Imagine what a different world it would be if no one stole anything. How drastically that would affect every aspect of your life!
Think of all that exists because of thievery around us. Think of the locks on your house, your car, your locker at school. Think of the security system you may have in your home or the anti-theft devices in your or your parents’ car. All these would be totally unnecessary!
Imagine going to a store in the mall and not being under the eye of a security camera, not walking out past a sensor that detects shoplifters, because there would be no more shoplifting!
Imagine walking down a crowded street or an airport terminal, not worried about someone ripping your purse off your arm or picking your pocket.
Try this one: Imagine if no one murdered. There would be so many ways in which this world would change—politically, economically. No more need for any country to have a military or weapons of any kind.
Bringing this into your world, how many feel fear every day when entering public schools? Imagine no more drills as to what to do when a gunman enters the school. No more bomb threats. No fear of others harming you, your family or your friends. No more domestic violence. No more abortions. No fear that anyone close to you would take his or her own life—no more suicide!
This would even affect industry. There would be no life- or environment-endangering pollution. No more smoking; no ashtrays; no cigarettes; no more commercials either for or against tobacco. No more harmful food products. This would cause a huge chain reaction that would lead to greater physical well-being for every human alive.
All of these examples would eradicate the need for costly federal and state-run prisons. What a richer world it would be from that fact alone! No jails. No police, even, except for peaceful direction and supervision of communities.
Another one: What if everyone told the truth? How would your life be different? Your high school? Your home? No more false rumors or unfounded accusations about you or any of your friends. No more deceptive advertisements on television. This policy of honesty would undoubtedly lead to many other law-abiding actions.
There are countless other examples of how the world would change if only a few of these laws were kept in full. Surely you could think of more results of these chain reactions.
How difficult it is to think this way! The world would be so totally different, you would have to dismiss it as mere fantasy. After all, how could any of this ever happen?
But what if we told that all of this will happen—and more! The world described above is a picture—inadequate in comparison to the reality—of a peaceful, joyful, utopian World Tomorrow, coming upon the Earth soon. And what made it so joyful were just three laws: those forbidding lying, stealing and killing. These are three of God’s Ten Commandments.
In this World Tomorrow, not only will these three commandments be enforced and kept, but the remaining seven will be kept as well. Try to imagine that!
In addition to no one lying, cheating, stealing, killing and polluting—enforcing the Fifth Commandment would mean no children dishonoring their parents, no juvenile crime, no upside-down families, no gangs.
The keeping of the Seventh Commandment—which forbids fornication and adultery—though seemingly unfashionable and restrictive to most in our modern world, would have a chain reaction of unbelievably positive events that would affect almost everyone you know, almost every movie or television show you watch, almost every song you listen to on the radio. Women could walk the streets after dark without the fear of being raped. Not one person would be affected by divorce. There would be no teenage or out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Pornography would cease to exist, freeing up billions of dollars for better use. No need for parental controls on the Internet. The horrific aids virus, syphilis, gonorrhea and all other sexually transmitted diseases would be erased!
No strife, competition and envy (as forbidden by the Tenth Commandment). What a difference this would make in the world of sports, business, education, even in the home.
And all these benefits are fundamentally enforced in the last six commandments.
But looking at the first four, which pertain to worship of the true God, there would be even more dramatic results: The First Commandment would ensure that all would accept the existence of the Creator God. Imagine your science class not beginning with the big-bang theory or the theory of evolution—rather with a thorough and colorful explanation of how God created the magnificent universe and the awe-inspiring six days of renewal the Earth underwent before man’s creation. Since all scientific effort and thought would be built on this foundation, everything taught would be true knowledge.
All would worship God first and foremost, putting all other desires as secondary. All would worship God on the same day of the week. No longer would there be a myriad of different religions, all claiming a different god. Imagine the unity among all humankind!
Understand the chain reaction this would have. Imagine how your high school would be different! Since everyone would worship the same God, His ways would be taught in schools—a proper union of Church and State.
This would also mean no more religious bickering, persecutions or wars. No more sidewalk preachers trying to “save your soul”! No longer would someone argue with you or ridicule you for what you believe—because everyone would have the same foundation of truth in their beliefs.
Now, how will all this come about? The illustration of the world as it would be if everyone kept God’s commandments versus what the world is like today should be enough to prove the utter impossibility of this happening!
How could we bring this about?
The answer: we cannot! An article in the Spring 2001 issue of True Education (“Is This God’s World?”) proved that this is not God’s world. Man, in the garden of Eden, chose for himself to reject God’s way—and God then sentenced him to 6,000 years of going his own way, apart from God and swayed by the real “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), Satan the devil. For nearly 6,000 years, man has proven that he is utterly incapable of ruling himself.
Our world is now on the brink of annihilation. With the current stockpile of nuclear weapons, man has the capability to eliminate himself from the planet several hundred times over. Morally, the world is also teetering on the brink of destruction—crime and corruption have reached mind-staggering heights!
Man, thankfully, will not be permitted to destroy himself. Matthew 24:21-22 read, “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 days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”
The Bible reveals that Jesus Christ will return just in time to save mankind from pulling the trigger on himself.
Christ will usher in this new world order—this utopian World Tomorrow. He will enforce God’s law upon the survivors of this Great Tribulation—this nuclear World War iii. He will lead them in the way to true happiness and peace.
Notice, here, exactly how this will happen. The Bible is very clear!
Those few who were called out of this evil world throughout the past 6,000 years will be resurrected as immortal spirit beings—those living will merely be changed from physical to spirit composition—to meet Christ in the air at His resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:52).
Upon Christ’s return with His saints, the armies in the thick of fighting this Third World War will not be happy to see Him, since He will be coming to take charge of the Earth from them (Revelation 11:15, 18), so they will fight against Him and His army of saints.
After stamping out man’s rebellion (Revelation 19:15), Christ must then remove the source of such rebellion—the real ruler of planet Earth—Satan the devil.
Revelation 20:1-3 describe this thrilling event where a mighty angel binds Satan in chains and casts him into a bottomless pit, “that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled ….”
For 1,000 years, the length of time that Christ and the saints will rule the Earth before the next phase in God’s plan (verse 4), Satan’s influence on the world’s inhabitants will be gone. Now Christ and the spirit-composed saints can give people the only true and right way to live.
Every single person will be taught the Ten Commandments and their beautiful results if obeyed. And this perfect law will be enforced by the presence of the family of spirit beings on Earth!
It is so critical that this spirit-led government be in place, for two reasons: 1) As stated before, man is totally inept at ruling himself, and 2) man will not easily accept this new way of life.
You’ve seen how difficult it is to picture vividly a world that obeys all of God’s laws. It will be even more difficult for all of humanity to accept! The ruling members of the Kingdom of God will have to force people to obey God’s law, until their minds (which are naturally wired to live in a world ruled by Satan, since that is all they know) are shaped to living God’s way in this new world.
When someone begins to diverge from the path of God’s way, those spirit-being teachers will be there to teach and guide them properly.
As God has set in motion a spiritual law that produces wonderful blessings for man, so has He set in motion physical laws to operate our minds and bodies. That means, in addition to enforcing spiritual laws, God will enforce these physical laws of healthful living upon the masses. Sickness, disease and terminal illness will all be wiped out. No more obesity; no more eating disorders. There would be no more drunkenness. Thousands of lives will be saved with the absence of intoxicated drivers.
There will be no more famine (Ezekiel 36:29-30). Imagine never seeing another commercial asking you to donate money to the emaciated starving children in a third-world country. In fact, the term “third world” will be no more. Even in what are now developed countries, there are ghetto and slum portions that rival any third-world condition. Not in tomorrow’s world! Every neighborhood will be clean and safe for everyone.
The enforcement of physical laws of health will mean there will be no more hospitals as we know them. (Imagine never hearing another siren in the distance.) The Bible reveals that blindness, deafness and other major ailments will be a thing of the past (Isaiah 29:17-18; 35:5-6). Ultimate protection by God and His saints will ensure that mankind is free from harm of any kind.
Even harm from what once were dangerous animals will not be a concern anymore. Read these astounding word-pictures from Isaiah 11: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them” (verse 6). Imagine your little brother or a neighborhood child you know leading his pet “cat” around by the mane!
“And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (verse 7). The nature of the ferocious animals, even some of their biological makeup, will have to be changed miraculously by God in order for this to happen. Otherwise, could you imagine a lion—which today is totally equipped with teeth and stomach and bodily form to hunt and kill other animals for meat—eating grass from the same field as a cow?
Notice verse 9: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” The animals will not be allowed to cause any harm, because God’s knowledge will be everywhere!
This knowledge will also turn man into a peaceful being. All men and women will be required to “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks” (Isaiah 2:4). The end of this verse states, “Neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Again, what will cause such a dramatic change in people? Verse 2: “… The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” God’s government will be in full force. And what will God’s government be enforcing? Verse 3: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
It is God’s perfect, righteous law—His Ten Commandments—which, when observed, yield this time of unimaginable peace and abundance over all the Earth.
When Jesus Christ came to this Earth around 2,000 years ago in human form, He reinforced the importance of the law—of its spiritual implications.
In one instance, He made it clear to His disciples that, though the Sixth Commandment specifically forbids murder, even an attitude of hate was a direct violation of this command. Imagine God enforcing this command on the world’s inhabitants. No more hate. No more prejudice. No more racism! All will have loving, outgoing concern for every other human being. The summation of the last six Commandments, love your neighbor as yourself, will be enforced. All will be taught to have the same love and respect for another person as they would for themselves!
This is the world as it will be!
For 1,000 years, beginning very soon, God’s government will be restored to Earth! God’s magnificent law will be in full force. Satan will be gone—not able to deceive or influence man. What a chain of wondrous results this will create! Can you picture how different this world will be? Can you imagine all the wonderful ways this world will be utterly transformed into a thriving paradise?
If the world will change this much, due to the keeping of God’s laws, then how much can your life change now just by starting to obey God’s Ten Commandments? God gave us these commands for our benefit. Keep them, and you can experience a personal utopia— your life can be filled with peace and joy and abundance on an individual level.
And if you learn these lessons now, you can even be on the front lines of leadership in this coming Millennium of peace, when this utopia is expanded to the entire planet.
Let this vision stir your imagination! Let it fill your life with excitement and anticipation! This is no story-book fantasy. It is the real, coming World Tomorrow!