You Are Choosing to Live

WHY are you now breathing? Because you choose to live. You will drink some water today, because you choose to live. You will eat some food today, because you choose to live. For the same reason you will sleep tonight, to renew energy for living tomorrow. And when you wake up, you will go to work, whether you like your job or not. You will go to provide the necessities of life.

However, take a look at this present life you are choosing. Take a look at the racial divisions that cause some to feel superior and to oppress those they think inferior. Look at the injustice and violence and even wars that result because skins are colored differently.

Look at the nationalism that divides the peoples of earth, the revolutions that split nations and create floods of refugees, the bickering political parties that squabble and fight, the corruption that robs the people and fattens the politicians’ purses.

Do not overlook the role that popular religions play. They divide people, meddle in politics, frequently foment wars and many times persecute the true worshipers of Jehovah God. So many “Christians,” so little Christianity!

Do not stop looking with these big failures on the world scene. Look at the slums in every big city, the poverty, the filth, the loathsome disease, the hopeless inhabitants huddled in dark tenements, freezing in winter or sweltering in summer. Crime-ridden streets, red-light districts, dope addiction, mental institutions jammed with tragic victims.

Worldwide a moral breakdown plagues the seas of humanity. Everywhere you look you can read the hopelessness and despair written on millions of faces. It all totals up to a worldwide epidemic called stress. It has been called the Twentieth Century Killer. A Wall Street Journal report claimed: “Severe or prolonged stress can make the body more vulnerable to ailments ranging from skin rashes and the common cold to heart attacks and cancer.” A report in To the Point stated: “The physical ills [that stress] generates now contribute to a vast number of hospital cases and deaths each year​—at least tens of millions.”

This current increase of stress fulfills a prediction of centuries ago. “On the earth,” Jesus said there will be “anguish of nations, not knowing the way out.” He then added: “Men [will] become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth.”​—Luke 21:25, 26.

The two pages that follow focus your attention in more detail on specific features of this stressful life many are choosing by eating, sleeping and working.

The Life You Are Choosing

This life you choose by meeting your physical needs of food and drink is, as a Bible writer of long ago said, ‘of few days and full of trouble.’ (Job 14:1, 2) Some of the troubles of this life are shown below. Is this life your only choice? Is there a better choice now available to you, one that is free of all the woes of this life we sustain by breathing, eating and drinking?

ME FIRST

The me-firsters’ creed, as expounded by the me-ism philosophers: “Looking out for number one.” “You have the right to judge your own behavior.” “Sink the guilt trip.” Today’s idolatry is Me-olatry, says God’s Word: “Their god is their bodily desires.” Also, “greed is a form of idolatry.” (Phil. 3:19; Col. 3:5, Today’s English Version) This new religion of Self was foretold for our times: “Men will be lovers of themselves.” (2 Tim. 3:1, 2) Love of Me pushes aside love of Thee​—my neighbor.

FAMILY DECAY

Marriage is downgraded, divorces soar, children suffer as me-ism flourishes. “The ‘me’ philosophy is contributing to the high divorce rate.” (Dr. Robert Taylor) The modern parent “now gives priority to his own right to self-fulfillment.” (Newsweek) The family circle suffers. This Me Generation ignores the lessons of history, so they are condemned to repeat it. “Entire civilizations have survived or disappeared, depending on whether family life was strong or weak.”​—The World Book Encyclopedia, 1978.

CRIME

Jesus foretold “the increasing of lawlessness.” (Matt. 24:12) Our generation is proving him true. In 1979, in America, “murders rose by 10 percent, assaults by 10 percent, forcible rapes by 13 percent and robberies by 12 percent. For the first six months of 1980, serious crime jumped 10 percent.” (U.S. News & World Report) The story is the same in other nations. Many businessmen are honest; many others swindle, manipulate, evade taxes, cheat customers. And many people steal from the businessman. “America’s most resourceful and successful crook,” one report said, “wears a white collar.” Or a blue one.

HUNGER

“There will be food shortages,” Jesus foretold. (Matt. 24:7) Last year the Los Angeles Times reported: “Nearly 450 million people in the world are starving, experts on world food supplies estimate, and 800 million to 1 billion are on the edge of starvation.” The earth produces enough food, but an equable distribution of it is “up against powerful entrenched interests.”

TERRORISM

An escalating danger, as the New York Daily News of November 25, 1979, proved: “Terrorism​—that is, assassinations, kidnapings, bombings, planned personal assaults—​are way up, from 206 in 1972, to 572 in 1975, to 1,256 in 1977, to 1,511 in 1978, to 2,662 in the first nine months of this year [1979].” As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, terrorism will mushroom more and more.

WAR AND EXTINCTION

“The momentum of military technology drives the superpowers towards an inescapable nuclear war.” (Dr. Frank Barnaby, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) “We believe that nuclear war will bring no advantage to anyone and may even lead to the end of civilization.” (Soviet military expert) “For the love of God, of your children, and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness!”​—George F. Kennan, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow.

POLLUTION AND EXTINCTION

“The planet Earth is gradually being polluted to death.” (The Globe and Mail) “Mankind is in danger of polluting itself off the face of the earth.” (The Guardian) “Pollution is more than a problem of individual countries: It is a problem of the global village. . . . If we fail in this, we will guarantee the eventual extinction of our own species.” (The Toronto Star) In former President Carter’s farewell address he indicated that pollution was “a time bomb, as great a threat to our global survival as is the threat of nuclear annihilation.” Is it not time for God to ‘ruin those who are ruining the earth’?​—Rev. 11:18.

This present life is a poor choice. Nevertheless, people choose to live on. They may be crippled, yet they desire life; they may be blind, yet are afraid to die. The deaf and speechless choose life, and the old and feeble cling to it. “Man,” Job said, “that is born of woman, is of few days and full of trouble. Like a blossom he comes forth and is withered, and he flees like the shadow and does not endure.”​—Job 14:1, 2, An American Translation.

This life many are choosing is short. It is full of trouble. It is a poor choice. But do they have a better choice?

The Life You Can Choose

THERE is another life that you may now choose. It is a life that does not fade as the flower at the end of spring or wither as the grass at the end of summer. It is not filled with pain and disappointment or beset by delinquency and crime, war and famine, pestilence and death. Its days are not few, but are endless. Its days are not filled with trouble, but with unspeakable joy. It is the life for man that Jehovah God originally purposed.

And what is that? Bliss in heaven sprawled out on a billowy cloud, twanging a harp as you float along in space and eternity? No! It is not that vain and useless existence that idle dreamers have conjured up as heavenly life. To see clearly what this life is that you may now choose, let us go to God’s Word to find out his purpose in creating man and woman.

That first pair were given a mandate, not concerning heaven, but concerning the earth. God told them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” To subdue the earth means to take care of it, not ruin it. This is evident from man’s assignment in Eden: “Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it.”​—Gen. 1:28; 2:15.

As the human family increased and Eden became too small, it was God’s purpose for the growing population to spread beyond the garden’s bounds, taking with them the seeds or cuttings of the perfect plants in Eden, planting them in new territories and tilling these new areas just as did the original family in Eden. Thus as humanity overspread the earth they would subdue it by transforming it into a paradise, until Eden’s condition had spread and the garden of God became global.

In that global paradise man’s dominion over the animals was to be exercised with loving care and mutual trust, not by the jabbing chair and cracking whip of the animal trainer, nor by the barred confines of the zoo’s cages, nor by the deadly guns of modern nimrods. This loving dominion over the animals by obedient mankind was to last forever.

But such dominion did not last. Sin came to mar the tranquillity of the garden of Eden. Jehovah’s edict to man was: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.” (Gen. 2:16, 17) The first pair disobeyed, did eat, and brought death upon themselves and their offspring. Jehovah ousted them from the garden, saying to the man:

“Cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”​—Gen. 3:17-19.

Jehovah God gave mankind a perfect start. Through no fault of His, humankind has gone from bad to worse. “The Rock [Jehovah], perfect is his activity, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, with whom there is no injustice; righteous and upright is he. They have acted ruinously on their own part; they are not his children, the defect is their own. A generation crooked and twisted!” (Deut. 32:4, 5) A similar declaration is made at Ecclesiastes 7:29: “God made mankind upright, but they themselves have sought out many plans.” Or, as the Bible translator James Moffatt renders the latter part of this verse, “many a cunning wile have they contrived.”

Today man continues to act ruinously, more disastrously than ever before. Now his calloused exploiting of earth’s plants and animals and his abuse of resources and environment are ruining the earth as a habitable planet. It is Jehovah who will halt this, declaring that he will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”​—Rev. 11:18.

JEHOVAH’S PURPOSE WILL PREVAIL

It is Jehovah’s purpose for the earth to remain forever: “It will not be made to totter to time indefinite, or forever.” It will be inhabited forever: “For this is what Jehovah has said, the Creator of the heavens, He the true God, the Former of the earth and the Maker of it, He the One who firmly established it, who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited: ‘I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.’”​—Ps. 104:5; Isa. 45:18.

It was Jehovah’s original purpose for earth to become a paradise, filled with persons devoted to him and who would care for it and its plants and animals and who would maintain a healthy environment. This is still his purpose, and Jehovah assures us that it will be accomplished: “So my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it.”​—Isa. 55:11.

The next two pages reveal the joys of the life in a paradise earth that you can now choose.

The Better Choice​—Life in a Paradise Earth

This present life may be a poor choice in view of our troublous times. Yet many cling to it. As troubled as it is, it is better than nothing, better than oblivion. However, people may now choose a trouble-free paradise on earth.

WONDERFUL WORK

If you would like to care for the earth, transform it into fields yielding food or into parks yielding beauty, make the deserts blossom, see thorns and thistles give way to meadows and forests, safeguard some areas of jungles and mountains as habitats for wildlife and as silent praisers of the Creator​—if you would like to share in this work of beautification, then you would like to live in that paradise earth. Seeing good from such work “is the gift of God.”​—Eccl. 3:13.

PEACE WITH ANIMALS

If you would be pleased to exercise dominion over animals, not with guns or whips or bars, but through love and mutual trust; if you long for the time when the bear and the calf will lie down together, the leopard and the kid will feed together, when the lion will eat straw like the ox, and if you would like to see the day when all these animals will docilely follow the leading of a little child, then you would like the paradise earth. “They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain,” is the promise of Jehovah.​—Isa. 11:9.

HEALTH AND LIFE

If it is your heartfelt hope to see the day when the lame will leap like a hart, to hear the tongue of the speechless sing, to watch the eyes of the blind open, to observe the ears of the deaf unstopped, to witness sighing and crying give way to smiles and tears and mourning give way to laughter and pain and death give way to health and eternal life, then you will let nothing block your way of attaining the blessed paradise earth wherein such conditions will exist forever. This, too, is the promise of God: “He will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.”​—Rev. 21:4.

NO MORE WAR

If your heart aches for the time when swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning shears, when there will be no military schools, no learning of war, no making of bombs, no fomenters of war, then you will thank God for his new system of things wherein all this will occur. Jehovah gives assurance of this: “He is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth.”​—Ps. 46:9.

END OF OPPRESSION

If you wish for the time when oppressive political rule will vanish and commercial greed will be no more, when men will build houses and inhabit them and dwell in peace, when the earth will be filled with joyous laughter and vibrate to the stirring songs of birds, and when cleansed air will be filled with the fragrance of flowers, then you will thrill to life in the paradise earth. The promise to God’s people is: “The work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full.”​—Isa. 65:22.

NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Is the reaction of any reader one of skepticism, or outright scoffing? Too good to be true, this paradise earth? Is that what he is thinking? That is understandable, since all we have ever experienced is this present troubled existence. “The wages sin pays is death,” and mankind has been sinning and collecting the wages for it. (Rom. 6:23) However, God’s Word promises “the world is passing away,” but “he that does the will of God remains forever.”​—1 John 2:17.

RELIABLE PROMISES

These promises of a paradise earth come from Jehovah God, “who cannot lie.” (Titus 1:2) The nation of Israel was reminded of this: “Not one word out of all the good words that Jehovah your God has spoken to you has failed.” (Josh. 23:14) Even an opposer of God was compelled to say: “God is not a man that he should tell lies. . . . Has he himself said it and will he not do it?”​—Num. 23:19.

Everlasting life in a paradise earth​—God’s original purpose for this earth and man upon it. It is this life the reader may now choose. Jehovah God does not think it too good to be true, so no reader should think so. Jehovah thinks this present system is too bad to continue, and you surely agree with this. Even now he is having people choose either life eternal in paradise or death everlasting with this old world.

How are persons now making their choice known? How may you make yours known? Consider the following article.

How You Make Your Choice Known

HOW does a person choose that life promised by God in a paradise earth? By raising his hand, by shouting ‘Aye,’ by saying, ‘Lord, I would like to live then’? No. To a large extent, you choose that life as you choose the present one. How do you choose to live now? By a course of action, which, among other things, includes breathing, drinking, eating, sleeping and working. This is action, please note, that is not dictated or determined by you, but, rather, it is action according to the dictates of your body. Your body sets the terms, forces you to meet its requirements.

So it is in choosing life in God’s new system. It is not by your saying you would like to live then, but your choice is made by the course of action you take. And here again the action is not determined by the individual. Jehovah God gives life in that paradise earth, sets the terms for getting it, and we must meet his requirements. Refusing to do so is choosing death with this present wicked world, just as surely as refusal to breathe in response to the body’s demands would mean death to our physical organism now.

Many believe that if they do what they think is right, treating their fellowman fairly, that is sufficient. Long ago a rich young ruler was apparently doing much good, living a clean life, showing love for neighbor. But when he asked Jesus how he might gain everlasting life, he was told to unburden himself of so many material things and follow Jesus. Do all of this, Jesus said, “if you want to be perfect.”​—Matt. 19:16-22; Luke 18:18-23.

Loving the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not just an emotional feeling. “This is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments.” (1 John 5:3) Long ago, when choosing life or death, ancient Israel was told that loving Jehovah meant obeying him. “I have put life and death before you, the blessing and the malediction; and you must choose life in order that you may keep alive, you and your offspring, by loving Jehovah your God, by listening to his voice and by sticking to him; for he is your life and the length of your days.”​—Deut. 30:19, 20.

IS HAVING A RELIGION ENOUGH?

But now someone will say: ‘I do not follow my own ideas. I belong to a recognized religious organization. I think if a person sincerely follows one of the many Christian religions he will be saved.’ Is this position correct? Let God’s Son answer. Jesus Christ said: “Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will.” It is not enough for a man or a religion to take God’s name on the lips, or perform religious formalisms, or do charitable works. If the religion is not teaching God’s will and doing it, then it and its adherents are missing the mark, regardless of how sincere they are.​—Matt. 7:21-23.

Clearly indicating that sincerity or zeal in a religious organization is not enough, Romans 10:2, 3 declares of Jewish religionists: “They have a zeal for God; but not according to accurate knowledge; for, because of not knowing the righteousness of God but seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” However, numerous sincere Jews, including many priests and Pharisees, did abandon their formalistic religion to become Christians, subjecting themselves to the righteousness of God.​—Acts 6:7; 15:5.

Numerous scriptures confirm the view that sincerity alone is not enough. “What man thinks a right course, may end upon the road to death. He who goes wrong must take the consequences.” “A fool is sure that his own way is right: sensible men will listen to advice.” “Man thinks out many a plan, but ’tis the Eternal’s purpose that prevails.” “Man’s ways are always right in his own eyes, but the Eternal has the verdict on his life.” (Prov. 14:12, 14; 12:15; 19:21; 21:2, Moffatt) Sincerity is valuable in that it makes one a candidate for God’s mercy. Saul of Tarsus (the future apostle Paul) was a persecutor of Christians, but sincerely thought he was doing God a service. He acted in ignorance, so he received mercy.​—John 16:2; 1 Tim. 1:13.

THE ONE ROAD TO LIFE

Accurate knowledge is necessary, and lack of it has brought to ruin professed servants of Jehovah. “Because the knowledge is what you yourself have rejected, I shall also reject you.” It is not in man to direct himself, so Jehovah provided the Bible as a guide for us. “Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light to my roadway.” (Hos. 4:6; Jer. 10:23; Ps. 119:105) God’s light, note, not man’s or a religious organization’s. All religions are not many roads leading to one place, salvation, as the popular saying goes. Jesus spoke of only two roads, and they lead to different places​—a narrow one to life, a broad one to destruction.​—Matt. 7:13, 14.

The Bible is the divine road map, but many prefer their “own religion” map. For instance, you may take their own Bible and read to them, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Yet they cling to the sectarian path that the soul is immortal. Read to them: “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” “The dead know not any thing.” Yet they clutch even tighter their own religion’s teaching that the dead are conscious. Read to them, “The wages of sin is death.” They continue to march unwaveringly along their creedal trail, holding that the wages of sin is eternal torment. Read to them, “The earth abideth for ever.” They still hold fast to their clergyman’s teaching that the earth is to be burned up.​—Ezek. 18:4; Ps. 146:4; Eccl. 9:5; 1:4; Rom. 6:23, Authorized Version.

How, then, are we to determine the course of action to follow, the way that will show by our actions that we choose to live in Jehovah’s paradise earth? Not by what a Catholic priest says, or by what a Protestant preacher says, or by what a Jewish rabbi or some Eastern guru says. It is not by what men say, unless they back up their teaching with Bible texts. Let God speak through his Word, the Bible. “Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” Not all who claim to teach God’s Word do so. That was true in Jesus’ day, for he said: “They teach commands of men as doctrines.” It was true in Jeremiah’s day, for he wrote: “They have rejected the very word of Jehovah, and what wisdom do they have?” It is also true today.​—Rom. 3:4; Matt. 15:9; Jer. 8:9.

THE WAY YOU CHOOSE ETERNAL LIFE

Your first act to show that you want to live in the new system of things on earth under Christ’s Kingdom rule is to study. “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” Dedicate yourself to do God’s will and symbolize your dedication by water baptism, even as Jesus got baptized, for he is now your model to follow. (John 17:3; Matt. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:21) Shun the works of the flesh, bear the fruitage of the spirit, as stated at Galatians 5:19-23:

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning you, the same way as I did forewarn you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s kingdom. On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

And be a praiser of Jehovah, both by how you live and by what you say. Tell others of the only hope for mankind. Do so along with others who believe as you do, in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” That end will be a “great tribulation” to remove this present wicked system, making way for “new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to [God’s] promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.”​—Matt. 24:14, 21; 2 Pet. 3:13.

By these actions you make known your choice for life in Jehovah’s promised paradise earth.

“Become doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning.”​—Jas. 1:22.