The World Turned Right-Side Up

We all want it. A better world. A world that makes sense. We want more peace, more safety, more prosperity. We yearn for no disease, no murder, no theft, no lying, no divorce.

Why can’t we have a better world? And why is this world so far from it?

Human beings have tried every way we could think of to make the world better. In every age, in every iteration, in every cohort, in every style imaginable. We’ve debated Plato’s philosopher kings, Cicero’s republic, More’s commonwealth, Augustine’s City of God. We’ve read Locke’s treatises on government, Hobbes’s social contract, Rousseau’s principles of politics. Christians believe in some form of it; so do Jews, Muslims and others.

For millennia, we tried to find paradise lost, sail to the new island utopia, get back into the Garden of Eden. We’ve looked for a natural Shangri-La on the lost horizon. Or we’ve dreamed of a world where “everything is achievable through technology,” as one recent movie character said.

We put it to the test. In Germany, the United States, Canada, Israel, Russia and would-be paradises beyond, we’ve taken the bold step of putting it into action. It’s been totalitarian and anarchist, communist and capitalist, natural and industrial, classless and classified, religious and atheist, multicultural and mono-cultural, technological and ecological, open and closed, restricted and free, fictional and real.

It failed. One hundred percent of the attempts, one hundred percent of the time: untopia.

Paradise has been confined to the pages of fiction. Yet even there it has gone awry. Writers have explored utopias in antiquity, utopias in space, utopias populated by humans, by single-gender beings, by sexless beings, by homosexuals. Even fictional utopia is dissonant, ringing of a Nineteen Eighty-Four dystopia, Lord of the Flies, or something worse.

Even a discussion about mankind’s greatest goal, a perfect society, is depressing. All the more so when we realize just how far our real society is from even that imperfect, self-conflicting ideal.

What would life be like if you knew what a perfect world was like? What if you knew it actually is coming, and coming soon? What if you knew how to get there?

There is hope. Not in reforming this world. But in the wonderful World Tomorrow.

It Is Coming

The Bible is actually full of prophecies—certain prophecies—pointing to a better tomorrow.

Against all odds, against a literal world of evidence to the contrary, God says this wonderful World Tomorrow will happen! Read His bold prediction in Isaiah 2 and 11. It is coming, God says!

People will be unified, war will be abolished (Isaiah 2:1-4); sickness will be healed, deserts will blossom; prosperity will flourish, honesty will thrive (Zechariah 3:10; 8:16); people will love each other (Matthew 22:37-39).

But how can any of that ever occur? How could you get just one nation, just one state, just one town to live in harmony for even one year?

There is an important reason the world will be this way. It’s how people think. We live in a carnal world ruled by carnal people who insist on finding their own carnal way through life, who define right and wrong for themselves.

Since that original paradise, the Garden of Eden, human beings have rejected following God and letting Him define what is right and wrong. They have followed instead the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), the real author of God-rejecting human nature. Finding “utopia” under the influence of Satan (Ephesians 2:2) is more impossible than even the most calloused skeptic imagines.

Man simply cannot govern himself.

God can. And God will. After man proves how inept he is at bringing a better society and plunges himself into a horrific tribulation, God will intervene and save man from himself (Matthew 24:22). Then, He will depose the evil god of this world and take over Himself to rule humankind righteously (Revelation 20; Micah 4:3).

When the only government official truly qualified to do so rules the Earth, He will start to build a new world, a better world. He will give man what he has been so sorely missing for thousands of years: His way of life (Isaiah 11:9).

Imagine a world—a real world, not a fantastical dream—of happiness.

Rules That Work

A new birth of character will uplift the entire world—education, business, science, agriculture, health, sports, literature, language, music, art, even the average backyard barbecue conversation—to heights that will make the early 21st century look barbaric by comparison. This isn’t reform. This is a different world.

No more indefinable, masquerading “morality,” or sliding-scale “standards,” or “personal preferences,” or “lifestyle choices,” or “codes of conduct,” or even “family values,” as if righteousness were a neutral mathematical variable. Mankind will live according to one way of life.

With Satan’s influence eliminated, finally, people will know that yes, there is such a thing as right. Yes, some things are absolutely wrong. What “feels right” is not the same as what actually is right. And we are required to find out what that is and do it.

It’s not just that the world will share one way of life—dictatorships can accomplish that. The key is that this way of life is the right way of life.

It’s the truth.

Just as laws govern biology and physics and astronomy and mathematics and every other part of the universe, laws govern people. It’s only rational. Certain causes have certain effects. Something causes happiness. There is one right law of life that produces happiness. It’s out there. So the question becomes, how do we find it?

Are we sure we can trust ourselves to do it? Do you really know the right way to live? Do I? Does some guy in his living room somewhere? No. The only authority that can define the right way of life for humans is their Creator. His “definition” of right and wrong applies to everyone. And He allows—actually requires—people to think and decide for themselves whether or not to follow it.

The truth, after all, is not a religion. It’s not a political platform. It’s not a philosophy. It’s the way things actually are—scientifically, socially, spiritually.

A World of Love

It’s simple. The principle of this way of life is so plain you can memorize it: give instead of get. Read the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. Christ summed them up in one word, love: “[T]hou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind …. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mark 12:30-31).

Imagine that world. No rampant crime. No horrific terrorism. No ugly warfare. No fragmenting cultures. No racism. No self-destruction. No gender confusion. No victims groups. No poisoned tongues. No scientific dishonesty. No intellectual intimidation. No political correctness. No insane religions. No killing, no lying, no stealing, no coveting, no adultery, no excuses.

If you’re stuck upside-down in the early 21st century, this world might seem beyond belief. But you can take a step toward it. Look at the world around you. Judge the results of this carnal experiment and its failed utopias. You can be a part of this world—or you can take a step toward something better. Something that makes a lot more sense.

It’s not too good to be true. A better world, a wonderful World Tomorrow, is coming—soon.

To learn more about this future, request a free copy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like.