H.G. WELLS ON THE LAST DAYS

No one could accuse this famous novelist of being an evangelical Christian. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: “None of his contemporaries did more to encourage revolt against Christian tenets and accepted codes of behaviour, especially as regards sex, in which, both in his books and in his personal life, he was a persistent advocate of an almost complete freedom.”

However, as a very well-read and intelligent person of his time, he was certainly aware of the teachings and stories in the Bible. And some of them even pop up in his fictional writings in a rather skewed form. I recently re-read all his short stories and noted that three of them actually deal quite directly to the area of New Testament eschatology – the study of future events in the Last Days. Here is a quick summary of those interesting stories with comments.

“A Vision of Judgment” (1899)

This fanciful and lighthearted story pictures a man wakened by the loud sound of a trumpet and yanked out of his grave to face his Maker. Wells quite obviously uses biblical language at this point such as “a multitude no man could number, nations, tongues, kingdoms, peoples” and “seated on a throne of dazzling white cloud, the Lord God and all the host of angels.”

Among those who are called forth for judgment is King Ahab, who proudly recites all the ways in which he openly defied God and His prophets. But when the Recording Angel begins to reveal to all those watching some of the embarrassing, silly little sins of the king, he squirms and shrinks in size as he repents and pleads for mercy.

Then as an example of the opposite extreme, a martyred prophet steps forth and begins bragging about all the pain and torture he had undergone in his lifetime, all for the sake of God. But even he is dismissed as “a perfect nuisance” only to join his fellow sinner Ahab hiding in God's sleeve.

And after everyone has had their turn at being reduced down to size, God shakes them all out of his sleeve onto a new planet with the parting words, “Now that you understand me and each other a little better, try again.”

It is certainly a rather watered-down version of the Last Judgment that emphasizes God's mercy over His wrath, but the story does a good job of showing that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And perhaps it goes a small way toward explaining the meaning behind Paul's words concerning those who will be saved but only as through fire (I Corinthians 3:15). It also serves as a warning to all those who desire the day of the LORD. As the prophet puts it, “Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness and not light.” (Amos 5:18) 

“A Dream of Armageddon” (1901)

By contrast, this tale is much more grim in that it describes a time in the distant future in which a benevolent world leader decides to escape his demanding position in order to pursue a love interest on the Island of Capri. He does this even though he is well aware that his successor is rather ambitious for power and world dominance. And true to form, his successor foments a world war in which even Capri cannot escape.

The moral is fairly obvious, and the only similarity to biblical eschatology comes in with the title of the story. But what I find interesting is that Wells has appropriated the popular notion of the word 'Armageddon' rather than its true biblical meaning. For if one reads the only specific reference to this event in the New Testament (Revelation 16:16), it becomes clear that Armageddon is not the site of the Last Battle, but only the staging ground for God's enemies.

As to the actual battle, that appears to be described in Revelation 20:7-9 as taking place around Jerusalem (“the beloved city”). And one cannot even describe it as a battle at all since after the enemy has surrounded the city, fire comes from heaven and consumes them all before any sort of armed conflict can take place.

So this is one place where the atheist Wells and numerous modern prophecy experts find themselves in agreement, against the biblical testimony. They all speak in terms of various political forces aligning themselves against one another in the equivalent of a major world war instead the more accurate portrayal of the combined strength of Satan-led forces being wiped out in an instant by the supreme power of God's wrath.

“The Story of the Last Trump” (1915)

Wells begins this tale in a whimsical manner with a small child playing with the last trump up in heaven's attic. He is not able to blow on it and so it is discarded, only to fall to earth slightly dented. It eventually finds its way into an old used-goods shop where some men take it on on trial to see if it can be restored to a serviceable condition. But even a full-grown man does not have enough wind power to get it to utter a sound until one them gets the bright idea of hooking it up to a “particularly powerful foot blow-pipe.”

He manages to get a short burst of sound out of the trumpet, at which time there is a small explosion and the trumpet vanishes into thin air, snatched away by a giant hand. In that same instant many people in various locations around the world are treated to wondrous visions and get the fleeing impression that the Last Judgment time has arrived. And various earthquakes and storms are reported as happening simultaneously.

The story now moves on to concentrate on a pastor of a large and fashionable congregation. “Every Sunday, and at convenient intervals during the week, he fought against Modern Materialism, Doubt, Levity, Selfish Individualism, Further Relaxation of the Divorce Laws, all the Evils of our Time – and anything else that was unpopular...He had the face of a saint, but he had rendered this generally acceptable by growing side whiskers.”

Into this comfortable cleric's life there suddenly came in a flash a vision of the Divine. “While he had just been writing and arguing about God, there was God!” He suddenly realized that at each of his sermons which were primarily calculated to impress the adoring wealthy and influential members of the congregation, there was another One in the audience listening in, and terror seized him.

At this point, the Anglican priest goes about like a madman warning everyone he meets that “The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand!” But even his Bishop tells him to calm down and not try to confuse spiritual truth with matters of fact.

The poor priest is similarly treated wherever he goes, and as Wells concludes his story – “If a thing is sufficiently strange and great no one will perceive it. Men will go on in their own ways though one rose from the dead to tell them that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand [see Luke 16:31]...Men will go on in their ways as rabbits will go on feeding in their hutches within a hundred yards of a battery of artillery. For rabbits are rabbits, and made to eat and breed, and men are human beings and creatures of habit and custom and prejudice, and what has made them, what will judge them, what will destroy them...will never draw them away from eating their lettuce and sniffing after their does.”

This is the most powerful of the three stories and one designed to shake up each of us believers to the point where we must examine our own hearts closely. Yes, we may say we believe, but when it comes down to it I am afraid that many of us are like the Bishop who never confused doctrinal truths with matters of fact.