The LSD Craze
LSD has leaped into the news recently.
It's one of the newest of the hallucinatory drugs, supposedly sold only under prescription, and to be used primarily by psychiatrists in the treatment of mental patients.
Some of the most widely circulated weekly news magazines have told how LSD has permanently damaged the very personality and character of its users.
Still, the youthful, the fearful, the frustrated and futile search for an escape from reality. Reaching out, they seize whatever means available to propel themselves swiftly out of this noxious world of fright and evil portent — into a dreamland of "heightened perception."
So some have heard voices telling them to jump in front of moving trains. Others have been told to leap at the moon, and bark like dogs. And some have STILL not recovered.
Little do the dumbly led and ignorant fools who indulge in such things realize they're opening the door of their minds to demon possession, to satanic influence! Laugh if you will — medical science still has much to learn about what they call "schizophrenics" and "split personalities."
Yes, WHY? WHY do youngsters, or adults either, for that matter, go to Such EXTREMES to BLOT from their minds the frightening realities around them?
Simply because they're frightened. They're scared. They're terrified of the present, and awe-stricken about the future. They see NO HOPE for the world, and NO SALVATION for mankind, or themselves. They've simply QUIT TRYING. They've given up — and, perversely, tried to sink down into the mire of their own personal physical experiences to blot the apprehensions from their brain.
But no one ever really escapes from reality.
Rather, they only compound their problems by creating new and different ones, and not solving any that do exist.
Believe it or not, this mad rush for physical satisfaction in the face of disaster was prophesied!
Paul told Timothy, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures MORE than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away"! (II Tim. 3:1-5)
And you have witnessed, with your own eyes, this very prophesied SOCIAL REVOLUTION in the past two decades!
You have SEEN, and you KNOW you've seen, more degeneration, more public blasphemy, more truce breaking, more SELF-LOVE, more disobedience to parents (juvenile delinquency), and more LOVE OF PLEASURE than at any other time in all history!
The Bible means what it says!
And, incredible as it seems, your Bible prophesied the paradoxical escapism of today. God said mankind simply WOULD NOT FACE the plain truth about world conditions. He prophesied men would turn to PHYSICAL PLEASURES in the face of imminent national DESTRUCTION!
He said men would become licentious, lewd, lascivious, filled with SELF-love as NEVER before — and during the exact time of the greatest collection of urgent problems this world had ever seen!
The Unacceptable Present
Britons just can't face the fact their once-proud Empire is gone! The bitter fruit of becoming a third-class power is almost too much. And Great Britain has thoroughly CORRUPTED herself almost as No other nation!
British television is shocking. Immorality, homosexuality made "legal" by the highest authorities in the land, mounting venereal disease, rampant gambling, wild, impassioned frantic "demonstrations" by weird, ghoulish-looking youths — these have become the familiar British scene.
British "humor" is becoming a sardonic, acidic, sarcastic, disillusioned, frustrated, abandoned type of carping at life. Public officials, royalty, religion, marriage, the courts, law, decency — anything that smacks of stability is impugned, sniped at, ridiculed, mimicked, belittled, besmirched, and made the brunt of caustic "jokes" which are anything but funny.
It's as if the British public is embarked on a dizzying course of insane and inane fools' laughter at anything and everything that represents the "old-fashioned" terms: "honesty," "stability," "decency," or "morality."
And the fruits of this bizarre type of escapism?
Only further emptiness. An unsatisfied, gnawing feeling of unfulfillment, of hopelessness and futility.
Britain sees herself sinking slowly into national irrelevancy — and she hates every moment of it. So most Britons simply refuse to think about it.
They choose to play. They choose to watch idiocy on the "boob-tube," or carp at public officials, or take "holiday," or gamble. They prefer a lively discussion at the local pub about football, or the latest sex scandal, or the latest lurid article on a yellow rag called a "newspaper" in which there is no "news"; only suspicion, scandal, or lewd and suggestive stories.
And in the United States, Australia and many other nations it's not much different.
Rising crime, spiraling divorce, mounting immorality, weakening religion, deepening racial tension, increasing economic difficulty, disappearing national resources and surpluses; it's enough to make anyone who doesn't know the true outcome TRY to escape!
Ezekiel Predicted It
Ezekiel wrote to OUR peoples! He meant the pleasure-loving Australians; the gambling, drinking Britons, the sex-obsessed Americans, the passion-driven Canadians and South Africans.
You can prove our peoples are mentioned in your own Bible by writing for your free copy of our booklet, The United States and the British Commonwealth in Prophecy.
Ezekiel wrote of future calamities to befall our peoples of ISRAEL!
Yet he wrote of Israel over one hundred twenty years after the peoples of Israel had already GONE into captivity! Ezekiel was a slave. He was inspired to write his messages, even though commanded to give those warnings to the leaders of many great nations!
But Ezekiel never got to the heads of state.
He never delivered the messages!
Like the prophecies of Daniel, the message of Ezekiel has remained closed, HIDDEN from human understanding until Now! Write for our free article, "WHY PROPHECY?" for further understanding of this vital point.
Notice the plain language in which Ezekiel spoke concerning this obsessive drive to ESCAPE THE IMMINENT REALITY of impending national destruction!
"Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men ["spiritual" leaders of the nations] that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city, which say, IT IS NOT NEAR! Let US build houses . . ." (Ezek. 11:2-3).
And today you're told about "gross national product," and glowing predictions about our marvelous glamour world of tomorrow, when wives can sneak down to the corner drugstore, and get an "anti-grouch" pill for hubby.
You're told "God is dead," and asked, "Who-was Christ?"
You're besieged by cries of the "new moralists" who seek to strip from our societies the last vestiges of sanctity, chastity, decency and morality.
True to the prophecy of Ezekiel, the cry today is ESCAPE! Build new homes, buy a boat! "Any two-car family can afford a boat," says one add. Drink, have new "experiences" with others, urge the "women's" or "girlie" magazines.
Emblazoned across the covers of thousands of our periodicals and magazines is the single word, "SEX" to keep your mind on yourself — to keep you primed with LUST and DESIRE!
And why?
Because of a nagging FEAR millions share. They FEAR World War III. They FEAR the "bomb." They FEAR when they hear of political and military clashes in the world.
Notice what God says about it. "And the Spirit of the Eternal fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Thus have ye said, 0 House of ISRAEL: for I know the things that are come into your mind, everyone of them. Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, [there are more murders in Houston, Texas, each year, than in many European countries] and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain. Therefore thus saith the Lord Eternal; your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it!" (Ezek. 11:5-7)
We talk of the "flesh-pots" of the world, the big, sprawling cities of gambling, vice, and crime. And people FLOCK to the Londons’ and Las Vegas' of the world — in droves — by the millions! But God says He'll suddenly EMPTY the dimly lit, smoke-filled dens of foul rot and filth; says He'll pour their sallow-faced, unhappy-looking crowds out into the streets, and send them running frantically into the countryside for TERROR!
Notice it! "Ye have feared the sword [the very REASON for our frantic desire to blot out the present] and I WILL BRING A SWORD UPON YOU!" (Ezek. 11:8)
No one will ever escape the certainty of the coming calamities by kidding himself they don't exist. No one will really find protection; real escape, by refusing to face the awesome FACTS of this day in which we live.
But there is a way to REALLY ESCAPE! And I'm not talking of some type of "sanctimonious," "self-improvement" or "positive thinking" course!
I mean LITERAL escape. Escape from the horrors of war. Escape from race riots, from drought, famine, disease epidemics. I mean escape from the ravages of weather and other "natural" calamities that will soon strike this earth in increasing fury!
I'm talking of the escape Jesus Christ offered His only TRUE Disciples — those who would be diligently performing His own WORK on this earth!
Listen to what He said about it!
"For then shall be GREAT TRIBULATION [including, in verses 5 through 7, wars, drought and famine, disease epidemics, and earthquakes] such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened [cut SHORT, by the supernatural intervention of Almighty God], there should NO FLESH BE SAVED!" (Matt. 24:21-22)
NEVER before has mankind lived in a time when those words were so poignantly REAL! NEVER before have we lived in times when the total annihilation of humankind was possible by THREE SEPARATE METHODS!
But Jesus said those days WOULD be cut short.
He said God WOULD intervene! And He said that intervention would come so a number, called "the ELECT,"
WOULD ESCAPE!
Notice it! ". . . but for the ELECT'S sake those days SHALL BE shortened!" (Matt. 24:22)
Jesus Christ of Nazareth said, "Watch ye therefore [and He meant watch world conditions — which He had just outlined to His true servants] and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to ESCAPE all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man" (Luke 21:36).
He promised, "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation [TRIBULATION] which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth!" (Rev. 3:10)
THAT is the only true escape left to any human being!
God says these approaching calamities are SURE. They really WILL happen! Blotting them out of our minds will not make them go away — but facing them squarely, admitting conditions really are "that bad," and seeking our Creator for His protection in the times ahead will save us from them!
Jeremiah was inspired to write, "Alas! for that day is great, so that NONE IS like it [the SAME times of which Christ spoke] it is even the time of Jacob's [Israel's] trouble; but he shall be saved out of it!" (Jer. 30:7)
Those of us who know God's true plan, and who know He has given us a part in HIS own work are NOT fearful of the future. We face the future with a feeling of security, of confidence and FAITH.
It's about time you faced reality squarely — and find out how you may escape!