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back to the streets they carne from," I was told
sorrowfully. "There are always other children we
must save. We wish it were not that way."
We
al/
wish it were not that way.
We all !ove to see healthy, cute, cheerful little
children. We ache to see them with their skin drawn
tight over their bones, their eyes dulled with
suffering, their bellies distended, and their bodies
prematurely aged through disease and malnutrition.
Significant sums of money are given every year by
wealthier countries to help the poorer nations care
for their children. But it is only scratching the
surface. We are trapped in a system where more
children are born than can be cared for. Is there no
way out of it? Must it be this way?
We Must Choose
When God created this earth, he said that it was
"very good" (Gen. 1:31). He told the first humans
to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth" (verse 28).
Did God know what he was asking? Didn' t he
foresee that 6,000 years later the human race would
run out of room and food so that they would have to
figure out how to be unfruitful and stop multiplying?
God set before the first humans, Adam and Eve, a
choice of two ways of life; one would lead to
happiness, prosperity and abundance- the other
would lead most surely to misery and death. This
choice was symbolized by two trees that stood in the
garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, tempted by Satan,
chose the wrong tree, the tree that symbolized the
knowledge of good and evil. God had forbidden
them to touch it.
Satan convinced them that God had not told them
the truth, and that he was deliberately holding back
important information from them.
By making the decision to disobey, our first
parents showed that they thought they knew better
than God. They chose their own way of life, and
they reaped the consequences. Even their first son,
Cain, became a liability.
Without the knowledge that could only come from
God, man has continued to blunder around in
ignorance for nearly 6,000 years. Humans bave chosen
to live the way of greed and selfishness. We have lost
the knowledge of how to replenish the earth.
This earth
could
produce enough food to feed double
and
triple
the present population. In fact, it already
does. But because of our greed and selfishness, which
have made it impossible for nations to work together
and share their resources, millions still starve. Througb
ignorance and mismanagement of agriculture, large
areas of the earth's surface have become arid and
uninhabitable. Wars take more land out of
productivity. Cut off from true education, whole
populations lack even a simple knowledge of basic
health that could drastically improve their standard of
living almost overnight.
The Solution Revealed
This magazine acquaints its readers with good news
24
for the whole world, beyond tbe capacity of human
governments to acbieve. That good news is the real
message of the gospel of Jesus Christ-that he will
soon be directed to return and restore the
government of God t9 this earth.
When God's way of life is restored, starvation,
ignorance, illiteracy and poverty will belong firmly
in the past. Children will continue to be born after
Christ returns to bring the world peace, but no
longer will they grow up in misery. That is good
news.
There is even better news. What about the
millions of children that have died so far? What
about the child that has died of starvation
somewhere on earth even whi le you have been
reading this sentence? What will become of him or
her?
In prophecies that have been for too long
misunderstood, God has announced in advance the
resurrection of all who have ever lived. His goal is,
as it has always been, that mankind should live for
eternity with him as the family of God.
In the book of Revelation the apostle John
foresaw a time, Jittle more than a tbousand years
from now, when the dead, "great and
small,"
standing before the throne of God, will have been
given a future opportunity-or to be more
accurate we should say will have been given their
first
opportunity-to live a life according to the
law of God (Rev. 20:12). Many other scriptures
show this time of resurrection for those who lived
in the past. For a full and complete explanation,
why not write for the free booklet entitled
Is This
the Only Day of Salvation?
Millions of children who lived and died in misery
are going to live again. The God who gives life will
give them their lives back. They will be given the
chance to live again and develop to the full their
human potential, which this evil world did not allow.
That, for millions of bereaved parents today, is the
best of the "good news" that Jesus Christ brought
to earth.
Many children today are, tragically, a liability and
a drain on their country's scant resources. But one
day they will live again, in a world governed by the
rule and law of God-a world that can support
them, a world that appreciates their worth.
That is no excuse for bringing more children now
into situations where they can only know
wretchedness and misery. In many parts of this sad
world, cut off from the revealed knowledge of God,
a form of national population control is the only
sensible alternative humans know. We should not
want more children now if we cannot take care of
those that we already have. But that does not mean
that every method of population control is good.
Sorne are certainly wrong. Wise family planning
excludes abortion and infanticide!
Countless millions of children are already a
liability. But that isn't their fault. Thank God that
those who are such a liability now will yet become a
legacy for the future.
-John Halford
The
PLAIN TRUTH