October 8

Why There Is Widespread Concern

PEOPLE today feel increasingly puzzled, uneasy, as to the direction of world affairs. Doubtless in your own area you find people asking:

What does it all mean? Where are we going? What hope is there for genuine improvement? These questions trouble millions earth wide​—with good reason. For example:

● We live in a time of tremendous advances in science and technology. Yet for all the ‘giant leaps’ forward, mankind seems to be winding up worse off than before, slipping backward.

● A shaky peace exists in the world, one that threatens to come apart at the seams.

● More and more governments face a “crisis of confidence”; they seem uncertain as to how to cope with their problems.

● Crime wages a ceaseless and ever more violent war against people in cities, towns and countryside.

● Concern deepens as to the most basic things of life: food, fuel, housing, clothing. Shortages grow; prices soar.

“It’s like living on a treadmill,” is the way one New England woman put it; “you can never catch up.” People find it increasingly hard to save for the future. Many wonder if it is even worth while, since money loses its value so rapidly.

Without hope and sure direction, life has no real meaning. It becomes an aimless wandering. Is there a stable, secure hope to which you can look, one that you can work toward with a sure sense of purpose and confidence? Is the world of mankind now moving toward such a hope?

To find out, consider what follows. See where this world is heading and then see the reasons for firm belief that the biggest change the world has ever known is due to take place in the near future. Learn how that change can make life on earth satisfying and truly worth while for you.

[Picture on page 3]

Many today feel as if they are on a treadmill, not knowing where world conditions are leading them. Do you know?

Where the Present Road Is Leading

IS THERE a means for us to know which way this world is heading? Yes, there is. Part of the answer comes from the evidence that is seen in every avenue of human activity.

But, first, what is the way the world claims it is heading? Read the newspapers, listen to the radio and television, and it is plain that world leaders claim to be moving toward a more peaceful, prosperous state. Yet is that really the case?

Suppose you were in a caravan of vehicles the leaders of which said they were leading you to a beautiful, fertile, warm land. They told you that the road might be rough at the start but would soon improve; that, though hilly to begin with, it would soon level out; and that, even though supplies might be quite scarce for a time, they would become more abundant the farther along you traveled. But if the road kept getting rougher instead of smoother, if the hills became, not plains, but mountains, if supplies became ever harder to come by, and if, instead of seeing greater beauty, fertility and warmth, you found things becoming more and more desolate, barren and cold​—how long would it be before you began to question whether you were heading in the right direction?

If others in the caravan insisted on going on, denounced any other view as “pessimism,” called for greater faith in the caravan’s leaders, would this sway you? Suppose signs warned of grave danger ahead, a bridge out, a landslide or a cave-in of the road​—would you still risk your life and that of those with you because the majority determined to continue on?

Do we face a similar situation today earth wide? Look at, not just one feature of the conditions we are passing through, but the whole pattern of things. See what they add up to, what they tell us as to the direction in which this world is heading.

What Trend in the World’s Food Supply?

For life in happiness one of the most basic things people need is a good diet. Mankind has been at the business of producing foodstuffs for thousands of years. Agricultural methods have been scientifically studied and highly developed over many decades. But what is the clear trend in the world food supply today?

You, of course, know that in some areas people do not have enough to eat. That is not new. Throughout history, people in various lands have had problems getting enough food. But an ominous trend has been taking place in this century. During and after World War I, more people on earth were affected by food shortages than ever before. With World War II the problem has expanded.

True, in recent years food shortages have hit a few nations here or there at one time or another. But today the situation is different. Now the entire world is affected!

In fact, nothing in history matches the crisis condition now shaping up regarding the world food supply. What makes it more significant is that it has come in spite of all the advances of modern technology.

Late in 1972 U.S. News & World Report said: “World food productions . . . has suddenly shrunk close to the point of global crisis.” For the second year in a row, food production decreased in the poorer countries, the very lands where food was most needed. A. H. Boerma, director general of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said:

“One can regard the failure of a single year as exceptional. But two failures in successive years . . . cannot be shrugged off as a temporary misfortune.”

During 1972 world food production dropped by 4 percent. The situation grew more critical during the winter of 1972-73. By the spring of 1973 Progressive Farmer magazine carried the headline: “Are We in a World Food Crisis?” It answered, Yes, and described the situation as “highly explosive,” adding:

“That’s the only way you can describe the world and U.S. feed grain and wheat situation. . . .

“For the first time in years, the words ‘starvation’ and ‘mass famine’ are being seen and heard. . . .

“Never before in recent times had so many forces suddenly come together. The result was near panic.”

What is now developing on a global scale was predicted several years ago. For example, among others, William and Paul Paddock in their book Famine 1975 had warned that world population growth was running ahead of food production and that a crisis could be expected in the mid-1970’s. In May 1973, a New York Times editorial commented: “It appears that the Paddock brothers’ prophecy for 1975 could begin to become a reality as early as 1974.” But the symptoms have already appeared before 1974.

Why the Shortages?

Why the food shortages? Hopes were so high just a few years ago due to ‘miracle seeds’ of rice and wheat. Yet, at the same time, world population continued to “explode,” especially in the very countries where food was already short. No matter how much of a “miracle” certain seeds may be, an acre planted in them will feed only so many people. And when people multiply faster than food, famine is inevitable.

Then, in the past two years, severe droughts, floods, adverse winter weather and bad management cut production. Among many other lands, the Soviet Union was hard hit. Their 1972 crop was, according to a Soviet official, “the worst harvest in 100 years.” They were forced to buy twenty-eight million tons of grain, much from the United States.

That, and purchases by other nations, along with increasing demand and poor weather in the United States, exhausted the U.S. government’s grain reserves. And this is what makes the present condition different from any in recent times. As Newsweek observed: “This latest food crisis is occurring at a time when once-massive agricultural surpluses elsewhere in the world​—notably in the U.S.​—are beginning to dwindle.” A commodities exchange official in Chicago said: “There is no more grain to give away.”

Critical Areas

In Africa, a critical situation developed. A huge belt of land, stretching about 2,000 miles across the continent, experienced severe famine in 1973:

“More than six million people face death from starvation in the drought-stricken western and southern Sahara region.”​—New York “Post.”

“Nearly 40 per cent of the livestock in Niger, Mali, Chad, Upper Volta and Senegal​—and 80 per cent in Mauritania—​have perished. ‘In places there are dead animals on the roadside every 200 yards,’ says one diplomat.”​—“Newsweek.”

An expert of the European Common Market said that this entire region of Africa faced “a disaster of a magnitude which we still cannot measure.” At one point the food crisis was so severe that a United Nations official said: “If the problem is not solved in two months, nearly 6 million people may die.”

Drought was a main factor, but so was mismanagement. The livestock population was increased too fast, so the ground was overgrazed. Stripped of cover, the ground began turning into desert.

India’s food production also dropped in the last two years due to drought and other factors. Yet her population increased about twenty-five million in those same two years! Newsweek reported that in the affected areas “some 200 million Indians face the threat of a disastrous famine.”

Many other lands are affected by exploding populations that are outracing food production. Because of this worldwide crisis, the New York Times declared:

“Two-thirds of the 800 million children on the three continents [Africa, Asia and Latin America] are affected by malnutrition, according to experts in the United Nations and elsewhere. Six years ago, the United Nations warned of an ‘impending protein crisis.’ Today, the experts say, the crisis has arrived.”

The Trend Is Clear

The trend is clear​—world food production is unable to keep up with population growth. True, there may be temporary reversals of this trend. The nations may seem to patch up the problem for a time.

But we simply cannot escape the fact that the overall picture since World War I is that of a world more and more unable to feed itself. Under present systems, then, temporary periods of relief are certain to be followed by other crises​—of greater magnitude.

But why not simply put more land into food production? Also, how about eating more fish? The Wall Street Journal answers:

“The area of new land that can easily be brought under the plow is shrinking while the demand for food grows larger each year. Adding to the problem, more and more agricultural land is being abandoned each year, some because of erosion but also because of the encroachment of highways, factories and human dwellings. . . .

“The catch of some table grade species [of fish] is declining as a result of overfishing. Many marine biologists now believe that the global catch of table grade fish may be very close to the maximum sustainable limit.”

Thus, in spite of all his advanced technology, man is not finding an answer to the world food problem. It grows worse at the very time that world population is increasing at the fastest rate in all history. Now, each year sees a net increase of about seventy-five million people on this earth!

You may live in a country that presently does have food. Yet that food is likely getting more expensive as the demand grows world wide.

What does all this mean to you? If the present systems that this world has developed are failing to cope with man’s most fundamental problem​—his food supply—​does not this show there is need for a vast change on earth?

Yet this is but one of many “landmarks” pointing to the direction that this world is heading.

Where Is the World Headed Economically?

There is an old saying that ‘money is what makes the world go round.’ The present world systems are indeed patterned on that principle. With what result for us today?

Modern national economies are so interwoven that a sudden slump in the value of just one powerful nation’s money can virtually paralyze trade world wide. Devaluation of money or runaway inflation can convert many people into paupers. The book Money and Economic Activity, by Houghton Mifflin, says: “In Germany at the end of 1923 it took 1,200,400,000,000 paper marks to buy what only 35 marks could purchase just two years earlier.” Just three years (1946-1948) of the civil war in China so devastated the value of Chinese currency that workers carried their pay home in huge bundles of money, and people often used smaller denominations of money to light kitchen fires.

Is it any less dangerous for us to place our trust in the money of today’s nations?

How Much Will Your Money Buy?

Which way is the value of your money heading? Food keeps costing more, of course, but what about other items​—clothing, housing, fuel, electricity, transportation and recreation?

You know the answer. No matter where you are, the cost of living keeps going in the same direction: up​—up—​up. Is there any end in sight to these rising prices?

In Canada food prices alone went up 11 percent in a year. Germany and Switzerland, considered islands of economic stability, both suffered an 8-percent rate of inflation. In most other lands, the situation is much worse.

The drop in purchasing power in the richest nation on earth, the United States, is shocking. It now takes about $5 to buy what $1 bought in 1900!

A Zurich banker said: “The inflationary psychology now is widespread and deep-seated all over Europe. Drastic action is needed to check inflation, even if we have to risk a recession and higher unemployment.”

That is why, although at present there is what some call a worldwide “boom,” or “prosperity,” the Swiss banker said: “This is a gloomy boom.” And U.S. News & World Report noted: “There is a gnawing fear that the boom may, in the not too distant future, be followed by a ‘bust.’”

Why Such Inflation?

Why such persistent inflation? The biggest reason is that both people and nations are not living within their incomes. They are in a frenzy of wanting to ‘get now and pay later.’ This has resulted in a tidal wave of borrowing money that is unequaled in history.

Thus to a very large extent, today’s “prosperity” is unreal because it has been financed by borrowed money. It is like a person making $100 a week and then borrowing another $100 each week. Certainly he will live better for a while. But someday there has to be a reckoning​—he must begin living within his means and pay back the debt, or go bankrupt.

But nowadays, most governments hardly consider living within their incomes. Politicians want to keep popular, and so usually they do not take the needed measures to check inflation. They feel it is politically expedient to keep borrowing and spending to boost “prosperity.” The mood seems to be, ‘Let the next person in office worry about it.’

But governments are no different from individuals who cannot pay their debts: they too can go bankrupt. As the Economic Education Bulletin, published in the United States, warned:

“A boom artificially stimulated by inflating is not sound prosperity. There have been several such booms in the Nation’s history, and all have been followed by severe depressions. Never have managers of a ‘managed irredeemable money’ [paper money not backed by assets such as gold] been able to create a sound and lasting prosperity.”

Bankrupt

What makes the situation much worse is the financial condition of the United States, the foundation of the Western world’s economic system. For many years now, it has been spending overseas much more money than it has been making. Why? The Economic Education Bulletin gives the reasons:

“First, for many years the U.S. Government has disbursed [spent] abroad more U.S. currency and credits than it has received from abroad. Through its vast and overly generous foreign aid program and through large military expenditures in other countries, it has placed these claims against it in the hands of foreign governments, central banks, and individuals. . . .

“Second, the United States has indulged in marked and prolonged inflating . . . for more than three decades. . . . It also has resulted in such a marked increase in prices [of U.S. products] that many U.S. processors no longer could compete in world markets.”

The arrangement agreed to by Western nations after World War II was that international debts would be paid off in gold. But by 1971, because of United States spending overseas, there were about six times as many dollars in the hands of foreigners as the United States had gold to pay! It was like a person’s owing someone $6,000 but having only $1,000 in assets to pay off the debt, with the debt growing all the time.

Then came August 1971. At that time the United States abruptly closed its ‘gold window.’ It refused to honor its promise to pay gold for the paper dollars foreigners held. But what does it mean when someone says he will no longer pay off his debts as he said he would? The above-quoted publication shows what it meant:

“The closing of the gold window constituted acknowledgment that the U.S. Government . . . was internationally bankrupt.”

The United States has become the greatest bankrupt debtor in the history of the world! And since 1971 the situation has worsened. Now, in 1973, the overseas debt of the United States is eight or nine times the value of the gold it has.

Adding to the Problem

Is there any likelihood that this trend will be reversed? Editorial writer Joseph Alsop stated:

“What threatens us​—what has started already, in fact—​is a permanent currency crisis, which also may mean a permanent inflation crisis.

“In three years, on present projections, our dollars cannot be anything like what they seem today, although a dollar is now worth little enough.”

Most observers agree. But what makes them so certain? It is the fact that there is an ‘energy crisis’ in many parts of the world. Especially is this so in the United States. It uses oil much faster than it can now find and produce it. And the demand soars each year while its reserves dwindle. As a result, the nation must import more and more oil from overseas. That means spending more dollars in other countries.

Editor Alsop called the economic prospects for the immediate future “ghastly.” We can see why by examining a few figures. In 1970 the United States paid other countries about $2 billion for its oil imports. This year, 1973, it will import over $7 billion in oil. Estimates are that in 1975 oil imports will come to about $15 billion. By 1980 that figure, it is said, will skyrocket to about $30 billion​—and much higher after that. All of this comes while the balance of payments already has long been in the red! Alsop added:

“The figures also mean an energy crisis, of course. . . . Yet inconvenience for many and heavy loss for a few are mere trifles compared to the national tragedy of a dollar with ever-lessening value.”

Hence, based on the evidence, what do you think? Is the world’s present economic system likely to solve its problems? Do you feel that it would be safe to expect that and to put your hope in it?

It is apparent to reasonable persons that the economic system has grave defects, is breaking down. Indeed, in its present course, it is heading toward collapse. Though temporary improvements or relief may appear, it is evident that huge changes must be in store for the near future.

In reality, the world’s economic system is built on a false foundation. Nations operate with huge debts, by “deficit spending.” Their citizens do the same, buying more and more on credit. This building on an ever-growing extension of credit produces an effect like that of the well-known “house of cards.” The structure has no real strength and any added pressure can cause the whole thing suddenly to fall flat.

What Is Happening to Your Personal Security?

Every person wants to feel secure, safe. No one wants to be the victim of a “mugging,” or have his home burglarized. Women do not want to be raped. The desire for honest, decent neighbors is universal. And all people want to see the quality of life improve.

But are cities, towns and rural areas becoming safer places in which to live? Is the quality of life improving?

If you are an adult, think back to the way things were ten, twenty or more years ago. Do you consider life and property more secure today than they were back then? Do you trust people more these days? When answering a knock on your door at night, do you feel safer now?

The vast majority of people say that the opposite is true. They feel that there is far more danger to one’s safety now than they can ever remember.

More Dangerous

All the evidence from law-enforcement officials agrees. Nearly every country on earth has experienced a shocking increase in crime and violence in recent years. Lawlessness has grown so much that it has become one of the most serious problems of our time.

Arnold Toynbee, the respected British historian, was reported by the West Australian as concluding that there is “an obvious decline in common honesty, an absence of common purpose.” The publication also stated: “He thinks nations rise or fall in relation to the moral unity of the family and the moral purpose of the State, and he sees in the West a decline in both.”

In the very lands considered the most “advanced,” security decreases fastest. A Canadian police official of Hamilton, Ontario, blamed the crime wave in that country ‘on society’s moral breakdown,’ and referred to Canada as “a sick society.” In Toronto twice as many people are now caught shoplifting as was the case just a few years ago. Yet the Toronto Star said: “Even this is believed only a fraction of the number of shoppers and store employees who stole.” A director of security for forty stores in that city observed: “We’ve caught everybody​—a doctor, a lawyer and a judge’s wife.”

In Britain the increase in vicious assaults has appalled experienced police officials. A Scotland Yard detective noted that crimes of violence are soaring, and that criminals now “are utterly callous and show no remorse.” In London, the Daily Mail related, robberies after assaults increased a massive 129 percent in just four years! And the Daily Telegraph stated:

“Lord Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, . . . asserted, and few would care to dispute his point, that if indictable crime continues to grow at its present rate the judicial system will break down . . .

“It used to be thought by many progressive thinkers that the cause of crime was poverty. How is it, then, that crime has increased as we have become more prosperous?”

In the United States there has been a crime wave of immense proportions in the last decade. In most areas of the country, major crimes have increased about ten to fifteen times as fast as the population. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a resident who had his home burglarized four times in five years declared: “I’m sitting in my house like Kit Carson inside the fort afraid to leave because some . . . hoodlum may crawl through my possessions.”

In another part of the United States, the owner of a ‘high security’ apartment-house complex said: “We even have to bolt down the furniture and pictures,” because so many were being stolen. A contractor who sells automated systems for preventing burglaries had expensive equipment stolen from his own truck!

The Los Angeles Times said that crime statistics “read like a battlefield report, but the battle, with no hope in sight of a cease-fire, is raging in the towns and cities across America.” Especially have violent crimes​—murder, assault, rape—​risen sharply.

Even in small communities, there is less security. A store manager in a small Virginia town said of crime: “We’re noticing in small towns that it’s increasing. We never had a robbery around until the last few years, and now that sort of thing is happening all the time.”

Official crime statistics are chilling enough. But the New York Times revealed: “In some categories the number of crimes committed could run as high as five times the number officially reported by victims.”

Breakdown of Institutions

Along with this vast increase in crime has come a breakdown in the very institutions one would normally look to for help. Government, world religion, science​—all have failed to stem the tide. Nothing seems stable, reliable. Even the vital family unit is breaking down swiftly.

For instance, last year there was an all-time high in the number of divorces in the United States​—839,000! They increased more than twice as fast as marriages. Now about one out of every three marriages ends in divorce. It is similar in other lands. In the Soviet Union their magazine Sputnik says:

“The divorce rate is growing in the Soviet Union and is having a serious effect on the country’s birthrate as well as on social and economic aspects of life. . . .

“In 1950 there were three divorces per hundred weddings, in 1960 the figure had risen to ten per cent, and in 1967 it had reached 30 per cent. . . .

“A feeling that the family unit is unstable is generated even among couples who are not thinking of divorce.”

Can people look to leaders in government to stem the general breakdown of society? The very fact that the problem increases decade by decade shows that they are unable to halt the decline. Furthermore, people increasingly doubt the trustworthiness of their political leaders.

Thus, in a recent interview, George Bush, Republican National Committee chairman in the United States, admitted that “there is a wide feeling in the country, independent of party, that politicians are corrupt.” This is but typical of the feeling world wide. The breakdown in respect for government officials can only quicken the pace of lawlessness and disorder among common people.

Nor have the leaders in science and industry proved to be a real blessing to mankind. While there have been impressive achievements in technology, has this really improved the overall quality of life? Modern technology is responsible for pollution, overcrowded and dangerous highways, monotonous work at machines, horrible weapons of mass destruction that each year cost a fortune. It is little wonder that a professor of physics at the University of Texas answered the question, “Can science save us?” by stating flatly: “No.”

Even the spectacular space achievements are proving shallow in their effect. More and more people have come to feel that these ventures have no relationship to earth’s problems. The enormous sums of money spent are now considered by many to be largely wasted. They feel the same as the individual who wrote to the New York Times, and said, in response to a claim that great benefits flowed from space exploits:

“We are told that our country’s investment in space has ‘bolstered the economy, improved the quality of life of our people, increased our national prestige, and contributed to our national security.’

“I wish he had told us how. The economy is desperate, our prestige is a sham, our quality of life is decaying and our national security is already at ‘overkill.’ . . . We ‘earth people’ are crying, just crying.”

‘Retreat into Barbarism’

If you face the truth squarely, you will have to see that, regardless of what world leaders have tried to do, security and the quality of life continue to deteriorate. That has prompted historian Toynbee to say that ‘today civilization is clearly beating a retreat’ into barbarism.

A reflection of this insecurity is the following item from Time magazine: “A panel of experts . . . calls depression ‘the most common form of mental disorder.’ Every year doctors treat some 4,000,000 to 8,000,000 Americans for it.” And another evidence of insecurity is the tragic rise of heart disease. The World Health Organization said that it has reached staggering dimensions around the world.

It is obvious that, before long, something in society must “give.” Things cannot continue this way without a vast change taking place. But is there a way out of these gigantic problems? Will people somehow be able to reverse these trends that are so deeply established? Or could it be that a completely new order is the only way to avoid disaster, one that starts afresh, right from the ground up?

[Box on page 9]

Root Causes of Economic Problems

“Everyone seems hell-bent on getting as much and giving as little as possible, on contriving shortages and disrupting production, and finding easy substitutes for honest and hard work. Everywhere there are signs of strife and unrest, among youth, among workers in factory and field, and most ominous of all among those who run the Government.”​—“The Times of India,” as quoted in the New York “Times,” August 16, 1973, p. 10.

[Box on page 12]

The Fading of Optimism

“Nothing remains of the somewhat naïve optimism of the nineteenth century when science and progress were expected to abolish all evils, both individual and collective. All traditional certainties are collapsing; cultures and civilizations are breaking up; humanity as a whole has become aware of the extreme precariousness of its existence.”​—From the preface of the book “La Mort et Ses Mysteries” (“Death and Its Mysteries”) by French psychologist Ignace Lepp.

[Graph on page 5]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

WORLD POPULATION GROWTH

WORLD GRAIN PRODUCTION

+2%

0

−4%

1971

1972

Result: 6-percent average drop in grain supply per person

[Picture on page 4]

How much evidence does a person need to prove he is going in the wrong direction?

[Picture on page 6]

What $1.19 bought . . .

in 1964

BREAD AND BUTTER, 7 ³⁄₄¢

FRUIT CUP, 7¢

SALAD, 16 ¹⁄₄¢

BEVERAGE, 5 ¹⁄₄¢

PEAS, 5 ³⁄₄¢

MEAT, 58 ³⁄₄¢

POTATO, 2 ³⁄₄¢

DESSERT, 15 ¹⁄₂¢

in 1973

MEAT, $1.02

DESSERT, 17¢

Is This the Way Out of the Confusion?

BEYOND question, there is confusion as to where mankind is headed. Millions also lack clear direction in their personal lives. What is the way out of the confusion? What prospect is there of a genuinely bright future?

‘We can always hope!’ some may say. ‘Man has always managed to get through crises in the past. Why not in our day?’ they ask.

Hope, of course, is good. But, if we face the facts, has not human history been a steady stream of shattered hopes? False hopes only lead to disillusionment. Only genuine hopes, solidly founded, can lead us to a worthwhile future.

So it is folly simply to hope blindly that ‘somehow things will work out.’ Action is needed. But that action must be in the right direction. Are men looking in the right direction for solutions?

Can National Governments Lead the Way?

Many people look to their national government to solve the major problems of life. They cry out: ‘Put our nation first!’ Their own nation’s well-being and security, they say, should be put ahead of any foreign interests. Often they want a strong government to restore ‘law and order’ and to crush social unrest.

But does concentration on one’s own nation first lead any country out of its difficulties? What about those who went that way in the past? All too often intensely nationalistic feelings have led to dictatorship. Consider Germany under Nazi rule. Germany came out of World War I in a destitute condition. But under dictator Hitler’s strong rule its recovery was rapid. Sweeping new laws revised the economic and social systems. Business prospered. Unemployment ended. But in it all, the average citizen lost his freedom.

This extreme nationalism was also very costly to the rest of the world. Millions of persons, including innocent civilians, died in the horrors of World War II. Nations were left in shambles, much of their wealth wasted. No, intense nationalism did not improve the world, not even Germany.

Has strong nationalism really improved matters in other countries? Has it solved the Soviet Union’s problems? Has it solved the problems of those lands recently made independent, such as in Africa? in the Soviet Union their economic and family problems, as well as the stifling of personal freedom, answer, No. In Africa vicious tribal warfare, poverty and a pattern of dictatorships answer, No.

Thus, many thinking people see that nationalism is really not the way out of man’s grave problems. They know from history that nations regularly rise and fall, and that no form of man-made government has ever really met the needs of all its people.

What About Man-made World Government?

Since the world’s problems have grown so large, many feel as British historian Arnold Toynbee, who said:

“Mankind’s strategic and hygienic problems are global and they are pressing; they cannot be solved by the governments of local states. They call for the establishment of a global authority endowed with overriding power.”

But is it realistic to expect that each nation will deliberately give up its sovereignty to such a world government? Have they ever? No, for the spirit of nationalism is too strong. That is why Toynbee warned: “Mankind’s survival demands political unity, yet mankind’s present mood is increasingly divisive.”

Even if the nations did submit and turn over their national interests to a world government by man, is it likely that they will get to the root of their problems? Does it seem logical that human leaders, who have failed to solve problems on a national scale, will do any better by combining, their efforts? Is a collection of individual failures any real basis for solving global problems?

But, then, ever so many people do not even worry about what can be done on a worldwide scale. Their prime concern lies much closer to home.

Pursuit of Selfish Interests

The great majority of people are far more concerned about their own selfish interests. They pursue a course that will get them the most material comforts and, so they hope, financial security.

But has this materialistic way of life, so eagerly pursued by so many people, lessened man’s problems? Look at some results.

There are now growing shortages of many of earth’s natural resources. Why? Because men have steadily stripped from the earth more and more of these resources to make the items demanded by consumers.

At the same time, this has spawned the “industrial society.” While it has brought some advantages, it has also caused millions of people to endure boring assembly-line jobs in noisy, crowded factories, with little prospect of ever doing otherwise. They often drive to and from work through eye- and throat-burning smog, along crowded roadways, many littered with refuse. Once scenic and restful beaches are now declared unsafe due to pollution.

Also, in their desire for material things, and in view of constantly rising prices, many men, and women, take on extra work to make more money. Yet families are crying out in neglect. Growing numbers of frustrated wives turn to alcohol. Children, not given proper attention, feel there is a ‘generation gap’ and so go their own way, often turning to drugs and immorality.

But drugs cripple and kill. Rampant alcoholism and epidemic venereal disease resulting from immorality take a fearful toll. The pace of life has become too fast for real enjoyment. Frustrations and tensions take an ever larger toll in mental disorders, heart disease and other ailments. And much of this has originated from the frenzied pursuit of material things.

Does World Religion Have the Answer?

Many persons today have what a Canadian professor called “a tremendous spiritual yearning for explanation.”

But fewer and fewer of them turn to the traditional religions in trying to fill this need. Why? Because they find the religions in disagreement, divided over major issues. Some clergymen even question the existence of God. Shifting standards as to what is right and wrong add to the feeling that the world has lost its bearings, is becoming like a rudderless ship.

For example, in 1971 many Catholic bishops in the United States called for an end to the war in Indochina, suggesting that it was an ‘immoral war.’ But earlier, church leaders said the opposite. Cardinal Spellman referred to U.S. troops in Vietnam as “soldiers of Christ” and said that fighting for anything “less than victory is inconceivable.” Major issues such as priestly celibacy and birth control remain unresolved arguments among Catholics, especially members of the clergy. Hence, many sincere Catholics remain confused, lacking confidence in Church leadership.

Protestant churches have been shaken by social issues in recent years. While some churches have accepted racial integration, others of the same denomination have not. Some churches support radical ‘leftist’ movements for social change; others of the same religion condemn them. The ordinary layman, caught in the crosscurrents, is confused, disgusted.

What has added to the bewilderment is that growing numbers of church leaders are condoning sexual relations outside marriage, and even adultery.

For instance, a Protestant chaplain at Vassar College said that ‘a full life can best be achieved when a man​—and his wife, too—​are free to engage in extramarital affairs [adultery], not secretly, but with each other’s knowledge and consent.’​—Current Medical Reports, January 1970.

More and more clergymen are also condoning homosexuality. An article by San Francisco clergyman R. W. Cromey in The Living Church, a weekly Episcopal Church magazine, says: “There is no sex act which in itself is sinful. . . . I also believe that two people of the same sex can express love and deepen that love by sexual intercourse [homosexuality].”

Yet the Bible expressly forbids fornication, adultery and homosexuality. People who practice such things, God’s Word says, are worthy of death.​—Rom. 1:24-32; 1 Cor. 6:9, 10.

Then, too, millions have turned to things such as astrology, Ouija boards, black-magic cults and even devil worship. Yet none of these have pointed the way for mankind to find true peace and security. They are, as a school administrator in Vancouver, British Columbia, says, just “another method of pulling a blind down on reality,”

Where Can You Turn with Confidence?

Is there anything one can turn to with confidence to guide his life correctly? Who can show us the right direction to guarantee our future happiness?

There is a proverb in the Bible that says: “Where there is no vision [or, “revelation”] the people go unrestrained.” (Prov. 29:18) This sound principle proves true in our day. With no clear vision of the future, no revelation to guide him, imperfect man’s blundering efforts have led to increasing troubles, bloodshed, immorality and heartache.

Yes, mankind certainly needs vision​—to see which way it is headed and what is the right course to take. Mankind needs special guidance that it cannot give itself. From where must it come? It can come only from a source higher than man. It must come from mankind’s Creator, Jehovah God. Only he knows for certain just where this world is heading and what will lead to a world free from disheartening troubles.

This is why Jehovah’s witnesses believe that the answer to the question, “Where is this world heading?,” is to be found in the Bible and in its prophecies. In over two hundred lands of earth, millions of persons are now studying the Bible along with them. Among the things these people have heard and considered is the significance of a certain date in our time​—1914. What has this date to do with our day and with your hope for the future?

Mankind at the Crossroads by 1914​—Why?

LIVING now in 1973, why should you be interested in the year 1914? Because​—whether you were alive back then or not—​you are affected by what took place in that year.

Since 1914 the whole world has become like a spaceship that has gone out of control, moving faster and faster toward grave danger. To know why this situation has come about we need to understand the chain of events that began in that year.

Compared with our violent twentieth century, the previous century is rightly described as “a century of peace.” In 1914 World War I broke out and changed all this. To appreciate just how great the change has been, consider the way historian A. J. P. Taylor describes continental Europe before the start of World War I:

“In 1914 Europe was a single civilized community, more so even than at the height of the Roman Empire. A man could travel across the length and breadth of the Continent without a passport until he reached the frontiers of Russia. . . . He could settle in a foreign country for work or leisure without legal formalities except, occasionally, some health requirements. Every currency was as good as gold, though this security rested ultimately on the skill of financiers in the City of London. There were common political forms. . . . Nearly everywhere men could be sure of reasonably fair treatment in the courts of law. No one was killed for religious reasons. No one was killed for political reasons, despite the somewhat synthetic bitterness often shown in political disputes. Private property was everywhere secure.”​—“From Sarajevo to Potsdam.”

Where can you find conditions like that today​—in Europe or anywhere else on earth? As Joseph Wood Krutch states:

“World War I [1914-1918] . . . put an end to several centuries of increasing optimism, comfort, self-confidence, and the sense that the future of civilization was secure because it had at last found the right road.”

Great Turning Point

The year 1914 marked far more than the end of the comparative peacefulness that had so long prevailed. It marked a crucial turning point in the history of the world of mankind, the start of a time of crisis that is finally nearing its climax. Looking back in history, this is what observers now say:

“As time has passed since the days of August, 1914, it has become increasingly clear that the outbreak of the First World War meant the end of an age.”​—“The Norton History of Modern Europe.”

“World War I was a significant milestone on the highway of world events. It marked the end of one epoch and the beginning of another.”​—Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy, introduction to the book “World War I: A Compact History.”

But what of the second world war, which ended in 1945 with atomic explosions? Does not this mark the real turning point for mankind? No! answer historians. And they show why not. Consider:

“The war of 1914-1918 is sometimes called the First World War and sometimes the Great War. The second is the proper title, for it was a turning point of history. The Second World War, and the Cold War, are only the heavings of the troubled earth as it tries to make a stable pattern out of the new emotions, new conditions, and new organisms thrown up by the Great War [of 1914-1918].”​—John Masters, “Fourteen Eighteen.”

“More and more historians look back upon World War I as the great turning point of modern history, the catastrophic collapse which opened the way for others.”​—D. F. Fleming, “The Origins and Legacies of World War I.”

The Turning Point Foreseen​—by Whom?

But did you know that, long before 1914​—in fact, more than a quarter of a century before—​persons were pointing ahead to that year as one to be of great significance for all mankind? History shows that sincere Bible students, known today as Jehovah’s witnesses, did just that. Note this:

Back on August 30, 1914, the New York World, in its magazine section, said, “The terrific war outbreak in Europe has fulfilled an extraordinary prophecy.” It went on to state:

“For a quarter of a century past, through preachers and through press, the ‘International Bible Students’ [Jehovah’s witnesses] . . . have been proclaiming to the world that the Day of Wrath prophesied in the Bible would dawn in 1914.

“‘Look out for 1914!’ has been the cry of the hundreds of travelling evangelists who, representing this strange creed, have gone up and down the country enunciating the doctrine that ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand.’”

Why did they point forward to 1914​—the very year historians now say was the “turning point” of modern history—​as a marked date? Bible prophecy led them to do so.

Seeing Jesus’ reference to the “appointed times of the nations” at Luke 21:20-24, they wanted to learn how long these “times” were due to run and when God’s kingdom by his Son would go into action, taking control of earth out of the hands of the political nations. (Dan. 2:44) They knew that God had long had a representative kingdom functioning on earth in the kingdom of Judah, its kings being said to sit ‘on Jehovah’s throne’ as his representatives. (1 Chron. 29:23) But that kingdom had been overturned in the year 607 B.C.E. when the head of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Nebuchadnezzar (II), crushed it. Well, then, if the “appointed times of the nations” for exclusive domination of earth began then, how long would their time run? When would it end? And what would this mean for us today?

A further link in the chain of evidence was found in the prophecy of Daniel, to which Jesus twice referred when prophesying about the setting up of his kingdom. (Compare Matthew 24:15, 21 with Daniel 11:31; 12:1.) The evidence there was that the “appointed times” would be seven in number. (Dan. 4:16, 23)a How much time would such “seven times” cover?

At Revelation 12:14 reference was made to “a time and times and half a time” or ‘three and a half times’ (“three years and a half,” New English Bible; also The New American Bible; The Jerusalem Bible). This same chapter, Re 12 verse 6, shows that these ‘three and a half times’ equal 1,260 days. Seven times, logically, would be double that: 2,520 days.

But after 2,520 days from the fall of God’s representative kingdom in Judah nothing had changed. And, since Jesus stated that the “appointed times of the nations” were still in progress in his day, six centuries after Judah’s overthrow, it is clear that more than 2,520 days are involved. What then?

Once more the Bible supplied the key. It revealed God’s use in prophecy of a day to stand for a year. (See Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6.) Applying this Biblical formula of “a day for a year,” the seven times amount to 2,520 years. So counting from 607 B.C.E. when the Gentile nations gained exclusive domination of the earth, when do those “appointed times” end?

The answer is 1914. Jehovah’s witnesses pointed to that year as early as 1876 in an article written by C. T. Russell and published in the Bible Examiner. Thirty-eight years later that marked year of 1914 arrived. With it came the outbreak of World War I and the multitude of drastic changes accompanying it.

Before This Generation Ends

Nevertheless, what does that mean for us today? Why place such great importance on the fact that the date of this particular turning point was foreseen through Bible prophecy? After all, here we are almost sixty years later. Of the people living in 1914 of sufficient age to know what was going on, most are not even living now, and those who do remain are up in years, old.

This is precisely why these matters considered are so important, vitally important, to all of us. Not only was the date of the world’s turning point foretold but the conditions that would follow were also foretold, and it was revealed just where mankind’s present course is leading, what its final result will be. And, very important for us, it was foretold that such final result would take place within the lifetime of just one generation, the generation that was alive in 1914.

Christ Jesus, the most renowned prophet in human history, was the one foretelling this. His prophecy was twofold. It would have a first fulfillment in that time (the first century of the Common Era) and a far greater fulfillment coming at the time for God’s Messianic kingdom to go into action on the world scene. In the prophecy, Jesus said: “Truly I say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all things occur.” (Matt. 24:34; Rev. 21:2-4) What has been the result?

What he said proved true in the first century. The first fulfillment of the prophecy became a matter of historical record less than forty years later​—in the lifetime of those hearing the prophecy.

Jesus had foretold Jerusalem’s utter destruction and the scattering of the Jewish nation. (Luke 21:5, 6, 20-24; compare Luke 19:41-44.) That is precisely what happened in the year 70 C.E. when Rome’s legions desolated Jerusalem.

We can be equally sure that, of the generation alive in 1914, some will see the major fulfillment of Christ Jesus’ prophecy and the destruction with which it culminates. This means that mankind is now in the most crucial time of its history, when the rule of this earth and of all human affairs will pass from the hands of imperfect political rulers and come to rest with a righteous government of God’s own making.

Why can we be sure of this? Again, is it simply because a certain date​—1914—​was foreseen as a point of world change? Is that all there is to guarantee that the “generation” foretold in Jesus’ prophecy dates from that time? By no means. There is a host of other reasons for having solid conviction that this is the case.

This is because Christ Jesus included in his prophecy a sign,​—a sign with numerous features that would positively identify the generation due to see his prophecy for our time fulfilled.

Do we today see that sign for our time? And, since the major fulfillment of the prophecy applies not to a single nation, but to all mankind everywhere, do we see this sign​—all its features—​on a global scale, earth wide?

[Footnotes]

[Diagram on page 19]

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1914, START OF FORETOLD “LAST DAYS”

One Generation

END OF OLD ORDER

START OF GOD’S NEW ORDER

[Graph on page 18]

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SEVEN SYMBOLIC TIMES

2,520 YEARS

B.C.E. C.E.

607 B.C.E. 1914 C.E.

In 607 B.C.E. God’s typical kingdom of Judah fell, and the Gentile kingdoms ruled the whole earth. In 1914 C.E. the “appointed times of the nations” ended, and “the kingdom of the world” was given to Christ

[Picture on page 17]

Millennial Dawners” 25 Year Prophecy

The World Magazine, August 30, 1914

The Identifying “Sign” of Our Times

WE DO not need to be in doubt as to where we are on the stream of time or where this world is heading. There is a sign telling us this. It is, in effect, a huge signpost, big enough to be read the earth around.

This global sign is in fulfillment of a prophecy given by Christ Jesus and found in the Bible at Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Examine, now, what that sign is composed of and then compare its features with what your own eyes, ears and other senses tell you is taking place today.

This many-faceted prophetic sign embraces these features:

A period marked by “wars and reports of wars,” by “great earthquakes, and in one place after another pestilences [disease plagues] and food shortages.” Among the people, a significant “increasing of lawlessness,” and “anguish of nations, not knowing the way out,” yet with materialistic concerns so occupying people’s attention that they show little if any heed to the warning signs around them.

Do we see this composite sign? Has it been visible since 1914? What are the facts?

Wars have erupted one after the other since 1914. The years from then till now are rightly called “The Age of Violence.” In his book The First World War, French General Richard Thoumin shows how this war differed from all previous. He states:

“Never before had so many countries and such large armies faced each other in such gigantic battles; never had such high proportions of combatants been killed or maimed; never had man gone to war with such powerful weapons. . . .

“The First World War was the first ‘total’ war, and as such made a profound impact upon the minds of all participants . . .”

World War I brought some ten million fatalities; World War II produced another fifty-five million. And just since the end of World War II there have been one hundred or more wars fought in different parts of the earth. The bombing done by the United States alone in the Vietnam conflict exceeded that done in the second world war by all the combatant nations combined.

Disease epidemics mock mankind’s twentieth-century medical advances. Just one plague, the Spanish influenza, killed 21,000,000 persons around the world in a matter of months during 1918-1919. The book 1918 Year of Crisis, Year of Change describes its disastrous effect:

“The influenza epidemic near the end of the war was so appalling that the medical world was ‘in an uproar’ . . .

“The fatally insidious part of the epidemic was that not only did the medical profession lack a cure, but there was no way to halt its spread​—and no other disease had ever spread so far so fast, according to the authorities of the day. . . . the world was suffering the most calamitous epidemic in its history. . . . The epidemic far outstripped the war itself as a mass killer.”

“In India alone, 12.5 million, or 4 percent of the total population, died in the epidemic. In the United States the disease took more than 500,000 lives.”

Now, cancer, heart disease, mental ailments, venereal disease, drug addiction​—all qualify as modern plagues of enormous proportions. Pollution poisoning is viewed by some authorities as a greater threat than even nuclear war.

Food shortages have made the specter of starvation or malnutrition a continuing part of the earthly scene since 1914. The war years of 1914-1918 saw famine in many parts of Europe; millions died of starvation in Russia. And The World Book Encyclopedia (1970) says that “after World War II, there occurred the greatest world-wide shortage of food in history.” The shortage worsens as one out of every three persons on earth today suffers malnutrition or is slowly starving. Food prices skyrocket in many lands.

Earthquakes have been shaking this planet since 1914 with notable frequency and violence. They have cost over 700,000 lives and incalculable property damage, devastating entire cities, such as Managua, Nicaragua, and ripping huge mountains apart, burying whole towns under tons of earth.

Lawlessness spreads growing fear in city, town and countryside. The cost of crime in the United States alone has risen to fifty-one thousand million dollars a year! Especially notable is the growth of crime among so-called “respectable” people. Executives and “trusted” employees in the United States are stealing from their companies at the rate of eight thousand million dollars a year.

But lawlessness is not limited to thievery, murder and similar crimes. The period from 1914 onward has seen a surge of lawlessness due to the overthrow of more and more of mankind’s moral standards. Religious organizations in growing numbers either ignore or set aside God’s laws as found in the Bible, classifying them as “outdated” and “impractical.”

The foretold “anguish of nations” is here. World leaders obviously do not ‘know the way out’ of the pressing problems and manifest growing confusion. More and more persons immerse themselves in materialistic pursuits, seeking to close their eyes to the evidence of the world’s drift toward disaster.

Yes, perhaps the strongest evidence of all that we are now in the foretold crucial time is that seen in people themselves. Compare these words of the inspired apostle Paul with what you yourself observe today:

“You must face the fact: the final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. Men will love nothing but money and self; they will be arrogant, boastful, and abusive; with no respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection; they will be implacable in their hatreds, scandalmongers, intemperate and fierce, strangers to all goodness, traitors, adventurers, swollen with self-importance. They will be men who put pleasure in the place of God, men who preserve the outward form of religion, but are a standing denial of its reality.”​—2 Tim. 3:1-5, “The New English Bible.”

Surely those words fit the generation living on earth since 1914 as they fit no other generation in history. Nor should we expect a reversal of that trend. Rather, we can be certain that, as this same prophecy warns, such persons “will make progress from bad to worse, deceiving and deceived.”​—2 Tim. 3:13, NE.

What our own eyes see and our own ears hear bear testimony to us that we are living in the “final age,” the “last days.” The last days of what? Not the last days for this earth nor for all humankind, but the last days for the present world order and all who prefer it and who continue with it in its downward course.

The prophetic sign identifying our times, therefore, is visible in all the earth. The facts clearly fulfilling these are staring us all in the face. They have come exactly at the foretold time and in the foretold way. World leaders cannot explain why the world is on its present troubled course or just where it is all leading. Why not, then, give serious consideration to the enlightening vision the Bible gives showing what is just ahead of us?

[Picture on page 21]

The sign foretold for our time is now visible earth wide, telling us exactly where this world is headed

EARTHQUAKES

WARS

FOOD SHORTAGES

PESTILENCES

You Can Survive the Coming Collision

THE world is heading with accelerating speed toward collision​—a collision that soon will utterly wreck the present world order. Yet there will be survivors of that collision, and these will take up life in a new world order.

Will the wrecking come as the result of all-out nuclear war? or a global ecological disaster? or an international financial crash? No, none of these present dangers will be the cause of the smashup. This is made certain by the one source that foretold with accuracy the present course of world events, namely, the Bible, the inspired Word of God.

The conditions it forecast are here, affecting us, threatening us, daily becoming more complex and troublesome. Surely, then we should not shut our eyes to what that prophetic Word shows is just ahead.

According to the Bible the coming collision will be a clash between governments​—but not just another war between nations. The clash comes over the issue of world domination. The contenders are, on the one side, all human governments of the whole earth and, on the other side, God’s own government, his promised kingdom by his Son, Christ Jesus. Of that government and of our time, the inspired prophet long ago wrote:

“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”​—Dan. 2:44.

But why should such a clash come? Why must it result in the complete wrecking of the entire present world order? What will follow?

Why the Collision Is Unavoidable

The situation is much like that of a man who owns a beautiful piece of land. He allows other persons to reside on that land, free of charge, even supplying them with many of their basic needs, allowing them to make use of all the things the land will produce for their benefit. He rightly expects of them, however, that they will use the land in a decent way, not for criminal or immoral purposes; that they will keep it clean and work for its improvement. Yes, they having accepted his generosity, he properly expects that they should gratefully have his interests in mind and heart.

What, then, if such persons steadily turned the land into a virtual garbage dump, engaged in bitter fights and bloody violence, along with lewd conduct? And, when the owner sent representatives to them to urge them to correct their course, what if they mistreated such spokesmen, even killing some of them? Should the owner allow them to continue using his land? Or should he evict them, forcibly if need be? If he were to let them continue on, would he not share responsibility for their rotten conduct? Could his name be held in good repute by others and could he merit their respect if he failed to take action?

This is the situation now existing. This earth, viewed from the barren regions of the moon, has been described by astronauts as a lovely “jewel in space.” All that man has been able to learn about the universe testifies that this planet is unique​—its marvelous life systems and conditions are rightly described by scientists as “miraculous.” Earth obviously has a Creator and Owner, and the Bible identifies that One as Jehovah God, “the Maker of heaven and earth, of the sea, and of all that is in them, the One keeping trueness to time indefinite.”​—Ps. 146:5, 6.

By God’s toleration, imperfect men have dominated this earth according to their own will for the major part of 6,000 years now. God has let them go to the limit in their efforts to carry out their schemes and satisfy their ambitions. What does the record they have built up now show?

It shows that men have grossly misused this earth and have ignored or willfully rejected God’s will regarding it. True, many of them have prayed, “Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” Yet the facts show that mankind in general has taken, not only a course of independence toward God, but one of defiance toward him and toward his announced purposes for the earth. But how can that be, when so much religious worship is carried on by so many millions earth wide?

Basis for Eviction

The words of the inspired apostle Paul well describe the situation when he says: “They publicly declare they know God, but they disown him by their works.”​—Titus 1:16.

Yes, the evidence shows that so much of the world’s religion has been hypocritical. A tremendous amount of human blood stains the earth and much of it was spilled in the name of religion. The violence and cruelty of the various Crusades, the Thirty Years’ War, the Spanish Inquisition are history. Just as historical is the religious support given warring nations in World Wars I and II​—clergymen on opposite sides urging their national armies onward in mutual slaughter with assurances of God’s favor. As an article in the Catholic St. Anthony Messenger magazine of May 1973 states:

“The Christian churches often convey the impression that they will bless any war or adventure the leaders of the state decide to launch.”

The twentieth-century rate of killing and the millions of dead moved the editors of one British magazine to say that this slaughter constitutes ‘an indictment of our own species’ very right to occupy this sector of the universe.’ Yes, the brutal destruction men have carried on in their struggle for political and commercial power has caused grave reproach to the heavenly Owner of this earth. It is reason enough for him to sweep them away.

Yet the world continues in the greatest arms race ever, inventing weapons for even more massive killing and destruction of property. What the prophet Isaiah wrote of the apostate people of Israel applies with equal force to mankind in general today:

“Their thoughts are hurtful thoughts; despoiling and breakdown are in their highways. The way of peace they have ignored, and there is no justice in their tracks. Their roadways they have made crooked for themselves. No one at all treading in them will actually know peace.”​—Isa. 59:7, 8.

Slowly but surely this world is turning this planet into a vast garbage dump. While he was secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant was moved to warn that worldwide pollution had reached the point where, unless immediate steps were taken to correct the situation, “the very capacity of the planet itself to sustain human life will be in doubt.” Yet greed for wealth causes men and nations to keep on polluting lakes, rivers and oceans, poisoning the soil and befouling the air​—much like a tenant who cares not one bit about protecting the property of his landlord. Jehovah God therefore has declared his determination to “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”​—Rev. 11:18.

Despite the announcement made of God’s own choice of government to administer earth’s affairs, men have stubbornly persisted in their efforts to rule the earth independently of God. They have tried every imaginable type of government. Rulers have been changed over and over again; citizens have repeatedly replaced one set of men in power with another set. Yet the majority recognize that their problems have not been solved but, instead, have worsened. And people commonly acknowledge that political governments often have been riddled with corruption, dishonesty and oppression. It was, in fact, ex-president of the United States Harry Truman who wrote that to make out, well as a ruler a man “can’t live the Sermon on the Mount” but “must be a Machiavelli, Louis XI of France, Caesar, Borgia . . . a liar, double-crosser, a hero and a what-not to be successful.”

Yet the majority of earth’s population today turn a deaf ear to those who proclaim to them the good news of God’s promised kingdom or, worse, they mistreat and even persecute such Kingdom announcers. At the same time, world leaders, religious, political and others, stand up and prophesy glowing things for the world in the future. And, though all the evidence shows these predictions to be sheer falsehood, the people “have loved it that way.” (Jer. 5:31; also Isa. 30:9-11) Since they have chosen this course and stubbornly hold to it, God has no alternative but to ‘bring their way upon their own head.’​—Ezek. 9:9, 10.

Yes, human rule of the earth independent of God has proved a miserable failure. Jesus’ words concerning religious leaders of his day well fit all the world’s leaders in our time: “Let them be. Blind guides is what they are. If, then, a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matt. 15:14) Their misuse of earth will result in a head-on collision with the one government able to accomplish God’s will toward this earth, his kingdom by his Son.

The collision is certain because God will never abandon his righteous principles so as to avoid this violent encounter. That collision will smash to bits this entire world system, as long ago foretold in the prophecy at Daniel 2:34, 35, 44, 45. Then God’s own government will take over the direction of all earth’s affairs for the lasting good of all then living.

How can you survive that coming collisions? Only by taking your stand loyally and firmly now on the side of that righteous government. You will thereby show that you really mean it when you pray to God: “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.”​—Matt. 6:10.

Then to you the words of the psalmist will apply: “A thousand will fall at your very side and ten thousand at your right hand; to you it will not come near. Only with your eyes will you look on and see the retribution itself of the wicked ones. Because you said: ‘Jehovah is my refuge,’ you have made the Most High himself your dwelling; no calamity will befall you.”​—Ps. 91:7-10.

Consider now the thrilling opportunities that will open up to all obedient mankind in that coming new order.

The Way Leading to Life in True Happiness

CONDITIONS all over the earth are due to make a complete about-face in the near future. The magnificent change soon to come will result from the fresh start that God will give mankind.

But obviously mankind needs help in order to receive this fresh start. How true the words found at Jeremiah 10:23 have proved to be: “To earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”

How will God help man out of his dilemma? Not by remodeling or reforming the present world order. God’s Son said: “No one cuts a patch from a new outer garment and sews it onto an old outer garment; but if he does, then both the new patch tears away and the patch from the new garment does not match the old.” (Luke 5:36-38) The new order that God’s Word foretells will not be just a ‘new patch on an old garment.’ It will completely replace this old order because the old order is beyond cure or reform. It has never solved mankind’s greatest need.

What is mankind’s greatest need? How will God’s kingdom government fill that need?

Meeting the Need Successfully

More than all other things mankind needs to gain freedom from human imperfection and the bondage that goes with it.

Is that imperfection not obvious to all of us? We see it in our own bodies, we can sense it in our own minds and hearts. We have a constant struggle, trying to hold to what is right and good, while finding ourselves leaning toward what is wrong and evil.​—Rom. 7:22, 23.

And, even though we may hold to a right course with mind and heart, our bodies still get sick, grow weak, become aged, and answer the call when death knocks at the door. Life’s shortness pressures people to try hurriedly to ‘get all they can while they can.’ It pushes them toward impatience, selfishness, unconcern for their neighbor. All are affected​—from the poorest peasant to the most powerful potentate. The world’s troubled course is, in fact, but a reflection of the human imperfections and weaknesses found in the millions of individuals that compose the world.

What, then, will the government that Jehovah God has assigned to rule our earth do? That government is specifically designed to get at this root cause of human troubles. How will it do so? To understand how, we need first to understand how human imperfection began. The Bible, the only reliable record of human history from its beginning, makes that clear.

It shows that man’s Creator is not the source of human imperfection. Of Jehovah God, the Bible says: “Perfect is his activity.” (Deut. 32:4) Mankind at the beginning, therefore, was perfect. So were man’s first surroundings. We would not expect the Creator to have brought man forth on a barren desert or on a garbage heap, would we? Nor did he, for the Bible shows that God started human life off in a garden home, a region named Eden, and that he instructed the first human pair to see that the whole planet became such a garden, telling them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it.”​—Gen. 1:28.

But the perfection that Adam and Eve enjoyed, and the blessings that went with it, were all conditional​—depending upon their continued obedience to the One who gave them life. Their perfection included their possessing the faculty of free will. What does that mean?

It means they were free to choose the course that they would follow. But they would have to accept the consequences of their choice. They could submit to their Creator’s will, or they could go against that will. By obedience to his will they could retain their perfection; by disobedience they would suffer the loss of it.​—Gen. 2:15-17; compare Deuteronomy 30:15, 19, 20.

The historical record shows that Adam, the first father of us all, willfully violated a simple but clear-cut law that had been given to him. He lost perfection, not only for himself, but for all his unborn offspring. Thus we read: “Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”​—Rom. 5:12.

Just like copies made from a mold or pattern that has a flaw, all of us descendants of that first man have been born with inherited sin, the inborn tendency toward wrongdoing and selfishness. The entire human race, then, came into a severe disability from which no person could free himself by his own efforts. That disability was an enslavement to sin and all its effects, including sickness, pain and death.

Thus, as Romans 8:20, 21 states: “The creation was subjected to futility, . . . on the basis of hope that the creation itself also will be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Yes, God did not purpose that mankind should futilely strive forever to get free from enslavement. He has provided a grand hope. How has he done this?

To free mankind from this enslavement, while at the same time meeting the proper demands of divine justice, God’s Son while on earth offered up his own life in sacrifice. Mankind’s forefather Adam had forfeited the right to perfect human life for himself and all his offspring. None of Adam’s descendants could free mankind by paying over as a ransom a perfect human life, for none possessed this. As Psalm 49:7 says: “Not one of them can by any means redeem even a brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.” But Christ Jesus could and did. He willingly gave “his soul a ransom in exchange for many.”​—Matt. 20:28.

He, then, is the vital factor that will bring to an end mankind’s downward slide into weakness and death and start all obedient ones on the road back to perfection and life. That is why Christ Jesus, in speaking to his disciples of his future reign over earth, referred to it as a time of “re-creation” or “regeneration.” (Matt. 19:28) His life-restoring administration will educate and guide all its subjects in righteousness, including all those resurrected from their graves. It will administer the benefits of his ransom sacrifice to bring them to complete freedom from sin and imperfection.​—Rev. 20:12, 13.

This is beautifully described in the last book of the Bible in a prophetic vision. There God’s government is represented, not by any of today’s powerful capitals, such as Washington, Moscow, Peking, London or Paris, but by a symbolic city called the New Jerusalem, a heavenly capital. Showing the effects of the extension of Kingdom power to the earth, the account says: “And [God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”​—Rev. 21:2-4.

How grand, when the aging process in humans is reversed and, with the help of God’s Son as High Priest, they return from the road to death and the grave and start back on the road to the freshness and vigor of youth! We can have confidence that the head of God’s government will not be harsh in his direction of earth’s inhabitants as they work to bring their lives ever more fully in harmony with God’s will and purpose. For with reference to Christ Jesus’ priestly service, in view of his experiences here on earth, Hebrews 4:15 says: “We have as high priest, not one who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in all respects like ourselves, but without sin. Let us, therefore, approach with freeness of speech to the throne of undeserved kindness, that we may obtain mercy and find undeserved kindness for help at the right time.”

Coming Government Opens Way to Global Blessings

While supplying the greatest need of all mankind in providing the means for them to gain freedom from sin and death, that government will also provide the solution to all others of mankind’s problems. It will give mankind what it has always needed and never had​—one government that rules the entire earth.

The problems of earth’s inhabitants are all interwoven. We all have this one planet for our home, and only if all unitedly use this home in the right way can there be full enjoyment of it. The dividing up of the earth into the present patchwork of nations and kingdoms with their frontiers and zigzagging political frontiers and their tariff walls and other barriers has worked against any genuine global cooperation.

God’s kingdom by his Son will smash all those barriers and erase all the political divisions off the map. Then earth’s produce will flow freely and, under God’s blessing, abundantly. King David’s prayer of long ago will find its greatest fulfillment in the rule of Christ’s Messianic government, namely: “Let him judge the afflicted ones of the people, let him save the sons of the poor one, and let him crush the defrauder. . . . In his days the righteous one will sprout, and the abundance of peace until the moon is no more. And he will have subjects from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. . . . There will come to be plenty of grain on the earth; on the top of the mountains there will be an overflow.”​—Ps. 72:4-16.

With heavenly direction this planet will come to be the global garden that God purposed it should be. (Gen. 1:28) Gone for all time will be the specter of hunger and famine, the sight of children with spindly arms and legs and swollen bellies. What a blessing it will be to see the end of nationalistic pride, of racial prejudice and tribal hatreds as all surviving persons unite in one grand human family, free to move about the whole earth without hindrance!

What a blessing, too, to be no longer under human political governments, committed to maintaining huge armed forces and weaponry, with mankind bearing the crushing tax burden now mounting to some $200 billion a year! How much can be done on earth with all its resources being used for constructive, helpful purposes instead of to the damage and hurt of mankind! For all those then qualifying to live under God’s one government will have had to fulfill personally the prophetic picture at Micah 4:3, 4:

“And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. They will not lift up sword, nation against nation, neither will they learn war anymore. And they will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble; for the very mouth of Jehovah of armies has spoken it.”

Gone, too, will be the giant commercial systems that have waged commercial war and fostered the spirit of greed and hard-hearted ambition that often leads to actual shooting wars. Brought to an end will be their befouling of the earth and polluting of it for selfish gain. In place of selfish competition, all those living under God’s righteous government will practice loving cooperation. Yes, genuine love of God and of neighbor will enable the subjects of God’s kingdom to accomplish, for the betterment of this earth and life on it, things a thousand times more wonderful than all this present world’s industrial, technological and scientific systems have ever done.

Work, then, can become genuinely satisfying, knowing that it is truly to the honor of the Most High God and for the tasting good of one’s fellowman. Yes, best of all, persons can then enjoy a truly close, meaningful relationship with their Creator, having the positive assurance that they are doing what is right and best.

Under God’s righteous rule the prophecy at Isaiah 32:17, 18 will see its grandest fulfillment ever: “And the work of the true righteousness must become peace; and the service of the true righteousness, quietness and security to time indefinite. And my people must dwell in a peaceful abiding place and in residences of full confidence and in undisturbed resting places.” What a blessing to have such security, to know that​—whenever you hear a knock on your door, day or night—​you can open to the one knocking without fear, knowing that, whoever it is, he or she is your friend!

This world​—not the planet Earth but the masses of mankind—​goes stubbornly, blindly, on the road that can lead only to destruction. Its course can only lead to a disastrous collision with God’s heaven-powered government. Yet the majority prefer to ignore the foretold signs, minimize the dangers, and shut their ears to the warning now being sounded earth wide by those placing their full hope in God’s promises. What, though, will you do?

Can you see the futility of man’s age-old gropings after peace and security by human methods? Can you see the failure of man-made governments and systems to solve the most serious problems facing all humans? Do you see the wisdom of God’s way and why it must be the only way that can possibly lead to genuine life in true happiness? Then you need to take decisive action now.

You will want to learn more about the course that God has outlined in his Word for those wanting to attain the grand goal he sets before us. If you have not already done so, why not accept the invitation of Jehovah’s witnesses to have a free Bible study in your home to answer your further questions? While time allows, find the way that leads to life​—for your own eternal welfare and that of those you love.

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After the end of this wicked system of things, the earth will come to be the global garden that God purposed it should be

Watching the World

Can the U.N. Give Direction?

◆ U.N. Secretary-General K. Waldheim, in introducing his annual report on the organization’s work, says that, because of mankind’s pressing problems, “the necessity for global cooperation has never been so great or so urgent.” Yet he charged member governments with unwillingness to cooperate on problems. Waldheim says they want the U.N. to be little more than “a forum for the pursuit of national policies.”

Warning Unheeded

◆ Four years ago the then U.N. Secretary-General U Thant said the nations had perhaps ten years left to solve their problems. Now, World magazine editor N. Cousins asks, Are conditions better? He notes that military expenses earth wide are 20 percent higher, “the largest single item of human activity.” While population soars, the amount of food-growing land diminishes. Pollution of air and water continues. Says Cousins: “In the large, the world’s leaders have not taken U Thant’s warning seriously. If the next four years show no greater progress than has occurred during the past four years, then the ominous predictions of the Club of Rome [that man will destroy himself] may eventuate ahead of schedule.”

African Witnesses Lead the Way

● The work of Jehovah’s witnesses is banned in several African nations. Bryan Wilson of Oxford University says this may be because some African leaders consider them ‘easy targets.’ But at what cost to these nations? Wilson, writes in a recent issue of New Society: “The banning . . . may cost more than it looks, however. Witnesses . . . have been uniquely successful in getting their following to keep high standards of moral rigour and self-discipline. They instill the values of hard work, punctuality, sobriety and self-respect. Their members reach a quality of family relationships that is highly exceptional in East Africa. Their techniques of instruction and indoctrination are extremely effective in moral as well as in doctrinal matters . . . The stock rhetoric of African politicians is the condemnation of tribalism. Paradoxically, the Witnesses are perhaps more successful than any other group in the speed with which they eliminate tribal discrimination among their own recruits.”

Substitute Wars

◆ There are no large wars currently being fought by the major powers. But is there peace? Says the Hamilton, Ontario, Spectator: “The world is essentially a lawless place. There can no longer be a war between the major powers, for that inevitably means nuclear weapons and annihilation. It is not virtue and love of peace that makes mankind avoid a major war, it is the certainty of oblivion. But smaller wars up to the ‘conventional’ limits of violence and destruction may still be waged, Failing these, the pent-up poisons of international hatred and frustration can find release in terrorism with its frequent concomitants of killing and destruction.”

Garbage Crisis

◆ “America’s cities are smothering in garbage, and 46.5 percent will run out of places to dump their trash within five years,” says a major study on the subject. Solid waste disposal from cities has doubled in 20 years. Complicating the problem is the public’s “fascination with packaging,” 90 percent of which is trashed. Federal laws favoring the use of virgin materials and transportation rates that discourage scrap shipment are cited as the reason for “only 1 percent of municipal wastes [being] recycled.”

Premarital Sex Favored

◆ A recent Gallup Poll shows that less than half the Americans interviewed believe that premarital sex is wrong. Four years ago two out of three persons held that view. The Sunday Oklahoman calls this “dramatic evidence that the United States is undergoing a ‘sexual revolution.’”

But Not Politics

◆ Another Gallup Poll reveals that less than one adult American in four (23 percent) would like to have his son enter politics. The figure was 36 percent in 1965. The main reason given for opposing such a career is that politics is “too corrupt.”

A Rabbi Views Homosexuality

◆ Jews are also condoning homosexuality. Rabbi Phillip Horowitz in Cleveland, Ohio, says: “The modern homosexual would resent the fact that his behavior is considered immoral.” A Plain Dealer editor who interviewed the rabbi observes: “His own view is that what happens in privacy between two consenting adults is nobody’s business.” The rabbi claims that Hebrew law (as at Leviticus 18) condemns homosexuality because Bible writers connected it with pagan idolatry. But the same law also forbade sexual intimacy with one’s sister. Is that, too, only because of pagan idolatry?

1972 Weather

◆ A recent edition of the Bulletin of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, describes 1972 weather as peculiar all over the world. Ireland had the coldest June in a hundred years. Moscow had the hottest summer, but only after ice stayed on Soviet rivers a month longer than normal. In Spain there was more rain than at any time since 1859. Unusually strong winds and rain killed people and smashed homes, ships and trees in the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and Japan, Extreme heat killed 750 in India. Hong Kong had hard rains and disastrous landslides. Australia suffered both severe drought and flooding.

Leisure Time

◆ How much leisure time do you have? A recent report by Andresen and Company, a New York security research company, says: “The average working adult American spends approximately one-third of his (her) life sleeping. Of his 113 waking hours per week, he spends about 38 hours working and 25 hours eating, dressing, and commuting to and from work. This leaves 50 hours for leisure.” And how is that leisure time used? The report shows that forty hours go for watching television or listening to the radio!

Most Widely Read News Magazine!

Are you surprised that Awake! magazine holds that distinction? Awake!, published in 29 languages, is read in over 200 lands. More than 7,500,000 copies are printed each issue, a total of over 190,000,000 just last year!

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[Picture on page 31]

Awake!

What Can Be Done about Crime?

APRIL 22, 1973

When War Is No More

A world without war is at hand!

How do we know? Will it be the present world leaders who will eliminate war?

The answers are found in the new 192-page book True Peace and Security​—From What Source?

Read about the prospects of success for efforts to rid the world of war. Learn why past peace efforts failed and what the only sure means for establishing lasting world peace is.

Order your copy. Besides English, it is available in the following ten languages: French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Italian, Danish, Finnish and Swedish. Only 25 cents.

Please send the following copy (or copies) of the hardbound book True Peace and Security​—From What Source? I enclose $‐‐‐‐‐‐: English [ ]; French [ ]; Portuguese [ ]; German [ ]; Spanish [ ]; Dutch [ ]; Japanese [ ]: Italian [ ]; Danish [ ]; Finnish [ ]; Swedish [ ].