Teen-agers, How Will It Really Be...IN THE YEAR 2525?
Ronald D Kelly & John W Robinson
"In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive," goes a recently popular song. Today, the future looks bleak to teen-agers and young people. Will man be alive — can woman survive? What's ahead? You need to know.
THE BOMB. The Vietnam War. The draft. Overpopulation. Starvation. Pollution. Human inequalities. Strife. Suffering. It's a grizzly world we live in! The world has never looked bleaker to our youth. Today we live in the shadow of a dozen monumental problems which — if unchecked — will result in cosmocide, world suicide. As the 1970's begin, the people of America are looking forward to the celebration of 200 years as a nation. The Year 1976 marks our 200th birthday. Young people are beginning to ask the older generation, "Do you really think we'll make it??" If we don't make 1976, obviously, we won't make 2525! It's really not so shocking, then, that teen-agers seek escape mechanisms. Pot, LSD, STP, are turned to in order to avoid the stark realities of our time. Youth — everyone — strives for the euphoric peace of mind and mental tranquility. Fear of the unknown, the uncertainty of the future, is one of the biggest threats to the mind. However, knowledge of the events of the next few years, decades and centuries is available, if you know where to look!
"What's the Use?"
It doesn't take a genius to determine that today's young people have grounds for their worries and frustrations about the future. It's like one young person told us, "Sure, there is a bomb. Not that we worry about it. It is the subconscious effect it has — like knowing the world is flat and if you go too close to the edge you'll just drop off into nothingness. It puts a damper on enthusiasm for the future — squelches drive and ambition. Causes frustration." He went on to say, "It is a world hopelessly botched beyond human repair with innumerable problems too hairy to even face — so no one does. "The result is frustration. The cause may not be recognized, but the effect is evident — myriad forms of escapism. "Why try? Why work hard? Why exert yourself? Why have principles? No one else does! What's the use?" Is it any wonder young people today tell the Establishment, "You made the world this way; you get us out of it. Don't tell us the future of the world lies in its youth. We didn't create these problems, and we are not going to solve them." But who IS going to solve the problems of the world? It doesn't take a "brain" to figure out that unless someone comes up with some answers pretty quick, the world is doomed to destruction! Don't just believe us; pick up any newspaper, magazine, or writing of an individual who knows what is going on in the world today — see what they say. So what do we do? Where do we go from here? Should we all go take a hot bath and slash our wrists? Take up placards? March? Demonstrate and try to make the world a better place? Perhaps we should all rush out and live in caves or establish hippie communes? But, then, that wouldn't solve any problems, would it?
How About the Truth?
It is high time someone told you teen-agers the plain, unadulterated TRUTH. To begin, the world is NOT COMING TO AN END! In fact, it's just beginning to get started! But before utopia can be established, some pretty cataclysmic events must first take place. God has been allowing man to prove for nearly six thousand years that every form of government would eventually lead into a box canyon. Now, in the early months of 1970, almost to the end of that six-thousand-year period, the high walls of the box canyon are about to collapse! Looming on the horizon is a time when the modern nations of the so-called "lost ten tribes of Israel" will go into national captivity. Millions will be killed and other millions taken to slave labor camps. National extinction will result unless God intervenes. It is not the purpose of this article to discuss these prophecies in detail. Articles on prophecy appear in nearly every issue of TOMORROW'S WORLD. For the overall picture, though, we do encourage you to read our free book The United States And Britain In Prophecy and the article, There Is a Way of Escape." Suffice it to say for the present, you live in a world where wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes and disease are a stark REALITY. You ARE living in "the time of the end." Not the end of the world — the earth — but the end of man's society, the end of man's government, man's way. But immediately after these prophesied traumas, will come the World Tomorrow — and that will take place before most of you teen-agers BECOME the Establishment.
How YOU Fit Into Prophecy
When Christ told His disciples of the days in which we live — the days of the bomb, wars, famine — He said, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those d a y should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but FOR THE ELECT'S SAKE THOSE DAYS SHALL BE SHORTENED" (Matthew 24:21-22). Notice it! For the elect's sake — perilous times of world trouble will be shortened ! The world's only hope is that the words of Jesus Christ are true and will shortly come to pass. A world which does not believe in a God — or thinks He is dead — will soon see Jesus Christ return to this earth to bring it peace and happiness. God will save the world from itself. Without a God, by the year 2525 this Good Earth would only be a charred death-globe, the mere remains of a once-proud, glittering blue jewel in space,
Your Part
You young people have a part in prophecy when you understand God's plan. One of the last of the Old Testament prophets looked forward into our day and prophesied, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: AND HE SHALL TURN THE HEART OF THE FATHERS TO THE CHILDREN, AND THE HEART OF THE CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse "[Hebrew actually means UTTER DESTRUCTION]" (Malachi 4:5-6). Malachi prophesied this earth would be utterly obliterated were it not for a Work of God reestablishing the vita1 principles of family unity. You teenagers have a part in fulfilling that prophecy. And those of us who are members of the "older generation" need to understand the problems of our young people — of our own children. We need to establish the type of family unit which will cause the Almighty God to intervene and save us from annihilation.
"Would You Believe, Just Ten?"
Remember the Old Testament example of Lot? Three messengers of God had come to visit Lot's uncle, Abraham. One told of God's intent to destroy the degenerate cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. Cities bogged down in the cesspool of violent sex, decadence, murder and bestiality. Abraham pleaded with God to intervene for the sake of the righteous people in the city. God said He would spare the city if there were fifty righteous people. Abraham then asked for forty-five, for forty, for thirty, then twenty. God said He would intervene for the sake of twenty righteous men. Abraham then asked for ten. God said even for ten He WOULD SPARE the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But there WERE NOT ten! Only Lot had remained faithful to God's Word and had not sunk into the quagmire of debauchery around him. God told Lot to take his family and flee — Sodom and Gomorrah had to be destroyed. Even though today's whole world is a Sodom and Gomorrah society, God said the hearts of the fathers would be turned to the children in our day — there would be the tens and twenties of thousands living righteously in a world filling to the brim with "the new morality" and following the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah. And God promised He will intervene for the sake of "the elect."
Protection Promised
In the Bible, God promises to take His Church to a place of safety. The Church (pictured as a "woman" in the Bible) will be protected for three and a half years from the tribulation which is ahead. Read Revelation 12 for yourself. You've never been told this truth, so it is little wonder today's young people feel so hopelessly frustrated. They have not been told there IS a prophesied time of trouble coming. Yet, they can see with their own eyes a looming, impending disaster developing. But most important of all, our young people have never been told there IS a way of escape! If you know what is coming — and if you know what to do about it — you can walk down the halls of your school knowing you have a purpose. You'll have a reason not to sink to the bottom of the pit by compromising with God's moral laws. You will have a reason not to chance a "bad trip" or sample a little pot or try some speed for thrills. Jesus Christ promises, "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation [tribulation], which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth" (Revelation 3:10). Is God's protection worth it? Wouldn't you girls rather be called "granny" now because your skirts are a little longer than your mini-skirted friends? Wouldn't you fellows rather be taunted a little bit now because your hair is shorter than your contemporaries' or because you don't wear flowered, bell-bottomed trousers? Wouldn't you rather suffer some temporary, minor social setback now than suffer the wrath of God later? Or is it easier to drift along NOW and share the despair and discouragement of today's "dropped-out generation"? We hope you young readers of TOMORROW'S WORLD are beginning to catch the vision. We hope you can begin to see a purpose in turning your hearts back to your parents and becoming a part of that protected group of people God will spare from the agony ahead. We hope you will want to close the generation gap — a worthwhile challenge — rather than rebel with a generation of completely confused critics who offer no solution.
But What's After That?
The reason to obey your parents is not just to save your own skin from all-out nuclear war. Protection is only a part of the fringe benefits of obedience to God and your parents. Believe it or not, the REAL CHALLENGE comes after those three and a half years of protection. The REAL OPPORTUNITIES are in the WONDERFUL WORLD TOMORROW — after the tribulation. If you are now a teenager, you very likely will continue to live as a physical human being into that time when God's government will be established on the earth. As the time of tribulation draws to a close, God promises He is going to once again lead the children of Israel back to Palestine. This event, this Exodus, is prophesied to happen in your lifetime. It will be one of the greatest events in all human history. So much so, that the original Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt to Palestine will be all but forgotten (Jeremiah 23:5-8). Not just four or five million people will be involved as in the days of Moses. But forty or fifty or sixty million people will be miraculously led to the land of Palestine. You teen-agers, young people, can be among the first generation to settle Palestine. Jerusalem will be the capital city of the world. And, beginning with Palestine, God will rejuvenate the entire earth and make it bloom like a rose (Isaiah 35:1). God will again perform great miracles, including drying up riverbeds, leveling mountain ranges and subduing entire hostile nations, so He can lead His people from foreign lands back to Palestine.
What It Will Be Like
Your Bible is literally filled with scriptures and prophecies about your generation. You teen-agers today are privileged to live in TWO WORLDS. It's ironic that discouragement should be so rampant. But, then, God did say, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). Since "religion" has not given the answer, we have the resultant "dropped-out generation." Those of you who can really understand God's Word now — who can catch the vision — will not only live as the last generation in man's first six thousand years of existence — you will live as the first generation in the World Tomorrow. You will be the Establishment. What, then, do young people really want? Why, then, such hopelessness today? The basic reason is no one can see a purpose for working and producing, only to have it obliterated. Young people today don't see a reason to establish a happy home and marriage, to produce children in such times of chaos in the world. No one wants his firstborn son to be cannon fodder before he's twenty. But conditions in the World Tomorrow are going to be totally different! God promises, "I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the LORD of hosts the holy mountain. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof" (Zechariah 8:3-5). That couldn't be a prophecy of our time, could it? People are not growing old and leaning on their staffs. Boys and girls aren't playing in the bustling streets of today's cities. Instead, grade school children are going steady, junior high students are experimenting with sex and drugs, and their older high school friends are well along the. road toward wrecked lives. Teen-age gangs beat up old men and rob old women. Hardly a pretty picture — and it won't he changed until Christ intervenes. When He does, you will be able to look forward to the establishment of your own home in the land of Palestine and your own children growing up without the fear of the bomb, war and human inequality. Your children will live in this perfect society in the not-too-distant future. You will grow old in the World Tomorrow and look back upon a life of tremendous productivity forty or fifty or sixty years from now. [Ed. Note: Be sure to read our free full-color booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow — What It Will Be Like. It gives a further preview into what could be — your breathtaking future].
Can You See Yourself?
What about it, young people? Which kind of future do YOU want? We mean you, you who are sixteen or seventeen or nineteen or twenty-one. Do you look forward to a "hot date" with the head cheerleader, rodding around with the gang this weekend — OBLIVIOUS OF THE FUTURE? Do you ever consider the years ahead? How about marriage? How about children? Have world problems created a desire to "get yours now" and to squelch thoughts of the future? If this has been your case, hopefully this article will cause some of you to look forward to the prosperous World Tomorrow and the challenge of the future through different eyes.
The Pioneering Spirit
Every one of you, at one time or another, has dreamed about "the good old days." The days when Columbus sailed, when Drake pirated, when Lewis and Clark explored, when Crockett and Boone pushed west — when lands were to be settled, and when there was pure air to breathe and a bright future to look to. In some of the days gone by, men had visions, dreams. It is hard to find anyone dreaming of the future today. Science has tried to capture your fancy by glamorous pronouncements for the future brought about through technological advancements. But it is a little hard to dedicate your life to an uncertain future where children are obtained from "the bottom of a long, black tube," or where your arms and legs wither away from disuse. The real challenge is right here on earth. Learning how to live, how to be happy and truly "making the world a better place." When Jesus Christ is finished shaking this earth to its senses, not much is going to remain but a few million true pioneers. The opportunities are limitless. Imagine the thrill of helping to rebuild all this world's cities — eliminating all the mistakes made before, figuring how to prevent ghettos, eliminating rat problems, providing safe play areas for healthy, vibrant children. Imagine helping solve the world's food shortage problem by making lands more productive. Imagine having your own area, complete with freshly painted home, lovely wife and friendly children, your own vine and fig tree, and horse and cow or goat (Micah 4:4), Imagine no muggings, no rapes, no child molestations. And then imagine what it will be like for the second, third and fourth generations into the millennium. Your grandchildren, your great grandchildren and your great-great grandchildren. God is going to guide the repopulation of the entire earth. Think what it will be like to come back to America, Western Europe, Central and South America or Australia or South Africa after several decades of rain in due season, balanced mima1 and insect populations with absolutely no pollutants. Talk about utopia — your grandchildren wil1 experience pioneering that Columbus, Lewis and Clark, Boone and Crockett never saw. And, do you know something, fellows and girls? These prophecies are just as sure as the rising of tomorrow's sun. In fact, they are just as sure as our destruction without God's intervention! You can count on God. And you can count on having a part in the fantastic new world in the new age, if you will only listen — and heed! God is offering you an opportunity to be on the ground floor of the greatest events of all time. It may mean changing a few habits, cultivating new and different friends, giving up some of the "thrills" others are experiencing for the moment. It will mean learning to "walk with God" — being obedient to the law. Coming issues of this magazine will explain in more detail exactly how you learn to "walk with God" — what His laws are and how they apply to YOU! Obeying God will be an entirely new concept to most of you. It will take courage. But in the end yon will be the victor! Time is rapidly becoming a factor. Christ is returning in your lifetime. We are not setting dates — but we are quite certain He will return before you become the Establishment. And before He comes to restore order, some pretty terrifying events will take place. Where will YOU be? Will you be ready to emerge as a pioneer in the World Tomorrow? Will your descendants be living abundantly in a PERFECT WORLD in the year 2525? Or will you have been just another number, another statistic who "got his while the getting was good"? Our society — your society — is crumbling and dying. You are learning the truth. You have a choice. What will YOU do?