Chapter 7: A Father’s Insistent Warning

Accounts of the Holocaust of World War ii are truly horrifying. It is difficult to even conceive of human beings abusing fellow human beings so barbarically and treating human life so cheaply. Nevertheless, it happened. We need to think about that, because many prophecies tell us that far worse conditions will prevail in the time just ahead.

Jeremiah’s prophecy begins with a vision of a modern-day European war machine conquering and terrorizing the people of physical and spiritual Israel (Jeremiah 1:13-16). In a way, this serves as a backdrop to the entire book of Jeremiah. This vision haunted God’s prophet.

God the Father inspired him to warn repeatedly about this coming carnage. It is a drumbeat of doom that should shake every one of us out of spiritual complacency and stupor!

Our Father is giving us these warnings in earnest hope of saving every person possible from having to experience that suffering. But the reality is, most people are too stubborn to heed God’s warnings. It will take more than words to turn them back to God. That is why God will allow this evil “[o]ut of the north [to] break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land” (verse 14). It is through the suffering inflicted by this war-making power that many people will finally come to acknowledge their rebellion and sin. They will be humbled and turn to the Father in repentance.

If that is what it takes, that is what God will do. But anyone who turns to God now can avoid that calamity!

‘My Bowels!’

Please focus on these sobering statements from God. They show how angry He is about the rebellion of His people.

“Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction” (Jeremiah 4:6). This is God speaking! He will bring this evil and this great destruction. Cities are about to be “laid waste, without an inhabitant” (verse 7). That is only possible through nuclear warfare!

Once these bombs start dropping, you won’t be able to run. You won’t be able to save yourself, your family, your neighbor or anyone else. The time to act is now.

“For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us” (verse 8). God wants repentance. Only the deepest repentance will protect you from God’s anger!

“O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?” (verse 14). God’s own people have gotten their minds on vain things instead of proclaiming this thunderous warning. They are more concerned for their personal comfort than for the suffering this world is about to experience. They indulge in the sins of this world as if time will go on and on.

When Jeremiah saw what would happen, he was deeply troubled: “My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war” (verse 19). What is coming upon Israel was acutely painful to Jeremiah! It is especially painful to think of the lukewarm saints of God’s true Church today being enslaved, abused and killed unless they wake up! Jeremiah deeply understood this, and it made him sick.

The Revised Standard Version reads, “My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent; for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Disaster follows hard on disaster, the whole land is laid waste. … How long must I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?” (verses 19-21). The Moffatt says, “Oh, my heart, my heart writhes. Oh, how it throbs! My soul is moaning. I cannot hold my peace! And I hear the blare of trumpets and the battle cry. Crash upon crash!—the whole country is down, … How long must I see war signals and hear trumpet blasts?”

Today, we know something of what Jeremiah saw. The horrors he witnessed in vision are, in small part, history for us.

Nuclear Devastation

We have seen what nuclear devastation looks like. Atomic weapons were dropped on Japan at the end of World War ii—man’s only use of such weapons in war, so far. John Hersey traveled there to report on the aftermath, and described what he saw just days after the attack in his book Hiroshima:

“Wounded people supported maimed people; disfigured families leaned together. Many people were vomiting. … In a city of 245,000, nearly 100,000 people had been killed or doomed at one blow; 100,000 more were hurt. At least 10,000 of the wounded made their way to the best hospital in town, which was altogether unequal to such a trampling, since it had only 600 beds, and they had all been occupied. The people in the suffocating crowd inside the hospital wept and cried, for Dr. Sasaki to hear, ‘Sensei! Doctor!’ and the less seriously wounded came and pulled at his sleeve and begged him to come to the aid of the worse wounded. Tugged here and there in his stockinged feet, bewildered by the numbers, staggered by so much raw flesh, Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped working as a skillful surgeon and a sympathetic man; he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding.”

Hersey recounted a Methodist pastor’s description of the moment the bomb struck: “A tremendous flash of light cut across the sky. Mr. [Kiyoshi] Tanimoto has a distinct recollection that it traveled from east to west, from the city toward the hills. It seemed a sheet of sun … Mr. Tanimoto took four or five steps and threw himself between two big rocks in the garden. … As his face was against the stone, he did not see what happened. He felt a sudden pressure, and then splinters and pieces of board and fragments of tile fell on him. He heard no roar. (Almost no one in Hiroshima recalls hearing any noise of the bomb. …) … Under what seemed to be a local dust cloud, the day grew darker and darker.”

Tanimoto was 2 miles from the center of the blast. His wife and child were much closer to the blast center, and he went to find them: “He met hundreds and hundreds who were fleeing, and every one of them seemed to be hurt in some way. The eyebrows of some were burned off, and skin hung from their faces and hands. Others, because of pain, held their arms up as if carrying something in both hands. Some were vomiting as they walked. Many were naked or in shreds of clothing. On some undressed bodies, the burns had made patterns—of undershirt straps and suspenders and, on the skin of some women (since white repelled the heat from the bomb and dark clothes absorbed it and conducted it to the skin), the shapes of flowers they had had on their kimonos. Many, although injured themselves, supported relatives who were worse off. Almost all had their heads bowed, looked straight ahead, were silent, and showed no expression whatever.”

Tanimoto’s wife and child survived. A great many did not. His neighbor lost her baby daughter in the attack. “She kept the small corpse in her arms for four days, even though it began smelling bad on the second day. Once, Mr. Tanimoto sat with her for a while, and she told him that the bomb had buried her under their house with the baby strapped to her back, and that when she had dug herself free, she had discovered that the baby was choking, its mouth full of dirt. With her little finger, she had carefully cleaned out the infant’s mouth, and for a time the child had breathed normally and seemed all right; then suddenly it had died.”

That is just one tragic story. There were hundreds of thousands like it. Soon there will be millions!

Many were left unimaginably disfigured. “Mr. Tanimoto found about 20 men and women on the sandspit. He drove the boat onto the bank and urged them to get aboard. They did not move, and he realized that they were too weak to lift themselves. He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glove-like pieces. He was so sickened by this that he had to sit down for a moment.”

All this came from what by today’s standards is just a small nuclear blast. The devastation coming on America’s cities will be far, far worse! No wonder Jeremiah cried, “My bowels, my bowels!”

This gives you a sense of how powerful and vivid must be the message proclaimed by God’s Church! Our monthly magazine is called the Trumpet because we are commissioned by God to deliver Jeremiah’s warning today! Jeremiah put everything he had into this prophetic work. God wants us to do the same today. The trumpet must sound because destruction upon destruction is coming!

The crises looming over our world are profoundly dark. Do you think men know how to solve them? They know nothing—and they ought to recognize that! The terrifying consequences are staring them in their face!

I have really studied these words of Jeremiah, and while I didn’t have quite the reaction he did, it did make me sick to my stomach. If you truly see what is about to happen, it ought to do the same to you. You would think some would try to save their lives, even if in a selfish way!

In Jeremiah 4:22, God tells why this terrifying punishment must come: “For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish [stupid] children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.” What condemnation! It is the people’s own foolishness and stupidity causing them to turn from God and ignore His counsel. God wants us to be “wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil” (Romans 16:19). These people are the opposite!

Where is this rebellion leading? Jeremiah shows us.

‘Without Form, and Void’

We saw in Jeremiah 4:7 a horrifying vision of nuclear destruction that will leave entire cities uninhabited. Verse 23 paints a picture of the whole Earth in devastation: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.”

Without form and void are the same words in Genesis 1:2; the Hebrew is tohu and bohu. What caused God’s creation to be in such a state? Lucifer’s rebellion! Herbert W. Armstrong explained how God created Earth and the universe in a perfect state (Genesis 1:1), but the picture in verse 2 was the aftermath of Satan and his angels turning from God and waging war against Him that wrought cataclysm! This prophecy in Jeremiah says that such a condition is coming again!

This is what Satan’s way produces! It is the opposite of God’s way, and its fruits are also the opposite. God’s government and law produce happiness, unity, peace, order and beauty. Satan’s government and way of life produce tohu and bohu—every time! Our world today teems with the evidence, and it will get many times worse before it is all over.

God will allow Earth to descend into tohu and bohu once more so we can deeply understand how flawed our ways are. He is trying to teach mankind to voluntarily submit to Him!

This will be the result of hundreds of Hiroshimas all over the planet! That is what is coming!

It is sad to see carnal men reject God’s rule. It is incomparably worse to see Spirit-begotten people do so! You would think that when people are given God’s Holy Spirit, that attitude would change. However, many of God’s own people from the beginning of history have rejected God’s authority. And in this final era of God’s Church, the great majority of God’s people also reject His government. They too are destined to produce tohu and bohu—waste and destruction—in their own lives and within the Church!

This is the strongest warning about how difficult it is for the human heart to accept God’s rule. And how devastating are the results of rejecting it!

“I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled” (Jeremiah 4:24-25). This holocaust is so bad that all the birds flee from the major cities! Use your imagination and you can see Israel’s future—and your own, if you fail to repent!

“I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by [before] his fierce anger” (verse 26). Hardheaded human beings have given God no choice but to allow this total ruin. He takes no pleasure in it. And as bad as conditions will get, they would be far worse if God did not intervene to prevent it! “For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end” (verse 27). That shows both man’s inconceivable hardness and God’s tremendous mercy.

Jesus Christ prophesied the same in Matthew 24:21-22: “For then shall be great tribulation, 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, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” Thankfully, God will step in before mankind extinguishes all life on the planet!

But again, He is giving these warnings to help us avoid this calamity. He doesn’t want anyone to have to experience such horrors. Will you listen and heed before the nightmare begins?

“For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it” (Jeremiah 4:28). Can we even conceive of how dangerous it is to have God turn against us like this?

“The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein” (verse 29). Imagine it: every city forsaken—completely emptied of people, not one man left! This is talking about all major cities leveled in nuclear devastation. Can you and I ignore this mind-staggering prophecy?

This is a warning Mr. Armstrong proclaimed to the world. This is what the Laodiceans ought to be teaching the world! Instead, they are trying to silence the people who are doing that work today! God will not take that sin lightly. Their only hope is this message! I don’t want to see little children or anyone else in a nuclear holocaust! I pray to God that if there is any way to avoid it, they will avoid it! Who in his right mind could ever want to see something like that happen?

Look what God puts the Laodiceans through just to get half of them into His Kingdom! He is going to try and test us—even put us through a nuclear Great Tribulation. But if we remain faithful to Him, we are never outside His protection.

‘He Will Do Nothing’

Very few people take God’s warnings seriously. They don’t believe punishment is coming. “They have spoken falsely of the Lord, and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no evil will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. The prophets will become wind; the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!’” (Jeremiah 5:12-13; rsv).

Sadly this applies to too many of God’s people. They are asleep. They “put far away the evil day” (Amos 6:3). They may still believe tribulation is coming in the future—but not in their lifetime.

God tells His prophet in Jeremiah 5:14 that His word will be like fire in the prophet’s mouth and will devour these people. If only people would respond to words! Their false ideas would wither before God’s truth. It would burn them spiritually for a time—but spare them from burning in a lake of fire!

In the coming Tribulation, God is going to “bring a nation upon you from far … it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not …” (verse 15). This is referring to the ancient, famous warring nation called Germany today. It has risen again to become Europe’s most powerful nation, and it is asserting that power even now. Soon it will be powerful enough to alter world history! This German-led war machine will inflict mind-splitting suffering (verse 17). It is the rod of God’s anger (Isaiah 10:5), the means by which He will correct a rebellious, sin-filled modern-day Israel. But again God says, “But even in those days … I will not totally destroy you” (Jeremiah 5:18; Amplified Bible).

Despite God giving these detailed warnings, when all this comes to pass these people will be shocked: “And it will be when you say, ‘Why does the Lord our God do all these things to us?’ then you shall answer them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve aliens in a land that is not yours’” (verse 19; nkjv). Isn’t this just of God? Haven’t these people asked for this punishment?

The terrifying penalties of ignoring this warning extend beyond just ourselves. Note the warning in Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” If we reject God’s knowledge, God rejects us! Of those who have forgotten God’s law, He says He will forget their children!

How are your children? How are their lives? Are they happy? Are their marriages working out? Already, many Laodiceans see their children suffering from all the sins and burdens in the world. That is only a foretaste. Hosea’s prophecy shows that your rebellion could mean that your children are also dragged into the horror of nuclear tribulation.

No Peace

In Jeremiah 6:11-12, God promises to “stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land” with terrible fury. He then explains why all this punishment is justified: “For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely” (verse 13).

What happens when prophets and priests deal falsely? So often they put people at ease and tell them what they want to hear instead of correcting them for their sins and warning them! Does that describe your minister? Does it describe your attitude? We see it everywhere in the Laodicean churches (e.g. Isaiah 30:10). These verses tell us what God thinks of their weak messages.

The same tendency afflicts the nations of Israel. “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). False prophets talk of “peace, peace.” Our nations seek peace in the Middle East and in their own cities—but there is no peace! Nor is there peace in our nations’ deeply troubled families.

A true prophet of God warns of impending war! There will never be peace until people listen to God and obey His law!

God tells us to beware when we hear claims of peace! Endless talk of peace is a sure sign of imminent war—war unparalleled in history! Isaiah 33:7 foretells of a time when “the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly.”

Don’t be lulled to sleep by talk of peace in the world. It may look peaceful—but believe your Bible: The time of unimaginable suffering is nearly here!

A Cruel Nation

“Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it” (Jeremiah 6:19). This message is for the whole world! Mr. Armstrong preached the true gospel around the world as a witness (Matthew 24:14). He taught God’s Word and law. After that message was stopped by His own people, we began to “prophesy again” (Revelation 10:11).

The world has refused to accept God’s law—and the Church that Mr. Armstrong founded, along with most of the groups that broke off from it, have done the same!

Many people still act very religious—but it is not a lawful religion (Jeremiah 6:20). The religions in Israel have done away with God’s law, or Ten Commandments. Many religious scholars reason around God’s law and fantasize that they are right. They also reject the government of God that teaches that law. God cuts through the scholarly nonsense and calls these scholars rebels.

Again in verses 22-26 God warns of the threat coming “from the north country,” a “great nation” that is cruel and merciless, a fearsome military “set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.” God raises them up to punish spiritual and physical Israel for their evil. Who could this be? It is the same nation that started World Wars i and ii and demonstrated the greatest cruelty history has seen!

During the Dark Ages, God’s people were “never far from threat of persecution and martyrdom,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages. These true Christians had to stand their ground all the way to death! But they accepted death rather than renounce the truth.

The Holy Roman Empire has killed true Christians for centuries! Another martyrdom is coming. Satan is compared in the Bible to a vicious dragon. Under his inspiration, the Holy Roman Empire will become drunk on the blood of God’s saints! (Revelation 17:6). The devil is a bloodthirsty monster that seeks the destruction of God’s people. He delights in causing people, even children, to be ripped apart! The more blood he sheds, the deeper he descends into madness! This will happen in the Great Tribulation on an unimaginable scale.

“We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail” (Jeremiah 6:24). This nation is infamous for its cruelty. Remember the concentration camps—or more accurately, extermination camps! God says we had better get ready because they are coming again. That horrific history is about to repeat itself! Those who glut themselves on sin and lawlessness will be the beast power’s victims!

And this time, God’s own Laodicean Church, sinning Zion, will be right in the midst of it. At that time, the hands of God’s people will wax feeble. Why? Because they have heard these prophecies more than anyone else on Earth! No wonder they will agonize like a woman in childbirth!

Revelation 13:7 warns that in the final resurrection of that beast power, all God’s lukewarm people in His own Church—those who knew the truth of these prophecies—will be killed by this monster—every single one of them! People who are worshiping the dragon will kill God’s people, thinking they are serving Christ.

If you are not right with God and don’t wake up, you will experience the nuclear bombs and will see people waste away before your eyes. You will be held in those camps!

Will you be ready to stand up for your faith when faced with brutal death? If our faith is not rock solid today, it will have to be tested in the flames of nuclear holocaust! We need to be ready to die for God’s truth.

‘Obey My Voice’

One reason many people feel safe is that they trust in their religion. They believe they are good people. They go to church and believe Jesus Christ died for their sins. Many even believe America is righteous. Surely nothing so calamitous could hit them?

Ancient Judah was also very religious before it went into captivity. But God was deeply angered by its religion. He sees the people in “the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem” making offerings to idols, “that they may provoke me to anger” (Jeremiah 7:17-18). “Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own shame?” (verse 19; English Standard Version).

“Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched” (verse 20). We would be foolish to ignore these warnings!

God’s people fall into the same trap. They believe they are holding fast to true religion, as it was revealed to Herbert W. Armstrong—when, in reality, they are very far from God.

Verse 21 describes the Laodiceans’ ritualistic religion, piously offering their sacrifices while committing terrible sins. God says, That’s not what I want from you! “… Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you” (verse 23). That is what God expects of us: We are His people only if we obey Him!

A lot of religion today falls into this trap. 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 say that Satan comes as an “angel of light,” and that he has ministers who appear as “ministers of righteousness.” It is far easier to be deceived than most people realize! God wants to alert us to this trap and to turn us to Him “that it may be well unto you”! (Jeremiah 7:23). He wants to bless and prosper us—yet He will do so only if we obey Him!

Sadly, most of God’s own people simply will not listen. “But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward” (verse 24). What an unparalleled tragedy! What about you?

God always sends His people warnings (verse 25). He does not correct hastily or arbitrarily. But if people refuse to listen, if they will not receive correction, then punishment is assured (verses 26-28). We must listen and be corrected by God! If we fail, we receive God’s wrath—in this generation! (verse 29).

A Horrific Prophecy

“And the carcasses of this people shall be food for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away” (Jeremiah 7:33; Webster Bible). Can you imagine such a nightmare—corpses lying around to be food for birds? The animals are not frightened away because there are no living human beings around!

God takes no pleasure in this terrible suffering. In Ezekiel 33, a parallel prophecy, God says, “… I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (verse 11). You can be protected from the horror: God will protect any person who turns to Him.

The prophecy in Ezekiel 33 is directed at the nations of Israel (mainly America and Britain), but the parallel account in Jeremiah 7 and 8 shows that these events will also afflict Judah (prophetically, the modern Jewish state) and Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 7:34 says, “Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the land shall be desolate.”

The voice of happiness will disappear. We need to understand this verse spiritually. The voice of the Bridegroom—Christ—and the voice of the Bride—Christ’s wife, the very elect—will disappear. That means God’s message will stop, except for the two witnesses in the Great Tribulation (Revelation 11:3). There will be “a famine in the land … of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11).

To get an idea of the satanic brutality that will be so common, read the prophecy in Jeremiah 8:1: “At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.”

What a scene! This is about the tombs—referred to in many verses as “the sepulchres of the kings”—in which several of Judah’s righteous kings and prophets were buried. Jeremiah prophesied that during the future time of suffering, those tombs will be raided, and those bones of the kings will be brought to the surface and publicly destroyed.

These tombs have not yet been discovered. (Some claim that they have, but their findings are inconsistent with where the Bible locates these “sepulchres of David.”) Verse 2 describes the bones in these tombs being spread before the sun and moon, left out in the open like dung. This did not happen when King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem in 586 b.c. Biblical passages show that the bones of Judah’s kings remained in their tombs during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, more than a century after the Babylonian destruction (Nehemiah 3:16). Acts 2:29 shows that the tombs of the kings remained undisturbed in the first century. This prophecy in Jeremiah 8 is yet to be fulfilled.

When the tombs of the kings are discovered, they must be treated with tremendous respect. But Jeremiah says these bones will be exhumed and then publicly desecrated—an act of towering contempt and hatred. Who does this, and why? Other prophecies show that this terrible act will be committed by the same power wreaking terrible destruction in the rest of the world: the modern resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire.

This empire wants to eradicate anything that reminds people of the true God. They will kill God’s true saints, force the conversion of other Christian sects, attempt to exterminate Jewish life, even destroy the archaeological evidence of Israel’s history. They want to wipe out the name of Israel (Psalm 83).

This will be Satan’s worst wrath, and unless you take warning now, many of you reading this will be caught in it!

The prophecy in Daniel 11:40-45 describes this time. Here the Holy Roman Empire is called “the king of the north.” After it destroys “the king of the south,” this European power “shall enter also into the beauteous land” (jps Tanakh). The “palace” of the strongman over this empire will be set up in “the beauteous holy mountain”—Jerusalem.

This too is a prophecy of the “seething pot from the north”—modern-day Europe. It will “destroy wonderfully” anything considered sacred to the people of God (Daniel 8:24; see also Isaiah 10:5-6; Hosea 5).

The Bible describes multiple signs of Christ’s return. The discovery of the tombs of the kings will be one of those signs; the desecration of their bones will be yet another. God wants you to recognize just how close that earthshaking event is. The purpose of all these signs is to get you focused on Christ’s return and to inspire you to make the necessary changes in your life so you need not personally experience this horrific event!