Every year, the Feast of Tabernacles challenges our minds as we envisage the World Tomorrow and beyond. Perhaps in some ways children are the best at letting their imaginations run free about the coming utopia.
In this article we want to stoke those fires of imagination. But we also want you to realize, young people and teens, that as time is getting shorter, God is raising His expectations of you. As the time draws closer, God is working harder to inspire in you a deeper conviction about your part in His plan.
If this article is going to mean anything to you, you are going to have to spend some time mulling it over in your mind, truly meditating on these things. Imagine if this were a description of your parents. “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.” Imagine them looking so impressive that people would faint at the mere sight of them!
That is how the Bible describes Jesus Christ, the King-Priest of Revelation (Revelation 1:14-17). But just before that, God says the members of His Church hold the same office (verse 6). God is saying that those who are glorified at Christ’s return will look just like He does. If your parents are in the Church, He’s talking about them!
And—believe it!—if you are a teen, He is probably talking about you too.
Let me explain.
Once there was a man who owned a vineyard. Early one morning, he hired some laborers to work for the day, and to each of them he offered the same fixed wage. As they worked and the day wore on, three different times he went back to the marketplace to find more workers. To each of these men he promised the same wage, despite their needing to work less to earn it. With one hour left in the working day, the man hired yet one more crop of laborers and offered them as much money as he had all the others. At the end of the day, he paid everyone equally.
The men who had worked all day were angry! “We’ve been out in the heat of the day, and you’re saying we’re equal with these one-hour workers?”
The master replied, “I have given you exactly what we agreed to; and so I have with them. It is my right to reward each as I see fit.”
This parable is found in Matthew 20:1-16. Here is its significance for you: The teens who have been baptized and possess God’s Spirit before Christ’s return will receive the same “wage” as those longtime members who have worked over a period of decades to qualify for that reward!
What reward is that? The ultimate reward—eternal life as the Bride of Jesus Christ!
God is challenging you, teens!
Revelation 19:7 shows that God’s called, chosen and faithful at the time of Christ’s return will actually marry Him (see also Revelation 17:14). We will be Revelation 1:14-17 radiant! This marriage will never separate. As Christ’s eternally faithful helpmeet, we will fulfill the position of kings and priests, administering both civil and spiritual government—positions of huge responsibility.
In just a few short, short years, a great many of you teens will be God beings, assuming those king-priest responsibilities! Stop reading and just think about that for a while. Will you be one of them? Are you preparing today? How much hinges upon your willingness to live your life for God! To learn to love obedience. To grow as a leader. To fight through obstacles.
Aim in this direction, teens, and your future is simply awesome to contemplate. But what if you still don’t have quite the maturity when Christ gets here to have made the serious commitment of baptism?
Young people, consider. If your parents become kings, what does that make you? The sons and daughters of kings are called princes and princesses. Remember, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the Earth” (Psalm 45:16).
That’s talking about you! Princes in all the earth. The royal leaders of tomorrow’s world!
A new world is going to be built from the ground up. The world as it is now will be rubble, nothing but a big compost pile ready for us to plant an entirely new and better crop. In this confused aftermath of destruction, the education of God’s happy way of life based on His commandments will begin to spread. As lives are gently put back together and communities restructured, a proper awe and respect of God will be the foundation of all understanding.
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:2-3). Everyone will be seeking to learn the right way to live—the way of life you are learning from God’s Church today.
What that means is, the more you apply yourself to God’s education, the more of a head start you will have, and the higher in demand you will be. “… In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23). Can you picture that? Being sought after for your knowledge? Knowledge is power, young people. And none is more powerful than God’s true knowledge. How valuable is the education we are receiving today!
This new world we’re talking about is real. Constructing homes will require architects, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, painters. Farmers will cultivate food and tailors make clothing. You will have a job you are well-suited for.
Remember, today’s Spirit-begotten adults will be spirit beings. That means they will not be the ones physically building this new society. God will need a strong team of physical leaders He can count on to dig into the multitude of projects around the world.
The bulk of mankind will be just beginning their education in God’s ways—and probably recovering from the shell shock of the Tribulation for some time. You, on the other hand, are not only already receiving true education, you will have been saved out of the world’s worst troubles, all the while being groomed and prepared for great responsibility and opportunity. So who will lead such projects? It will be you—the princes in all the Earth!
As physical leaders—as royalty—you will work under those who have been converted into spirit. But you will also be ruling others—overseeing some big jobs!
The wealth of the new world will be abundant. The money we now put toward crime prevention, courts and jails; national defense; security systems, codes and locks; government election campaigns; medical fields based on treating effects rather than causes; useless or harmful scientific and “artistic” projects—the list goes on—all will be able to be put to GOOD use! Think of how different the use of the world’s resources will be when man lives the way of give as opposed to competition, deceit and greed. It will be a time of plenty for everyone as they obey God’s laws of success, including those of tithing and financial planning, and reap the natural bounty.
Imagine helping people rebuild cities destroyed by nuclear war (Isaiah 61:4; Ezekiel 36:10-11). Huge areas will have to be cleared of debris and garbage, leveled and built upon. And with such widespread abundance, our new cities will be designed with real quality, beauty and utility in mind. No smog-spewing cars and machinery, no dangerous and dirty streets. Imagine creating beautifully landscaped parks and prime-quality office buildings. Or facilities for the performing arts like Armstrong Auditorium as a standard.
Think next of how new homes will look: neighborhoods where every house will have enough yard space for nice-sized gardens, orchards and animals. What might your personal home look like? Think big! Imagine living in the country, surrounded by forests full of tame animals (Isaiah 11:6). How about a huge living room, large enough for some tropical fruit trees, with a natural trout stream running through it—and a beautiful waterfall!
God’s health laws will be widely kept. Imagine having perfect physical health! Food raised God’s way will be more flavorful and healthful, unpoisoned by pesticides and unnatural hormones, or rendered tasteless or nutritionless from wrong growing and harvesting practices. Diets will be rich and balanced.
Think too of recreational activities not based on competition, vanity or laziness. There may be entirely new sports to enjoy, in addition to many of the things you love to do now.
You will probably marry and have children, and then grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As you live by God’s laws of happy family life—remember, the same laws we teach in God’s Church today—you will have a perfect family! Can you picture yourself teaching others how to better love their husbands and wives, how to better rear their children? How priceless it would be to have a houseful of beautiful, healthy, obedient children—to watch them grow up right, to have families of their own, to become contributing members in this new world.
With each generation, more problems will be wiped out, and the wounds incurred from 6,000 years of man’s rule of himself will better heal and fade in memory. The world will steadily grow into greater harmony with God’s law.
God created man in His image and likeness—with a creative spirit. Mankind will continue to find new advancements in technology, in communications, in transportation. But all the innovation and increase in physical knowledge will—for once—serve the greater overall spiritual purpose of building a society that glorifies God! Imagine how far our minds, put to their best use, will take humankind!
Think about this fact: While you are building this utopian physical world, remember that the adults will already be spirit beings. They will not be the real beneficiaries of these ideal physical conditions. They will be experiencing a different set of delights, even greater than these we’re considering here.
But the physical abundance of wealth and happiness of the World Tomorrow is not really for the spirit beings, young people. The World Tomorrow is for YOU!
No generation since Adam has had the chance to build a perfect society. It is a chance that is being reserved for you. In all these different areas where real change, real improvement, is almost here, you have the chance to be real trendsetters!
Get your mind involved in this new world—today. Look at the kinds of problems in which so many young people get themselves stuck in the world today. They can’t see past the present! Meanwhile, here you are, growing in the vision of the reality of tomorrow and preparing yourself for it already!
Don’t underestimate the value of what you do with your life right now. Of developing a strong work ethic and putting your talents to use. Of getting grounded in the basics of that future way of life, the foundation of knowledge that will soon cover the face of the Earth (Isaiah 11:9). Realize the value in meditating on and getting excited about this world to come. All the effort you put in now will pay off bountifully. Whatever you may have to give up now will be restored manifold—and soon!
God is planting the seeds of the new world now. You are those seeds! The seeds that will soon burst out into full blossom as the first generation of that new world—the wonderful World Tomorrow. Get ready, young people—it’s almost here!