Talk About Living
Let me tell you about the guy I met in Karachi, India. These were the "good ole days." I was doing a bit of living myself. One morning I woke up in the base hospital, felled by a mosquito. They called it Gandhi fever. All night long I wondered why I didn't die. It was the one time in my life that I really wanted to!
At age 22 I had come to India, then China, to be a hero. Two Jap "zeros" — the second to prove the first wasn't an accident — captain's bars and the Distinguished Flying Cross were all that I wanted. The fellow beside me, with his .45 pistol slung over the foot of his hospital bed, had already successfully achieved this goal of mine. In fact, he had surpassed it.
He was the first of the AVG (American Volunteer Group, Flying Tigers in China), a very handsome young man, clean-cut, a good tan, broad shoulders, a warm smile, white teeth — the works. You teen-age girls would have swooned. He filled me in on the details of combat in China. As I remember, he had five or six "zeros" to his credit. I listened and planned. how I'd get my two, the medals, fame, and at the same time help win the peace.
Only one thing was wrong. My friend hadn't told me why he was in the hospital. However, I found that out later — one morning after he shot himself!
I was sleeping next to the wall that separated our room and the shower. A shot rang out — just one! The duty nurse ran through the room into the shower and screamed! There sat my friend in the shower with the top of his head blown off. The .45, his own, lay in a pool of blood between his knees. He'd been very neat about it, wrapping a towel around his head and carefully placing the .45 in his mouth before pulling the trigger!
The problem?
He'd lived too much!
Being a handsome man, a pilot, a hero, it wasn't too difficult to find a girl friend. The fact that she was Chinese didn't make much difference.
My friend had contracted a disease similar to syphilis; only this was the Chinese kind called "the Chinese rot"! His genital organs had rotted right off his body. His orders read: "transferred to the States for medical treatment."
Back home he had a girl friend. This one he wanted to marry — they were engaged. He showed me her picture. She was tall, tanned and brunette. They would have made a handsome couple. Her dad was quite wealthy, well known — a man of position and responsibility. My friend had it made — until he started "living"!
A Low Blow?
Now that was a low blow! A little more of what it's really like "to live" and some of you "not so wise" will be "trapped" into believing that it really does pay to obey God! That this world's ways really are rotten, sick, degenerate and the way of pain. If you're not careful, you'll be so "unfortunate" as to miss out on some of these "good times" your friends are having — like, "Mom, I'm in trouble — what do I do now?"
Of course, it's not too bad out there! You've heard the statistics. Only 45,000 teenagers in the U.S.A. have been stricken with syphilis since you read last month's sports news! Another 45,000 contracted gonorrhea — at least that number got reported.
Syphilis is only up 230 percent over 1956. It's possible that you could "live" a little and be one of the "lucky ones"! Perhaps with a little luck you could escape what constitutes the U.S.A.'s most urgent "communicable disease." That's forgetting suicide (90,000 college students threatened to kill themselves last year; 1 in 10 tried it). Suicide is skyrocketing for all ages. A major factor for suicide today is a broken law written in Exodus 20:14. Some of you should be able to quote it from memory! It covers fornication, too, you know!
Most Shouldn't Need Convincing
But then, I shouldn't have to convince most of you that it's dangerous out there. Down deep you really should know the kids next door aren't really "having fun"! You know that they are waking up with headaches; that quite a number of this world's present teen-age generation is on "the smoke pot" and many are raving maniacs. Most of you have seen the hard looks, the grim faces. They're all around! You've read about Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, the hippies, hell's angels, the mods and the rockers.
No, they're not really having fun, are they? Their sense of values is perverted. Anyone who would settle for the darkened, demented, sick way of this world in preference to God's way is kind of like the African native who traded his diamonds and ivory for a few yards of cheap, bright red cloth and a few five-and-dime store trinkets. The eye-catching trinkets glittered for a while before turning black.
Something else can be wrong in the teenager's mind who knows or has proven God exists and that His way is the right way to live. If your mind has been in gear at all, then you know the "live-it-up" method is only a short, short five-and-dime store glitter type of life before cancer, heart trouble, suicide, shotgun weddings and the reality of a sick, sick mind and body.
What's wrong is that you teenagers (7-, 8- and 12-year-olds, too) haven't begun to comprehend your future right here in this PHYSICAL LIFE!
You really are sitting on a real gold mine, a treasure chest full of diamonds, rubies and ivory — yet some who know God's way are waiting for "the chance" to trade it all for a little bright red cloth — a little "living now”!
That's up to you. You're the one that has to live with the decision. Before any of you make the wrong decision, read on — what you're offered is far greater than most of you have imagined. No teenager in his right mind could afford to turn it down.
The Cream of the Crop
The golden opportunity offered you reminds me of 28 years ago and an opportunity that I had. But it was for "peanuts" compared to yours! As flying cadets we were told that we were the "cream of the crop" from the U.S.A.'s manhood. They let us know that our training cost the government several hundred thousands of dollars. Such a large amount of money impressed me. I worked hard to obtain the choicest plum, the glamour of a fighter pilot.
It wasn't easy! After the band quit playing, after the few brief moments of preinduction glamour, it was time to go to work. The cadet had to prove he was "the cream of the crop," that he was worth the large expenditure of capital. Each cadet spent hours, day after day, week after week, of grueling training, drilling, studying, marching, bracing and yes, even flying.
The prewar cadet spent hours bracing until every bone in his body ached. How would you like to spend 20 minutes sitting on a chair that didn't exist? Try that for size, some of you tough guys! Life as a cadet included marching in the heat, runway temperature 125 degrees or above. The weaker passed out, which meant "washed out" of the cadets.
To obtain this physical goal I've sat hours on end pivoting on a point in the BT 13 trainer (a maneuver that would make many a sea captain sick), swallowing vomit that if not contained meant "washed out." We fought, worked, sweated and dreamed flying, all for the glorious privilege of risking our "necks" in slaughter alley, trading 50-caliber machine gun fire with a Jap "zero" or a German ME 109. We did it for the glory of some ribbons to pin on our chest, to impress the girls, the kids and family back home.
We toiled and trained like Olympic athletes to obtain an "earthly goal" — a "corruptible crown." All that we amassed — the ribbons, the kills, the prestige — has long since passed along with its fleeting moments of glory. The ribbons, the medals, the memories (some not so good) are all neatly tucked away — almost forgotten!
What you are called to share so far surpasses my goal of the past that there is no way to really compare! I was offered a 5-cent candy bar — you, the Queen Mary by comparison. To get it you're going to be required to work, to give, to have more guts and determination to receive your plum than I did as a flying cadet. That makes sense, doesn't it?
Your Magnificent Future
Someone has to be the earthly, physical rulers over the nations, provinces and kingdoms of this world. Who else can be trained to rule the physical world tomorrow if it isn't the teenagers, the children who grasp the real meaning of life and are willing to sacrifice now in order to really live tomorrow!
True, in the soon coming world tomorrow, there are going to be spirit beings ruling in many of these positions of authority, but physical people — you, the educated cream-of-the-crop adults of tomorrow — are going to be the physical leaders serving under these spirit beings. That's what you should be qualifying for now!
teenagers — do you know how many there are of you living in this present wicked world who are exposed to the right way — the way of rulership tomorrow? Desperately few!
There are about 130 sovereign nations and states on earth today. If you count the colonies, trust territories and mandates that contain ethnic groups that could become nations, the number is almost inexhaustible. That's not counting the other positions such as mayor, judge, governor, councilman and the thousands of other physical offices of administration needed to support the Government of God when it comes.
Is that enough of a challenge for you? When God sets about punishing this world for its evil, the wicked for their vice, men will become "more rare than finest gold, men scarcer than gold ore from Ophir" (Isa. 13:11-12, Moffat). The nations will continue to exist. People will be left living on this earth!
The Fabulous 80's Only Moments Away
In the office of a king, governor, mayor or administrator, you will co-rule with spirit beings (those of us changed at Christ's coming). You will take orders, but you who learn to obey now will also give orders — the right kind, to many other physical humans in the wonderful World Tomorrow. You will live in palaces that are palaces, eating steaks that are steaks, served grapes the size of golf balls (Num. 13:23-24), living the full, abundant life as it was intended to be lived!
Your personal home, regardless of the stature of your office, is going to be "out of this world." In today's world only the very rich can afford a home on the beach, the lake or stream. Tomorrow, if you like the fun-filled out-of-doors, you will be able to afford a home equipped, not only with hot and cold running water, but with a natural trout stream meandering through the living room. You may decorate your 90'x100' living room with natural plantings, banana trees, ferns and all manner of tropical plants bearing luscious fruit. As a matter of fact, a real 50-foot waterfall can also be a part of the decor rather than today's four-foot man-made innovation. Instead of house cats or stuffed "teddy bears" your children can have their own personal lion (Isa. 11:6). They will have a ball!
If you prefer the city, that, too, will be as different and as rewarding. No more smog, industrial dirt, slums, crime, heat waves, jangling, nerve-defying noises, death-dealing snowstorms, or hate! The asphalt jungles, the cities of today, are to be demolished. In their place will be well-planned, well-designed and wonderfully organized park-like cities, cities of peace and quiet, planted with all manner of beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs, all naturally watered by God.
The city, state or nation you co-rule will have problems — ALL SOLVABLE! Traffic congestion, gas-spewing automobiles, weird queers, delinquents, all will become a memory of the wretched bygone days known in history as the terrible 60's and 70's!
The city you choose to rear your children in will be full of faithful, God-fearing wives and husbands, obedient to God's laws. Happiness will be supreme. Peace will be everywhere. Streets will be safe. Children and old men will be playing and walking in them (Zech. 8:4-5). Every government will be God's government. Its citizens will know love to the fullest — no enemies. Your children will be safe. "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isa. 11:9). You and every inhabitant on earth will be following God's commands. Those who won't will be few and under continual surveillance (Isa. 30:21). All parents will teach their children God's truth. You will teach your children about God's wonderful way (Deut. 6:7). When your children ask you about the "terrible 60's and 70's" (Deut. 6:20), you will tell them how the whole world was freed from sin, how God delivered this world from Egypt (verse 21). The life you lived, the old world, its crime, perversion, divorce, murder, rape, weather problems, starvation — all will seem strange to your children when you tell them of yesteryear.
When you tell them how the world destroyed itself and about the devastating and catastrophic series of earthquakes which struck this earth until it wobbled and reeled on its axis, their hair will stand on end! You will be able to recount how God saved your life when the earth broke open and great, vast chasms swallowed up block after block of pre-millennial homes and apartments — people and all!
You will have to grit your teeth and tell them about some of your friends who took the easy, shallow, foolish way of this world and how their children were dashed to pieces before their eyes and their wives ravished, raped and spoiled in the siege (Isa. 13:16). You will, for your children's sake, tell them about those who chose "to live" this world's life and in distress, anguish and horror ate the flesh of their own sons and daughters. You will recount the story of the delicate daughters of sinful Israel who in the siege were so famished that they secretly ate their own afterbirth amid the strait of the siege (Deut. 28:53, 56-57)!
As far as your eye can see, it will be a world of peace and security. Everyone you meet will be your friend, your brother. Race riots will only be an ugly memory!
That's Not All — There's More
Then at the end of your physical life, AFTER YOU have overcome the flesh, you will be changed into a spirit being in an instant, in. the twinkling of an eye. Your change will come when you are older and have lived a full physical life in the flesh. You will then be able to appreciate the spiritual gift of being a spirit being — a God! You will be given eternal life, a life that transcends and supersedes all joys and happiness’s here on earth by a billion fold! Spiritual life is so vast, so magnificent that it cannot even be compared with the earthly, physical moments of joy (Rom. 8:18).
YOU WILL THEN AT THIS TIME BECOME THE ONLY GENERATION IN ALL TIME THAT HAS LIVED IN THREE WORLDS — THE WORLD TODAY, THE WORLD TOMORROW AND FINALLY THE SPIRIT WORLD OF GOD!
What a gigantic, glorious future you have ahead of you! There is only one sad part. Some of your friends, those who are weak, lack real guts and courage, stamina, true masculinity or femininity and the qualities so necessary to receive this magnificent future — they will be dead — either for eternity after a short third resurrection or until the Great White Throne Judgment Day of a thousand years from now.
You, if you read, heed and obey, can become the special cream-of-the-crop students of the kingdom, just as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They, in a physical government, were the skillful, the knowledgeable, teachable, highly favored children appointed to learn the Chaldean tongue. You, too, as you read this article are called to be approved of God to far GREATER POWER to be the rulers of this earth in just a few more short years.
You can FLUNK OUT at an unbelievably high cost, or you can succeed and inherit the unlimited, undreamed-of, astonishing, amazing World Tomorrow! You can help usher in the new world! Succeed and you will rule over hundreds of thousands of adults, teenagers — some your very own "I want to live now" friends.
Do you have what it takes? You can have the glitter of this sick, dying, wretched world for a couple of short, short years — or, if you have guts, stamina, courage and character — you can rule in the wonderful World Tomorrow!
Which will it be for You?