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Bible from behind the counter.
"Hey, we have tbose things in our
world," you think to yourself. "But
we don't really believe that stuff. I
mean, who reads the Bible for infor–
mation? It's great literature, but
wow ... this·guy is really serious."
"Okay, Frank, let me go through
sorne of the words of the prophets.
I'U
explain what 1 need to, but most
of it is self-explanatory. So here, let
me give you a picture of our beau–
tiful world as it was foreseen núl–
lennia ago by the prophets ofGod:
A
WORLD OF HAPPINESS
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts;
There shall yet old men and old
women dwell in the streets .. . the
streets of the city shall be full of
boys and girls playing in the streets
thereof" (Zechariah 8:4, 5).
A
WORLD OF TOTAL PEACE
"They shall sit every man under
his vine and under his fig tree; and
none shall make them afraid" (Mi–
cah 4:4).
A
WORLD FREE FROM ÜPPRESSION
"My princes shall no more op–
press my people" (EZekiel45:8).
A
WORLD OF PLENTY
"They shall come and sing in the
height of Zion, and shall fiow to–
gether to the goodness of the Lord,
for wheat, and for wine, and for oil,
and for the young of the flock and
of the·herd: and their soul shall be
as a watered garden; and they shall
not sorrow any more at all. Then
shall the virgin rejoice in the dance,
both young roen and old together"
(Jerenúah 31:12-13).
A
WORLD FREE FROM S!CKNllSS
ANO DISEASE
"He will come and save you.
Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf
shall be unstopped. Then shall the
lame man leap as an hart, and the
tongue of the dumb sing" (lsaiah
35:4, 5).
PLAIN TRUTH Feoruary 1973
"... Those are sorne of the char–
acteristics of our new world, Frank–
lin."
"Dan, this really
is
utopía. Why,
you have everything people have·
ever hoped for, that philosophers
have dreamed about. How does one
become a ... uh, member of this
world ofyours?"
"Well, Frank, that will shock you
too. You don' t become a rnember by
being here physically. You become
one by having a new mind to com–
plement a new world...."
"1 will give them one heart, and 1
will put a new spirit within you; and 1
will take the stony heart out of their
ftesh, and will give them an heart of
ftesh" (Ezekielll:l9)
"A new rnind? I don' t get it?
What are you driving at?"
"Well, let's see if 1 can get it
across. There is a nonphysical com–
ponent in the human rnind. It's
added to the physical brain. Ani–
mals don't have it. This is caBed the
'human spirit.' There is another
spirit, also nonphysical. It's called
the 'Spirit of God.' The Messiah
puts that spirit ·into a person's núnd.
And since the Messiah obeyed His
Father wheo He first carne to earth
in the days of Herod, aod since He
still obeys the basic law governing
human conduct, this basic law - the
Ten Commaodments - will be kept
by the individuals who have His
Spirit. It's as simple as that."
You are, of course, tremendously
impressed by these unusual con–
cepts - and this beautiful world.
But you feel the urge to move on. So
you thank your friend and leave the
town.
As you round the bend, the world
tomorrow evaporates before your
eyes, as though a movie editor had
used a scene dissolver. Suddenly,
you're smelling polluted air and
being audibly assaulted by the
clamor and confusion. You try to
cough away the dirty air. Walking
down the street, you pass a news–
stand. The local paper catches your
eye. The headlines are filled with
news of killing, strife, robbery and
disease.
The Cry of Humanity
Then your eyes fill with tears;
your mind sees the panorama of
millions of hurnans behind these
headlines of horror. Your hear the
collective voices of humanity, as it
were, young and old, black, yellow
and white, male and female, crying
through those headlioes of war,
sickness and death:
"Our yoke is hard and our burden
is heavy. We have wandered the
world in search of someone to ease
our pain. But always disappoint–
ment has been our close companion.
"One told us there would be
peace in our time; but tens of thou–
sands of us were killed
in
a war that
did not end all wars. Others of us
believed we would get peace, bread
and land. But our rulers starved us,
our enemies killed us and the state
stole our land.
"We worked hard in a nation
dominated by other tribes. Our re–
ward was to have our wives raped,
our children torn . in half and our
tribe.nearly exterminated.
"We are the untold millions of
Hitler's concentration camps, of Sta–
lin's U.S.S.R. , of the southern Su–
dan, of Vietnam, of all the wars of
all times. We are the Americans
killed in Guadalcanal and the Japa–
nese who burned in Hiroshima. We
are the British whose blood seeped
into the sand at Dunkirk and the
Germans wbose flesh fused with the
stone of fire-bombed Hamburg.
"Please, please find a way to stop
war and sufferingforever."
Then suddeoly, a blaring auto
horn wrenches your thoughts from
the within to the around. For an
atom of time you think, "Wouldn't
it be wonderful if today's world
could be transforrned and traded in,
as it were, for that better deal the
Messiah offers?"
O
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