs was the last effort of the magicians of Egypt. The going forth of the unclean spirits, like frogs, from the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, to gather their forces together against Christ, will, it is probable, be the final struggle of their united powers. Their confederacy will be routed in the mystical conflict of Armageddon.

“Then, says St. John, The Beast will be taken, and his False Prophet, that wrought miracles before him; . . . and these both will be cast alive into the lake of fire. But then the Dragon, or Satan, will remain; and he will no longer use any specious arts [the 1st edition of 1849 reads “any specious names”]; he will return to the form he wore in the first Seal, and will wage an open war with Heaven.

“His doom is also revealed. The Devil will be cast into the lake of fire, where the Beast and False Prophet are. Christ's victory will then be complete. The Kingdom of this World will become the KINGDOM of the LORD and of HIS CHRIST.” (pp. 413-414).

* * *

Amen