The Coming New World Order

"The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Daniel 2:44).

What Is The World Coming To?

You have probably asked that question a number of times yourself. Everyone does these days. You cannot help it. Open your newspaper, and the world is full of crises and confusion. Turn on the radio or TV, and there it is again: profound perplexity, just as the Lord predicted. He declared that at the time of the end there will be "upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity" (Luke 21:25). The problems appear both insoluble and widespread. There is the inflation problem, the food problem, the pollution problem, the crime wave, drug addiction, the armaments buildup!

Where can a sound solution be found? Who is to blame for existing conditions? It is popular to blame politicians. It is their job to solve problems, and they do not seem to be doing it. Many seriously minded young people look out upon a world that seemingly offers them no future, and they become angry with those in charge. They believe that the national leaders are too old and incompetent. That they should make way for younger men with up-to-date ways, and the vigor to implement them.

Youth Speaks

The angry Young Man! That is a modern phrase for young people who are impatient of watching the older generation bumble through from one crisis to another. They are not new in the earth. The Book of Job, one of the oldest books, describes an angry young man named Elihu. He had listened with growing impatience to the muddled reasonings and confused speeches of his elders. At last, able to stand it no longer, he burst forth:

"I am young in years; and you are aged . . . I said, 'Let days speak, and many years teach wisdom' . . . but it is not the old that are wise, nor the aged that understand what is right, therefore, I say, listen to me: let me declare my opinion" (Job 32:6-10).

Elihu then launched forth into a long, forthright speech which contained a lot of sense, even though it was bumptious in its expressions.

Nearly 4,000 years later, youth is still speaking with the same voice as Elihu; and with the same bumptiousness!

Youth Views Politics

Young people look at politics, and find them dominated by middle-aged and elderly folk, who try to keep back the tide of war, violence and crises with nothing more effective than a broom of their own manufacture. No matter whether the government is a dictatorship or a democracy, the same economic and social problems defeat the rulers again and again. Muddle, muddle and more muddle is the result!

Every country seeks a favorable economic budget; in short, it seeks to export more than it imports. Governments strain every means to accomplish this. All sorts of financial expedients are resorted to achieve it: import quotas, tariffs, devaluation, bank rates, speculation. Most of us do not really understand what it is all about, but in some hazy way we do realize that economic insecurity is rampant in every country, and consequently our livelihood is at stake. First there is boom and we earn good money; then the government calls, "Crisis!" and immediately clamps down, so that the specter of unemployment and shortages again appear on the horizon. At the back of our minds we have a notion that international financiers have something to do with it all: those folk derisively called by an English politician "the gnomes of Zurich" (the Swiss town, where many international bankers have their headquarters). These are people who buy stocks and shares when they are cheap, and sell them when they are dear. Then people panic, and assume that the company whose shares are being widely sold is about to go bankrupt, and before you know where you are, financial chaos stalks the earth.

What do politicians do about all this? They seem powerless whether they are Conservative, Liberal, Socialist or Communist. If they are democratic, then a general election throws everything into deeper chaos whenever it occurs. With this in mind, many politicians rule, not for the good of the country, but with one eye on the next election, what will please voters best. If the government is a dictatorship, then there is loss of Elihu's precious possession of free speech, "Let me declare my opinion," and this pamphlet is unlikely to see the light of day in such countries. But even a dictatorship - at least a human one - cannot sort out the economic problems of a complex civilization. Even Russia is faced with economic and food problems that defy solution. The Polish debacle is a case in point.

When we look at it all, simple laymen like ourselves may be forgiven for asking whether the whole basis of the economic and monetary system is not based on a fallacy. How can every country hope to sell abroad more than it buys? If some countries have favorable balances, others are bound to be in the red!

And what of underdeveloped countries? The feelings of youth are particularly stirred by that theme. While the politicians talk -- perhaps in all sincerity -- thousands die, hungry and ill clad. Poverty is rampant whilst a population explosion lies round the corner. Half earth's inhabitants are undernourished. A few charities like "Oxfam" and the various United Nations Organizations can but scratch the surface of the problem.

Yet billions of dollars, pounds, deutschmarks, pesetas, francs and roubles are spent every year in armament manufacture. Every little nation now wants its own nuclear weapons, so that the prophecy of the Bible is fulfilled: "let the weak say I am strong" (Joel 3:9-11). And the strong nations go on stockpiling the most horrific weapons. Politicians talk -- but young people can't help feeling resentful at the thought that some aging ruler's incompetency might one day bring it all to an end in a terrible explosion. Gone will be all their hopes, their careers, their ambitions, perhaps their lives!

Youth Views Religion

What remains? Religion? Is there an after life? Youth is contemptuous. It sees empty churches and mocks: "I don't wonder at it! What message have the churches for me today? I am not interested in being sent to glory to sit on the edge of a cloud, strumming a harp, or even a guitar, for evermore. I should be bored." Young people are full of doubt. Can you wonder at it, when so many clergymen talk insipid platitudes, or when the leaders of the churches are torn with dissension? Some don't believe in a personal God at all; few of them fully believe in the Bible. "Religion, is so airy-fairy -- no clear message -- nothing much to agree with or disagree with," says one young man. "It's all so goody-goody," says another. "When you ask them to prove it all, seems they don't believe it themselves," says a young woman, after a talk with a minister of religion. Of course the Roman Catholics are growing. Some young people like the grandeur of ceremony, and magnificence of architecture -- but for the majority it all smacks too much of superstition and commercialism. "You go out and sin: you come back to church, pay up and confess. Sins forgiven and off we go again." A sincere Catholic would deny this interpretation, but that's how it looks to many a young mind.

No! away with it all!
The Politicians - failures! outmoded!
The Churches - half dead! outdated!
This is the feeling of modern youth.

Wanted - A Clean Sweep!

And this clean sweep is coming too! The purpose of God, revealed in the Bible, guarantees that.

It speaks of how God will sweep away the politics and religions that have so conspicuously failed. The Bible is a very down-to-earth book far from the sickly sentimentality so often wrongly attributed to it.

Throughout its pages, it speaks of a day that is coming, when all that is wrong will be put right: when the sickness of society will be healed.

Even the phrase "a clean sweep" is almost Biblical. Hear it from the lips of the prophet Isaiah, several thousand years ago, speaking of the Babylonian civilization as representative of all human civilizations of all time:

"I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah -ch. 14:23). [A "besom" denotes a straw broom -- we used to call them "witches' brooms" -- most effective for removing the last vestige of dirt.]

Again speaking of the day when God will establish human affairs on "a sure foundation," the prophet uses the word sweep, as we do when we say that a storm swept all before it:

"The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding places" (Isaiah 28:1-7).

God's judgment is going to come upon the world as a whirlwind upon a shelter in which people are hiding, and because of its insecurity called a "refuge of lies". How eloquent to describe the fallacies with which people surround themselves -- the make-believe with which they try to protect themselves from the harsh realities of life to which there is only one answer.

God's New Broom

How is this clean sweep coming? Who is to be the new broom?

It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ -- alive and real. He rose from the dead some nineteen hundred years ago and he comes again to take over the government of the whole world: literally, politically, personally.

"But surely you don't believe so fantastic an idea?" some may ask. "I agreed with your analysis of what's wrong with the world - but now you are as bad as any of the religionists. Worse in fact! I read recently in one of the Sunday papers, an article by a bishop, in which he called the teaching that Jesus Christ was coming back to earth 'the greatest bit of fantasy in the whole collection of mumbo jumbo that goes under the name of Christian doctrine'" (London Sunday Mirror).

Well we do believe it, and see in it the only hope for mankind. Stay with us, just a few more pages, and hear us out.

You will agree with us that nineteen and a half centuries ago a man named Jesus lived in Palestine. That is a fact of history -- as much as the existence of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Napoleon. (I did once meet a man who when pressed with this line of argument promptly denied that Napoleon ever existed -- but we take it that our readers are intelligent people who accept the normal rules of evidence). Just look at a coin; notice the date 1982 on it. The "1982" means something -- it speaks of "the year of our Lord" -- and if the idea of Jesus' existence was foisted upon us by some charlatan, then he is cleverer at miracles than even the God of the Bible.

Right! Jesus Christ existed. Next we learn he died because of the envy of the Jews and the timidity of the Roman governor -- Pilate. No difficulty in believing that.

Then comes the really difficult part. He rose from the dead! This assertion is based on contemporary evidence. Men who were frightened and cowered into the shadows when he died, a few days later boldly proclaimed that he was alive again. They were either liars, mad or spoke the Truth. They wouldn't be liars -- they gained no advantage -- only persecution and martyrdom. Mad men would never have written words of such sober majesty as you will find in the Bible. Then they spoke the Truth!

But perhaps they were mistaken; perhaps Jesus only appeared to die on the cross. Perhaps he only fainted and reviving came out of the tomb. Such an incredible idea has been advanced. But it does not accord with the facts. The cold tomb would have killed a half-dead man. How, if he survived, would he have rolled away the sealed stone? Would a half dead Messiah have changed the lives of the Apostles? No! Jesus Christ raised from the dead is still the only satisfactory explanation of the empty tomb -- which mark you -- everyone admits was empty!

Granted the resurrection of Christ (and when all the facts are brought into view this cannot be logically denied), then everything else follows. He must have been, as he claimed, the Son of God. There must be a God. The Bible, which Jesus accepted, as far as it then existed (i.e. the Old Testament), is a divine revelation, and we can read it with confidence, gaining hope instead of cynicism, light instead of darkness. Jesus believed the Old Testament and commissioned the New Testament, and to the Bible we therefore must go to find out the purpose of God. Let anybody read this remarkable book properly, and he will find its influence gradually asserting itself demonstrating: "this is no ordinary book." Persevere and notice its wonderful unity. Though made up of 66 books, written by more than 30 people, over a period of 1,600 years, it yet proclaims one consistent message. See the harmony, feel the depth of the book. At least read it! Give it a chance! Its claims and offers demand investigation. And you will be surprised how interesting it is - even exciting!

The Object Of It All

God's purpose with the earth is stated thus:

"God formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited" (Isaiah 45:1 8).

This is comforting -- the earth to be inhabited -- not to become a desert void as pictured by the scaremongers of space fiction.

Isaiah -- a prophet from whom Jesus loved to quote -- again declares:

"The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
"When God's judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" (Isaiah 26:9).

Ideas like the "knowledge of the Lord" and "righteousness" don't appeal much to people today -- but for all their contempt they must admit that ignorance of God and unrighteousness haven't got us far. Does not wisdom dictate that we try the other method? The world is going to whether it likes it or not, and whether it believes it or not, for God is going to bring it about. The only trouble is we might not survive these "judgments of God" unless we do something about it now.

From Genesis onward the Bible is full of predictions about vast changes to be brought about in the earth. Abraham was told that all nations would be blessed through a descendant of his (Genesis 22:17) who is identified in the New Testament as Christ (Galatians 3:16). Psalm 72 speaks of a King (the Lord Jesus), who shall set up a universal rule of such benefit to humanity that "all nations shall call him blessed."

Jesus Christ Comes Back to Earth

All these changes are dependent upon the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth (Acts 1: 11). He will return unobtrusively (Revelation 16:15), and not as some great flaming spectacle descending from the sky. He will probably be viewed as a new and powerful Jewish leader when he first manifests himself in the earth, for he will reach the headlines by defeating a great Russian confederated army which will invade Israel as the first step to world conquest (see Ezekiel 38 and 39). People will not realize at first that it is the Lord when he first takes over in the Middle East. They will doubt it, even though the Israelis accept him as King -- for the prophet Zechariah declares that this will come to pass. He presents a word picture of Christ revealing his identity by showing the scars he received on the cross.

This is the clear teaching of the prophet. Writing some 500 years before the first advent of Christ, but referring to his future Second Coming, he declared:

"They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn" (Zechariah 12:10).

Notice that this prophecy, given some hundreds of years before the birth of Christ 1900 years ago, foretold conditions we can verify today. It predicts that the Jewish people would not accept Jesus as their Messiah, until his revelation at his second coming! That prophecy has been thoroughly vindicated. Though the Jews claim to put their trust in the Bible, and though it is more widespread in Israel than in any other nation, THEY REFUSE TO ACCEPT JESUS AS MESSIAH.

It will be his manifestation as King in Jerusalem that will change the attitude of the Jews in that regard. So Paul taught: "Blindness in part is happened to Israel" until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Romans 11:25). That epoch will terminate at the coming of Christ. Setting up his rule in Jerusalem, which he describes as "the city of the great King" (Matthew 5:35), he will extend his power until eventually all mankind will be incorporated into his realm.

Whether men recognize him soon or late, the fact is there -- Jesus Christ is alive and will come back to earth, with power and decisiveness, to manage affairs his way.

300 times the New Testament attests the fact. If we are going to have any Bible, and any Christian religion at all, we must accept this fact that Christ will come again.

When the Lord departed from the earth, shortly after his resurrection, the record states that the disciples witnessed his ascension (Acts 1:10-11). But then they realized that two angels (or messengers of God) were standing by them. These angels addressed the disciples:

"Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? (there was no chance of following him up there!) this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, SHALL SO COME IN LIKE MANNER as ye have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).

So come -- literally, physically, personally, bodily -- not merely into men's hearts, into their thinking, into their doing -- but literally he is coming into the arena of human affairs to transform them beyond recognition.

The book of the Acts of the Apostles records a number of speeches made by the early followers of Jesus. They reflected what he had taught them about the Kingdom of God in the forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). A speech by Peter in chapter 3 (v. 19) speaks of times of refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord, "and He shall send Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets." Peter taught that Jesus Christ will fulfil all the predictions of coming power and glory that shall stem from the reign of Israel's Messiah foretold by Bible prophecy.

Paul, the Apostle who was dedicated to preach to Gentiles, once spoke to an audience of learned Greeks in Athens, under the shadow of the Acropolis. In his perambulations just outside the city, he had observed an altar inscribed "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD." In his oration, Paul, in effect, said, "Men of Athens - you're frightened you might miss one of the Gods out. Well the One you don't know, is the One I preach to you. He is the only true One. He made all things and He has 'appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness -- by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead' " (Acts 17:31).

That is the purpose of God as consistently taught throughout the Bible: a purpose that will see removed present political and religious systems to make room for Christ's reign on earth.

The Organization of Christ's Reign

Obviously we cannot quote all 300 passages which speak of the Lord Jesus Christ coming back to earth. Jesus spoke of his return, describing it as a King coming to receive his Kingdom (Luke 19:11-27), a bridegroom coming to claim his bride (Luke 12:35-40), a trader coming to reckon with his officials (Matthew 25:14-30). He promised to raise from the dead all faithful people, who had looked for his coming in all ages (John 11:25). He specifically mentioned that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob should share a table with him in his Kingdom. (Matthew 8:11) and that all his true disciples in that day shall be like angels possessing visible tangible bodies, immortal, incapable of dying any more (Luke 20:36). To them he will give positions of authority, to guide men into ways of peace and true happiness (Jeremiah 3:15), so that the structure of government in that day will be like this:

  1. A supreme, benevolent dictator -- Jesus Christ: "He shall sit upon the throne of his glory" (Matthew 25:31).
  2. Subordinate rulers -- Those who in all human history have looked for his coming and striven to obey him, then made immortal: "they shall live and reign with Christ a thousand years" (Revelation 2:26; 5:9-10; 20:4)
  3. Mankind in general -- Still mortal, enjoying the benefits of Christ's rule with the possibility of individuals attaining unto immortality in the perfect state to be introduced on earth at the end of Christ's millennial reign: "He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. . . And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him (God) that put all things under him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:23-28).

In this program for the future there is something for all to aspire unto. All the idealism of man will find its fulfillment in the day when the words of Revelation 11:15, incorporated in Handel's famous Oratorio, are manifested in the earth:

"The Kingdoms of this World are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."

Just think of the possibilities of this: You, strong and immortal, as one of Christ's associates, assisting in making a clean sweep of present human political and religious organizations, in that day when to quote the prophet Daniel (chapter 2:44): --

"The God of heaven shall set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people (like human Kingdoms after a ruler dies, or after an election) but it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."

Here is a clean sweep indeed! Human Kingdoms replaced by Divine, when Christ and his immortalized followers shall "take the Kingdom, and possess the Kingdom forever, even forever and ever" (Daniel 7:18).

"And the Kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him" (Daniel 7:27).

The Collapse of Modern Civilization

But what sort of a Kingdom will it be? What will be the effect of divine infallible government, on the lives of people who will still be mortal, at least for the first 1,000 years after Christ's return?

The Bible is full of statements and hints which answer this question. First we have to remember that the Bible is quite clear that Christ will return at a time of supreme crisis; when the world is in unspeakable chaos.

Daniel describes it as "a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time" (Ch. 12:1), Christ predicted, "distress of nations with perplexity ... men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth" (Luke 21:25-26); the Book of Revelation states that it will witness international antagonism during which man will possess such powers of destruction as would "destroy the earth" but for the intervention of Christ (Revelation 11:18).

In fulfillment of this consider the devastating weapons of destruction invented by man. The nuclear missiles possessed by Russia and America alone are capable of wiping out the major cities of the world, causing, in a literal manner the figurative words of Revelation 16:19 to be fulfilled: "The cities of the nations fall". Christ's intervention will prevent that. But it will also sweep into the abyss all that man has built up that is antagonistic to the will of God. The proud civilization of today, so complex, so glittering, so frightening, and so unsatisfying, will utterly collapse.

The opening days of Christ's rule will therefore be a period of reconstruction. Society will be completely reshaped. Out of the ruins of the present order, a new order will arise.

The Perfect Ruler

Christ who once suffered unresistingly in the overcoming of personal sin and evil, will come the second time as a mighty military leader, competent to quash all opposition, and to rule mankind with a "rod of iron" (Revelation 19:15). Perhaps at first this idea is foreign to our thinking. Some may think it too dictatorial. Yet, think further -- isn't authority and certainty wanted in place of the effete and vacillating efforts of human rulers and priests? The only things wrong with dictatorship is that mere flesh is not wise enough to exercise it properly and therefore oppresses others who have as much right to an opinion as their self-appointed rulers.

When the Son of God rules, however, his infallible wisdom will establish his right to dictate and mere man will have no right to argue. He knows best for he is a manifestation of God. And Jesus Christ in character, is perfectly suited to this role. He is not the insipid and effeminate character so often portrayed by orthodox religious writers and artists. In his former sojourn on earth, men trembled before his rebuke: he launched scathing verbal attacks on the religious and political leaders of his day (read Matthew chapter 23), and was bold enough to drive the commercialists out of the temple. Such Divine impatience he blended with perfect sympathy for the weak, the erring and the poverty stricken. Altogether the perfect ruler, and in that day, accompanied by rulers made perfect through his perfection. We can be among them (Revelation 5:10).

The prophets of the Bible are full of pen-pictures of his rule. Read the words of the prophet Micah 4:1-4:

The Law of the Future

This picture is of a world ruled by laws similar to those given by God through Moses to the Hebrews 3,500 years ago. It was a good law for a community, indeed there has never been a better. And even though some of its religious ritual will be amended, with the Lord Jesus returned to the earth, its main principles will stand. It will be the basis of the "law that shall go forth from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:2-4).

This law will be based on the three great pillars: of God, Family and Land.

God

The supremacy and wisdom of God, the Creator, will lie at the root of all its enactments. Its object will be to bring man close to God in respectful fellowship and friendship (and surely once you admit the existence of a Supreme God there can be nothing more desirable). So there will be laws making provision for worship and instruction in matters to do with religion. There will not be dozens of conflicting voices. Everyone will know where they stand in the worship of that day:

"Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them Mine indignation, even all My fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language that they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent" (Zephaniah 3:8-9).

Jerusalem will be the center of world worship as well as world rule, and to it mankind will turn for guidance in government and devotion:

"it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem (at Armageddon) shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles" (Zechariah 14:16).

The feast of Tabernacles (see Leviticus 23:39-44) is to be a joyful open air, harvest festival in which men will recognize that their tables, weighted down with good fare, exhibit the gifts of God.

This will mean an end to all the various versions of Christianity and other religions, so that only one form of worship, based upon the true revelation of God, will remain. The effect will be to unite all mankind in one common belief, one common outlook, a necessary precursor to the establishment of one world in peace. Meanwhile, the divided state of humanity in both politics and religion destroys any possibility of a truly united world.

Religion in Christ's Kingdom will be no long-faced affair of dark churches, and holy-toned incantations, but something altogether a thing of joy. Listen to Jeremiah describing the religious exercises of a regenerated people in that day: Jeremiah 31:12:

"Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together for 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 men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow."

Happiness in religion without it losing its serious purpose!

First, of course, the clean sweep. Zechariah 13:2-5 describes all the false religions of the Christian, Jewish and Mohammedan persuasions being cleared out of Jerusalem and district, which today abounds with shrines and money making religious sites. This clearing out of the false will extend to all the world so that:

"The Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord and his name one" (Zechariah 14:9).

Family

It is obvious from a little thought that the breakdown of the family unit in modern society is the root cause of its most disturbing problems. The lack of respect for authority, the aimless wandering of youth without proper guidance, the widespread and increasing juvenile delinquency all contribute to the growing social problems that afflict the modern world. Drug addiction, violence and crime, the lack of "natural affection" all stem from the decline of the family. They describe the state of things predicted in Scripture which warns that the last days would be perilous in the extreme, and would be noted, among other trends for blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection . . ." (2 Timothy 3:1-3).

Under the law that Christ will re-establish, the family will form the basis of society. In the family unit the best of education and the highest of enjoyment will be found. Psalm 128 is an idyllic description what will then be seen throughout the earth:

"Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways. For thou shall eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel."

Here is a picture of contentment: of pure enjoyment, of complete family happiness. The modem business man and career girl may shudder at it -- but a little thought about the worries and risks of business, and the frustrations of a fading career, soon reveal that God's way is best.

Land

"Every man under his own vine" suggests a basically pastoral type of life in the age to come. Under Moses, every family had a farm of its own. This provided the basis of life, whatever else they did. When things went well, as they did when they obeyed God, they were blessed in basket and store. They then lived a life that provided every means of comfort and enjoyment, providing a healthy, happy existence. They were partners with the God who made all things, instead of being remote from Him, as in modern civilization. They found satisfaction in their work well done, so that their lives, their worship and their families were thoroughly integrated. They were whole men and women, untroubled by balance of payments, devaluation, inflation, import quotas, for God blessed them and they rejoiced in His goodness.

So it will be again when Christ rules on earth. The object will be to give to mortal men and women a proper background against which their minds may expand and their thinking become attuned with the God who made them, that they might reflect His glory.

What a contrast with the present; what a clean sweep indeed!

Isaiah 65:18-25 gives a beautiful picture of that time. It describes what will first happen in Israel, and will then spread to all mankind, for "Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the earth with fruit" (Isaiah 27:6). Read this scripture and note:

And this is but a small specimen of what the Bible says will happen when Christ returns to earth.

Your Place in the World of Tomorrow

Christ wants helpers! He wants you to accept his call now and enter an apprenticeship for immortal association with him in the future government of the world.

The Bible is the guide book -- both as to what is to be and how you may be there. Even if what we have written seems a little fantastic --or too good to be true -- why not start reading the Bible, to find out for yourself . You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Peace of mind now and the joy of sharing in "the clean sweep" and the wonderful time that will follow! You owe it to yourself and to those you love, to investigate these things thoroughly. Start right now by looking up all the quotations in this pamphlet. Begin to use your Bible.

"So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. Isaiah 61:11.


God's plan for the future is a practical one. Based upon the personal return of Christ to the earth to reign from Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17) described as "the city of the great King" (Matthew 5:35), it provides for vast but necessary changes in the political, religious and social structure of society.

ONE KING (Jesus Christ) by divine right reigning over all nations: "The Lord shall be king over all the earth" (Zechariah 14:9).

A NEW ADMINISTRATION directed by Christ's followers then made immortal: "They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years" (Revelation 20:4) "on the earth" (Ch. 5:9-10).

ONE UNIFYING RELIGION OF TRUTH: "My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense (a symbol of prayer) shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering" (Malachi 1:11). "Every one that is left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. . . ." (Zechariah 14:16)

A UNITED WORLD: "All kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him" (Psalm 72:11).

TOTAL DISARMAMENT AND ABOLITION OF WAR: "He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).

A NEW ECONOMIC SYSTEM: "Merchandise . . . shall be holiness to the Lord; it shall not be treasured nor laid up . . . but shall be for them that dwell before the Lord, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing" (Isaiah 23:18).

INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND GOODWILL: "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever" (Isaiah 9:7).

DOMESTIC SECURITY: "None shall make them afraid" (Micah 4:4).

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH AND RESOURCES: "They shall build houses, and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat" (Isaiah 65:21-22).

FIRM GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL TO THE BENEFIT OF ALL: "He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor" (Psalm 72:4).

VAST INCREASE OF THE EARTH'S PRODUCTIVITY: "The days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed" (Amos 9:13).

NO UNEMPLOYMENT: "They shall build the old wastes, and shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities" (Isaiah 61:4).

A SOUND EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM: "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem"; "And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times" (Isaiah 2:3; 33:6).

NEW SOCIAL STANDARDS ENFORCED: "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord"; "The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever" (Isaiah 11:9; 32:17).

GOD'S WILL ESTABLISHED IN THE EARTH: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).

THE ASSURANCE THAT IT WILL HAPPEN: "When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory" (Psalm 102:16). The revival of Israel in our time is the assurance that God's plan and purpose is on the eve of fulfillment.

WHAT IS NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS GLORIOUS FUTURE -- "He that believeth (the Gospel) and is baptised shall be saved" (Mark 16:16).

GENERAL SUMMARY: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14).

"The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Daniel 2:44).

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