The Good News of the
Wonderful World of Tomorrow

Adapted by Charles J. Voss and Sandra K. Zawada
Based on an article by Herbert W. Armstrong

Chapter 1 - Three World Views -- Only One Is Going to Happen

Turn on the radio or television and what do you hear? Bad news and more bad news designed to put you into a state of fear, panic, and to terrorize you. However, we are here to tell you the Good News! Good News? Yes, the Good News of the Wonderful World of Tomorrow (WWT) and what it will be like. Take note that it will happen whether you choose to believe it or not. It is as sure as the rising of tomorrow's sun.

We hear on the news about "world peace" that will come from a one-world government. Contemplate on how humanity's view of world peace has been tried by human beings for 6,000 years to no avail. To give you a piquant example: the goal of Adolph Hitler was to bring about a thousand years of peace. Would you want Adolph's kind of "peace"? Not me!

Humanity will not / can not bring about world peace. Why? Because to have "world peace" under human guidance is an impossibility for any number of reasons. The main reason is that the "human nature" of the rulers cannot handle total power and use it for the good of all mankind. Look at Iraq and Lebanon; people can be bombed into submission, but they cannot be forced into peace. In addition, the submission only lasts while the bombers are overhead.

Nevertheless, the good news is that there will be those who will enjoy peace in all of its abundance on planet earth. Joy and gladness will fill the earth as water fills the sea. ¹ There will be blissful happiness. Utopia? Why not? Why should it be an imaginary or impossible dream? There is a cause for today's world chaos and threat of human extinction and that cause is the way of "get and hate." In the WWT the CREATOR of the cosmos will replace man's way of "get and hate" with His way of "give and love" which will bring a utopia that is real and is successfully functioning.

We see all around the world that evil is happening every single day. There are natural disasters happening in catastrophic proportions and there is no sign of the patterns being broken. So how will all of this end? In addition, what will cause this world to do a total switchover where there will be peace instead of war? What will cause us to beat our swords into plowshares? ² A world of plenty instead of want! How will such an incredible changeover be brought about?

Most people will tell you of their thoughts trying to imagine what death is like and what eternal life is like. But, truly, what will this Wonderful World of Tomorrow look like? We can also ask other questions such as: How will this WWT be governed? Who will rule when there is peace and happiness?

Most of what we are experiencing in the education, medical, scientific, and technological fields were predicted decades ago. Now we are experiencing a sick and dying world that is traveling down a wrong path. Where is all of this taking us? We know that we are headed for some very troublesome times. We also know that there will come a time when the trouble will stop and there will be wonderful peace. Peace like you have never experienced before. Peace that is so above your thinking that it is hard even to imagine it. The peace we are speaking of is not just the cessation of war. It is peace based on each and every human being on earth having a spirit of give and love. Here is an example:

Isaiah 11:6 ³ (TLB). In that day, the wolf and the lamb will lie down together, and the leopard and goats will be at peace. Calves and fat cattle will be safe among lions, and a little child shall lead them all. The cows will graze among bears; cubs and calves will lie down together, and lions will eat grass like the cows. Babies will crawl safely among poisonous snakes, and a little child who puts his hand in a nest of deadly adders will pull it out unharmed. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all of My Righteous Mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so shall the earth be full of the knowledge of ETERNAL.

In these pages, you will be given a surprising, exciting look into what is certain in the soon coming Wonderful World of Tomorrow--what really is ahead and why. Today there are three views--two widely held by world leaders and neither one of them is going to happen. In addition, it's the biggest, best news ever reported in the history of mankind. What actually is going to be the outcome of all this for our frenetic, entertainment-crazed, tinker-toy, gadget-buying, yet chaotically divided, sick and dying world, is something totally unseen by statesmen, scientists, religious men, educators, and world leaders.

The Enchanted World of Science UpToIndex

Paradoxically, science and technology have dangled before our eyes a glittering, glamour-world of their making. The enchanted world of science was to be a fantastic, push-button dream world of "the three Ls"--leisure, luxury and license. They have been working to produce unbelievable material devices they believe will convert this world into a glorified heaven. Ignoring the stark reality of conditions described just above, that is.

Aldous Huxley said:

"Most prophecy tends to oscillate between an extreme of gloom and the wildest optimism! The world, according to one set of seers, is headed for disaster; according to the other, the world is destined--within a generation or two--to become a kind of gigantic Disneyland in which the human race will find perpetual happiness playing with an endless assortment of ever more ingenious mechanical toys."

How true and also how ironic that those voicing the most glamorous predictions of science and industry seem to totally exclude the stark reality of world conditions--and, for that matter, seem unable to comprehend the additional snarls and problems their own predictions would bring. However, leaving the facts aside, let us take a look at some of the speculations for our future.

In his book, futurist Herman Kahn ⁴ more than 30 years ago suggested that the world economy will continue to grow well into the next century bringing a growing standard of living and increasing affluence to the majority of the world's population. He painted a picture of a prosperous global utopia by the year 2176 brought about by continuing technological advances--with plenty of energy, food and raw materials for all. Kahn predicted:

"Two hundred years from now, we believe, people almost everywhere will be rich, numerous and in control of the forces of nature…"

In his scenario written in 1976, the world two centuries from then…

"will contain some 15 billion people with a staggering world-wide per-capita income of some $20,000, compared with only about $1,300 today."

In a previous study focusing on life in the United States in the years to CE 2000, Kahn forecasted a glittering utopia coming a great deal sooner than the world at large. He predicted that in the years just ahead, Americans would be enjoying:

"three-day weekends, three-or four-month vacations, Southern California-type living with the emphasis on family and home, high income, an abundance of material things...." "People will live in ten-room houses, earn a disposable income (after taxes) of multiple tens of thousands of dollars, and enjoy a four-hour work day five days per week--or maybe even a six-hour work day and a three-day week with a four-day weekend.

In essence, we are to look forward to a life of almost complete idleness and leisure--the "good life" day after day after day. In short, a perpetual vacation. But wait would that be this Utopia? Does this kind of society sound truly good to you?

Although most of those predictions have happened, we are actually worse off today than we were 30 years ago. We have more problems today than we did when life was slower and less technological. We have less leisure time and definitely more stress.

Just for a moment think about those predictions. Think about all the many problems they have created rather than solved. Yet multiple millions, especially in the United States, still anticipate such developments hopefully in their own lifetimes while turning a blind eye to the ominous warnings by other respected scientists who see instead impending doom for large segments of the world through famine, pestilence, and war. These two scenarios do not even take into consideration what is happening in our world today e.g., the shattering of the borders between the US and Mexico, the quicksand war in the middle east, nor does it consider the effects as the world's oil markets switch from dollars to Euros.

Can a tiny segment of the population of one nation expect to succeed in achieving ever more dizzying heights of material wealth playing with an ever more dazzling assortment of mechanical gadgets and ignore the awesome problems of the rest of the world?

Only a few decades ago there were those predicting new knowledge in biological science applied to medicine, giving new insight into, and partial control of, aging, heredity, genetic altering, mental illness, heart disease, cancer, and virus infections.

Whole hosts of ingenious devices in the fields of applied physics and advanced engineering would provide even better super-sophisticated computers, communication satellites, novel transportation techniques, space exploration probes, and a newer and more glittering array of medical instruments and techniques.

Envisioned were bigger crowds at bigger stadiums watching bigger athletic contests. Recreation, physical pleasure, and fun would be widespread. More golf courses, more swimming pools, tennis courts, dance halls, bowling alleys, high-definition color television sets--these were predicted to aid society in seeking ever more heightened pleasures.

What we got was also predicted: increased crime, gambling, sexual promiscuity, unrest, fear, hatred, air and water pollution, traffic congestion, noise, and lack of solitude. More and more there will be no place to hide.

Even back in 1976, Dr. Kahn in his study of the United States of the future admitted that the "utopian" changes in life-styles and work patterns could carry with them some traumatic consequences. "Many," he explained, "will be satisfied but others will find such a life meaningless and purposeless, and they will look for something to fulfill them." Kahn suggested that we may see more riots and irrational movements along with a turn to mysticism, cults, and drugs as a means for such fulfillment.

We have seen an upsurge in drug usage with certain drugs--notably marijuana, meth-amphetamine, cocaine, "angel dust" (phencyclidine, also called PCP), ecstasy, date-rape, crack, and a host of other drugs becoming increasingly accepted by larger numbers seeking escape from modern society and becoming a crisis of epidemic proportions in the U.S. according to police and hospital officials.

Accidents, suicides, homicides--all have been the end result of using illegal drugs. Yet multiple thousands continue to "find reality" through their use.

After drugs...then what? What other forms of escapism would the supposedly affluent, leisurely utopian life of tomorrow bring with it assuming it comes about at all? Reading such reports of the "bad news" as well as the "good news," we may well have doubts about whether we want to be around in such an age.

Would We Really Want It? UpToIndex

We must begin looking at society in general. The same report adds that because of intensified social, ethnic and racial problems, the cities of the future will be "seething centers of periodically great turmoil and confusion."

"For the underdeveloped world... the ‘plight of the average man' will have deteriorated. People will be more poorly fed and there will be fewer goods per person. Every attempt to improve the situation will be wiped out by the continued population growth. Hunger, starvation, and famine periodically and continuously will stalk major portions of the planet...."

Then, almost incredibly, the report said probably "for the first time in history, every child everywhere will be at school--if they are not starving in a famine."

So goes the misleading and often conflicting foretelling of the future by science, industry, and technology. Not very happy predictions, are they? Other prognostications abound--even about our personal futures. Some included in that early report ⁵ of 1976 are amusing now such as:

• Choosing the sex of children before they are conceived--1980.
• Artificial plastic and electronic organs for humans--1982. (Wouldn't you far rather avoid getting sick, and keep healthy organs of your own?)
• Artificial heart implantations; brain linked to computer--1985.
• Chemical synthesis of inexpensive, nutritious food; cancer conquered--1990.
• First human clone; brain transplants commonplace--1995.
• Transplantation of almost all organs of the body--2000.
• Alteration of the processes of aging--2005.
• Biochemicals to aid the growth of new organs and limbs--2007.
• Widespread use of artificial insemination to produce genetically superior offspring--2010.
• Drugs to raise the level of intelligence--2012.
• Fetuses grown in artificial wombs--2015.
• Genetic engineering in humans by chemically modifying their DNA chains; human brain linked with computer to enlarge man's intellect--2020.
• Total mastery of human genetics and heredity--2030.
• Suspended animation of life--2040.
• Complete control of the aging process; man-made immortality--2050.

The predictions are almost endless. Economists, sociologists, geneticists, psychiatrists, even zoologists and anthropologists are having a hand at predicting the varicolored and kaleidoscopic never-never land of tomorrow--glittering and glamorous for the few; filled with grisly specters of horror for the many.

What World Leaders Expect UpToIndex

The two most widely held views are divergent ones--paradoxically pointing in opposite directions. Many world leaders now expect--though they probably do not dwell on the thought--that nuclear destruction eventually, perhaps soon, will erase human life from this earth.

Besides nuclear annihilation, there are several other means by which mankind could be destroyed from off the face of the earth: chemical warfare, biological warfare, overpopulation and resulting famine, disease epidemics, extreme weather conditions, worldwide volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and environmental pollution--just to mention a few.

Consider these facts: Human life is sustained by air, food, and water. Today man is polluting his life-sustaining supply of these three necessities at a fast-accelerating rate. Air pollution, filling the air with gases, smoke, smog, fallout from nuclear test explosions, and fluorocarbons from aerosol spray cans, not only threatens man but renders plant life sick.

Many rivers and lakes worldwide have been so seriously polluted that the water supply in many places is reaching a crisis stage. Added to that, one of the ways that hazardous waste material is "gotten rid of" is deep well injection. Just contemplate what that is doing to our underground aquifers.

Man has depleted and ruined the very soil out of which our food must grow. Artificial fertilizers, poisonous sprays, and erosion caused by floods have robbed vegetables, grains, and fruits of life-sustaining minerals and vitamins. Adding to this is not to rotating crops and allowing the fields to rest every seven years as Scripture instructs. Food factories have further extracted these vital elements out of grains, rice, and sugar in the greed for profits. Add to these the worldwide revolution in the weather--droughts and floods--resulting in mass starvation now in some parts of the world, and widespread epidemics of disease as well. During the past half century in Africa, India and South America alone, weather and environmental damage has caused the loss of over one million square kilometers (over 247 million acres) of agricultural land. In addition, the rate of destruction is accelerating.

If all these fast-accelerating evils do not destroy humanity soon, the experts say the population explosion will.

The web page entitled "Total Midyear Population for the World: 1950-2050" presents the latest estimates and projections of world population from the U.S. Census Bureau. The world population increased from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion by 1999, a doubling that occurred over 40 years. The Census Bureau's latest projections imply that population growth will continue into the 21st century, although more slowly. The world population is projected to grow from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2042, an increase of 50 percent that will require 43 years. ⁶

Even now, with our population of 6.6 billion, more than 850 million people today are gravely undernourished and unable to obtain sufficient food to meet even minimum energy needs. Approximately 200 million children under five years of age suffer from acute or chronic symptoms of malnutrition; during seasonal food shortages, and in times of famine and social unrest, this number increases. According to some estimates, malnutrition is an important factor among the nearly 13 million children under five who die every year from preventable diseases and infections such as measles, diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia or from combinations of these. ⁷ As global population soars, the imbalance of human numbers and rapidly dwindling resources threatens to become even further aggravated. If the world cannot now adequately care for 6 billion, just how will it cope with 8 billion...or 12 billion?

Leading scientists look at this world picture and say they are frankly frightened. Even way back during the time of W.W.II, Sir Winston Churchill ⁸ stated that "we need a strong hand from some where" was needed to save us. The scientists warn us that man's only hope lies in the admittedly impossible--that the nations form a super world government capable of unitedly acting on these problems on a global scale before it is too late. However, nations that are hostile to one another could never form such a government. Moreover, the humans then in authority would be no more able to cope with all nonmilitary evils that threaten the extinction of mankind than present leaders.
This widely held view of the future offers no hope and it will not happen!

What Will Happen? UpToIndex

Painted by Mimmo

So there you have the two opposite, divergent views of scientists, statesmen, educators, religious men, world leaders--one glowingly optimistic about the progress of society; the other utterly hopeless. However, both of these concepts are false.

Man wants desperately to save the society he has established upon this earth. Nevertheless, this society--this civilization cannot be saved! Man, himself is bringing this world to destruction. The Mighty One will soon step in and create a new, peaceful, and happy society--the Wonderful World of Tomorrow.

Do you know why our loving ETERNAL SOVEREIGN inspired the men who penned the Hebrew Scriptures down through the centuries? It is one of the Mysteries of the Ages. His purpose was simply to proclaim the Good News of the Wonderful of Tomorrow and provide a guide for us to live by so He can share that World with us His children.

Isaiah 52:7 (NKJV). How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, "Your SOVEREIGN reigns!"

Therefore in the end those who love the SOVEREIGN, obey Him, and choose His Way will live their eternity with Him.

Read the Chapter 2 - One Last "Obituary" Look at Today's World