...but they may save thousands of precious lives from the horrible fate they depict — including yours! Read WHY we are forced to publish them — and of the happy World Tomorrow just beyond! Here is the final article on the BOOK OF REVELATION. READ! THINK! HEED!!
These pictures are revolting — horrifying! — yes, I know! I know that some don't like to look at them. But LISTEN! — read carefully every word! Better a million times over see pictures, and escape the reality. Whether you like it or not, YOU are going to be forced to witness in real life precisely such terrifying scenes, with yourself a screaming, agonizing participant, unless you are warned in such a manner that you WAKE UP to the stern reality of what's coming, and diligently seek the divine PROTECTION God offers! This thing is real! It's coming, soon, upon a heedless world! There's a REASON for these frightening pictures. Let me tell you why we're forced to publish them.
A Joyful Message — good news!
First of all, God has called me to proclaim to the world a joyful Message — the GOOD NEWS of the WORLD TOMORROW! This whole earth at last shall lie at peace — "for ye shall go out with JOY, and be led forth with PEACE: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" — (Isa. 55:12). But that happy world cannot come until men learn THE WAY to peace and happiness — until man's rebellion against GOD'S WAY has been put down. God Almighty decreed, by His Sovereign rule, that for 6,000 years mankind must choose right or wrong, life or death — to obey GOD and enjoy His blessings, or to rebel and reap suffering. And for 6,000 years a loving, patient CREATOR-RULER has made known, and available, THE WAY to peace and joy. God sent His prophets — HIS DIVINE SON — His Apostles — His true ministers, pleading with a world forced to choose — warning this world of the inevitable result of its folly of rebellion. But this world stoned the prophets, crucified God's Son, rejected God's Message, and substituted a counterfeit gospel that has deceived the world. For 6,000 years mankind has refused to heed God's pleading in love, through preaching. Today man is about to DESTROY human life from off this planet. Unless the Creator RULER of the universe intervenes, no flesh would be saved alive! The time has come when: "the Eternal hath a controversy with the nations; He will PLEAD with all flesh" (Jer. 25:31) — yes, God will now soon begin to plead in the only language rebellious mankind will understand or heed — PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT — the terrifying PLAGUES of "the DAY OF THE ETERNAL." You are living in FRIGHTFUL times! — and you probably don't even realize it! Weapons now are available that will destroy whole continents overnight, without warning — unless God prevents! But you have grown used to upset, chaotic world conditions. You've become calloused to it — indifferent — totally heedless. Most people today are like a person in a deep sleep, dreaming a pleasant dream. When one tries to arouse him to tell him his house is on fire and he's about to be burned up, he drowsily protests: "Don't! Don't wake me up! GO way — let me sleep!" Well, listen! Your house is on fire! This whole world is about to blow itself to oblivion — and you with it! Yet most of you are living along from day to day in utmost complacency, blinded to the immediate DANGER — sound asleep to the REALITY of what's coming!
Now — Sterner Measures
God has set me to proclaim, not only the good news of HIS Kingdom — the happy World Tomorrow — but also to warn the world of what's coming. God says plainly: "When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man... and set him for their watchman: if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and WARN the people; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning;... his blood shall be upon his own head... But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned;" (the people's) "blood will I require at the watchman's hand." (Ezek. 33:2-6.) God Almighty has plainly revealed to me, by world conditions and by PROPHECY, what is coming. I see the sword coming — to destroy our land and our people. I see the PLAGUES of God coming, to plead with the wicked. More than 15,000 Co-Workers have set me for their watchman. I have to warn the people — or have their blood required at my hand! God Almighty commands me, "CRY ALOUD, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions." (Isa. 58:1.) God doesn't say "whisper." He does not say, "preach soft and smooth things soothingly." He tells me to lift up my voice — to CRY ALOUD! — to THUNDER forth His warning! The time for soft, dainty, purring, soothing preaching is past! For twenty-one years I have been shouting forth the warning over the powerful voice of radio. I have been writing it — in words — in The PLAIN TRUTH and other literature. But the world snores on! Mere words — whether shouted and thundered in power by my voice, or published in the most forceful, plain and clear language I could write in print, have not made people REALIZE what God reveals for the future. And so now, even as God Himself is about to employ sterner measures — to speak to this world in a language it will understand at last — even so, I am forced to find a medium of expression that will, if possible, OPEN THE EYES of people — cause them to REALLY SEE what is about to ensnare them like rats in a trap! For, said Jesus, "as as we shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." (Luke 21:35.)
WHY These Pictures
This is a frightening matter! Twenty-one years' experience has forced me to realize that words alone — whether spoken or written — do not create in people's minds the REAL PICTURE of what's coming. People haven't really seen it — so they don't really believe it. Words alone have failed to picture in people's minds the stark REALISM God so vividly describes in prophecy. A noted journalist once said, "One picture is worth more than ten thousand words." I know of only one artist on earth whose God-given talents and experience enable him to portray, in living REALISM, such gruesome, terrifying scenes as PROPHECY warns this world is soon to witness in agonizing fact. When America's large-circulation national magazines wish to portray the most gruesome pictures, they call on Basil Wolverton to produce them. He has contributed and sold his work to more than fifty national magazines. Life Magazine has devoted, in different issues, whole sections to his pictures. Pageant has, on many occasions, published several — page sections of his work. Time has written him up and reproduced his work. Basil Wolverton is one of many hundreds converted as a result of The WORLD TOMORROW broadcast. So, in this life-and-death emergency, I asked him to collaborate with me in proclaiming God's warning in such a manner that people will really SEE what is now coming on the world. Mr. Wolverton has given understanding of these sure prophecies. He has responded to my request with his whole heart. God has given him great skill in portraying God's prophecies in almost living REALISM — in all their literal horror. Never before has Basil Wolverton produced MASTERPIECES such as he has created for The PLAIN TRUTH. He has devoted far more time and zealous effort, brought out more vivid detail, in these pictures than any produced for the great popular magazines of this world. And in sending the first original sketches to us, his attached note said: "After contributing and selling to more than fifty different national magazines in past years, I'm proud to have something published in The PLAIN TRUTH. Looks as though I had all that practice and experience just for this." Yes, God prepares His servants, in advance, for the work to which He calls them! So that is how these outstanding pictures came about. They have been appealing, now, for several months in The PLAIN TRUTH. They picture the REALISM of what's coming, as mere words could never do. They have made many tens of thousands really SEE what's coming on the world. It isn't pretty. It isn't pleasant. But it's REAL — it's COMING upon an unsuspecting, heedless world. God commands us "CRY ALOUD! — SPARE NOT!" Some people wish we would spare them from SEEING, in these pictures, what is surely coming! But God commands, "SPARE NOT! CRY ALOUD!" Yes, aloud — not a soft whisper.
THIS FIRE PLAGUE is soon coming on a world that defies God. Yet even in this frightful PUNISHMENT, God is merely PLEADING with people to forsake their own evil ways that have inflicted suffering on themselves. God will not force any man's will. YOU must make your own decision. Here you see the fourth of the seven last plagues. Heat will increase till the very sky will seem to burst into flame. Read it, in Rev. 16:8-9. The sun will actually SCORCH men with fire. Could anything be more painful — more indescribably horrifying? Those flames will fall to the earth in catastrophic showers of fire. Screaming, terrified millions will frantically seek to escape being burned alive. Yet, if you won't really repent and turn to God now — or, if after the devastation, slavery and suffering of the Great Tribulation you will not even then forsake YOUR WAYS, and surrender to a loving God when you behold His awe-inspiring and terrifying SIGNS in the sun, moon, stars, and when you are shaken by earthquakes — then, when THIS plague actually scorches you with fire, you will only CURSE the very name of your Creator and Saviour — though He will be PLEADING with you to turn to the RIGHT, and HAPPY ways even then. This startling picture is pleading with you, now, in the strongest language God allows at this time. God grant you may realize this is really coming! — so you may be accounted worthy to ESCAPE it!
I do not talk softly, soothingly, on the air. I CRY ALOUD! I do not spare you — I tell you the TRUTH with all the power God gives me! These pictures are not pleasing, soothing. They do not whisper weakly — they do not cover up what God reveals — they CRY ALOUD — they boldly THUNDER at you the TRUTH as God requires that His servants shout it to the whole world. They are POWERFUL pictures! They proclaim the Gospel and God's warning in tremendous POWER! They do not lull you to sleep — they rudely JOLT you with the catastrophic REALITY of what's coming! If you don't heed, your blood is on your own head! You've been warned! We have acquitted ourselves before God. We seek not to please people. We seek only to obey GOD, and to help and to SAVE people — because we love them!
Slumbering Los Angeles
Last night I saw an eye-opening television program. A Los Angeles newspaper man first interviewed an official in the civil defense program. This official felt his staff had made great efforts to arouse the 4 million people in this district to the imminent DANGER of an atomic or hydrogen-bomb attack on Los Angeles, and to inform them of the exact procedure to follow in event of such an attack. The newspaper commentator showed a map of the Los Angeles area, and surrounding suburbs. He drew a circle around "Ground Zero" — the area in which everything and everybody would be vaporized or totally destroyed. Then he showed films of interviews with several citizens selected at random — mothers with children, cab drivers, working men, business men. On unexpected interview, these people bad given no thought to the danger, knew NOTHING of protective procedures to follow if a real air-raid alarm sounded — had not discussed it, or made any preparation for their escape! The general thought seemed to be: "Oh, I don't believe this is REAL. I don't think it will happen HERE."
Panic in London
WHAT'S WRONG? Simply that the Civil Defense authorities have not succeeded in picturing, in the minds of the people, so that they really SEE it, the REALITY of an atom bomb or hydrogen bomb attack. They have failed to make it VIVID enough that people BELIEVE that there is imminent DANGER! so the people slumber on! But here's a recent foretaste. WHEN these things DO HAPPEN HERE, people will be thrown into terrified panic — TOO LATE to escape! On January 16, 1955, a freakish occurrence threw one of the world's two largest cities into near mass panic. On that early Sunday afternoon, women screamed in the streets of London. Thousands were mystified and frightened — people fell to their knees on the sidewalks and prayed in frantic terror. Suddenly the whole city became dark in inky blackness — near midday! In the suburb of Croydon a man groping his way outside Croydon Town Hall shouted "The END OF THE WORLD has come!" In Piccadilly Circus a newspaper seller said, "It suddenly became pitch dark, and then the place went silent. It was lonely, frightening, awful! A man pierced the silence screaming he'd gone blind. Then all of a sudden it became clear and light again." An Air Ministry Meteorological Office spokesman said, "There has been nothing in my experience to equal it." It was caused, he said,' by an accumulation of London smoke under an extremely thick layer of cloud. It lasted only ten minutes, and disappeared with the same swift suddenness with which it came. This was only a brief, freakish experience — merely a SCARE. It was as NOTHING compared to what is SOON TO COME. It actually harmed no one. But it caused near panic. It threw sudden fright and terror into the minds of millions. Perhaps it was a mild, brief, forerunning WARNING Of the REAL TERROR to come, sent by God on Ephraim's capital! And what will you do, when the real thing bursts forth in all its fury? The answer is plain. UNLESS you will take warning and find God's offered PROTECTION, now, before it is too late, you will scream in terror — you will then shout frantic PRAYERS — but all TOO LATE! You'll be caught like a rat in a trap. REMEMBER — Jesus said, "as a snare shall it come on all!" When a rat or a gopher is caught in a snare, the trap is already sprung. There is no escape. It's then TOO LATE! Jesus warned "WATCH ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to ESCAPE all these things that shall come to pass, and to STAND before the Son of man" — at His Second Coming! (Luke 21:36.) That warning is also a divine promise of supernatural PROTECTION — if you seek it before the trap is sprung!
You CAN Escape!
In His Message to His true Church of this time, which is yielding itself to be His instrument for shouting this very warning, and carrying Christ's GOSPEL to the world, Jesus said: "Because thou hast kept the WORD of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of trial (Great Tribulation — DAY of the Lord), which shall come upon all the world." (Rev. 3:10.) But those that are lukewarm, careless, indifferent, Christ says He will spew out of His mouth. (Rev. 3: 16.) Those spiritually alert, close to God, who are watching and praying always — His true Church — pictured in Revelation 12, shall be taken on a FLIGHT to a place of divine protection. "And to the woman (true Church) were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time (3 1/2 years), from the face of the serpent." (Rev. 12:14.) There are many other prophecies, and promises, of divine PROTECTION for those who HEED this warning now, before it's too late. LISTEN! God has revealed to me what is coming. He has made me really SEE, in all its HORROR, the frightful ANGUISH of the catastrophic events coming now upon the whole world. God has made it REAL to me. And then I see YOU people — and all the world — heedless, not realizing that this is surely COMING — and about to find yourselves exactly as Basil Wolverton has pictured YOU in these gruesome horror — pictures, unless you WAKE UP to the REALITY of this thing, and seek God's protection NOW, while you may. Then I look over the world, and I fail to find a single other minister of God THUNDERING forth the warning! "WHY?" I ask myself — "Oh, WHY?" This is stark, terrifying REALITY! It's coming! It's later than you think! And soon it will be TOO LATE! I feel exactly as the prophet Jeremiah felt, when God revealed to him the destruction soon coming on the land of Judea, because of the sins of the Jews of his day. The Chaldean armies of King Nebuchadnezzar were about to march on Jerusalem. Jeremiah SAW it — realistically. But the people were SOUND ASLEEP. It made Jeremiah sick at his stomach. "My bowels, my bowels!" Jeremiah cried, clasping his hands tightly around his abdomen. "I am pained at my very heart! My heart is beating wildly. I cannot keep silent!" (Jer. 4:19.) Yes, I know how Jeremiah felt! DO YOU THINK I CAN KEEP SILENT, TODAY? God has revealed to me your danger! I can also see your lethargy. And I look over this doomed world, and I can find no other man SHOUTING THIS WARNING OF GOD! God has commanded me, "CRY ALOUD!" He has set me as His watchman. More than 15,000 Co-Workers have set me as their watchman — their spokesman in thundering forth this warning worldwide! DO YOU THINK I CAN KEEP STILL For over 21 years I have shouted myself hoarse trying to warn you people. But I have seen that words alone do not make you SEE it — have not AROUSED you from deep slumber! THAT'S why I called in nationally famous artist Basil Wolverton! That's why I asked him to collaborate with me in making this SO PLAIN you must SEE what's coming on the world! Basil Wolverton is my own '*son in the Lord." He is now PREACHING THE GOSPEL with his skilled artistry — with pictures that are worth more than ten thousand words! Some few have written me gripes and criticisms. Some few have not wanted to SEE such realistic pictures of WHAT'S COMING IN REAL LIFE! Some few have threatened to stop reading The PLAIN TRUTH, unless I stop publishing such realistic pictures! Some don't want their children to see such pictures! Yes, I KNOW these pictures are terrifying — revolting! THAT'S WHY WE ARE PUBLISHING THEM! Better show your children what's coming — better WAKE THEM up — and teach them how to SEEK GOD and His divine protection. Better explain to them that these horrible conditions NEED NOT ever strike them — that they MAY be taken on a flight to a place of SAFETY, where they need never SEE such terrifying scenes in real life. Finally, let's be realistic! I know that regardless of HOW PLAIN I can make it, most people will never take the warning seriously. Heartbreaking as the realization is, it just simply isn't in my power to save ALL of you. That knowledge makes me heartsick! But I know also that, if by God's grace, thru HIS power, I can make this REAL enough, I can be the means of saving some of you. And your lives are VERY PRECIOUS! Every single one that is saved is worth all the effort — all the criticism from those who want soft and smooth things and deceits — all the persecution. YOUR life is very precious. It's a potential CHILD OF GOD! I hope to see you, and know you, and LOVE you, in the KINGDOM OF GOD! Yes, YOUR life is very precious to ME! I'm going to try to WAKE YOU UP to reality, if I can. Criticize and condemn me, if you will! God helping me, I can do no other than to MAKE THIS WARNING PLAIN! It's motivated by a spirit of LOVE! God help YOU to wake up and HEED!
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