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Fighting Symptoms, Ignoring Cures

“Is the safety and sacredness of human life diminishing everywhere?

“Are governments even less morally restrained than was formerly the case?

“Do the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union possess sufficient common sense and concern for the future to avoid the use of nuclear weapons and negotiate an understanding to ensure the survival of life on earth?”

THOSE THREE QUESTIONS were raised by US Trends in its report of December 8, 1983. The answers are self-evident. Daily newscasts show that regard for the sacredness of life is diminishing. Certainly moral restraints are weakening with both individuals and governments. And recent developments have accelerated fears about the common sense and concern of the United States and Russia relative to nuclear weapons.

Last November scientists from both Russia and the United States participated in a conference on “The World After Nuclear War.” One Russian scientist from the Academy of Sciences said: “Nuclear devices shouldn’t be considered as a means of waging war or conducting policy. It is a weapon of suicide.” Another Russian from the Academy declared: “A nuclear war of any scope would mean either the disappearance of mankind or its degradation to a level below the prehistoric one.”​—Science News, December 24 and 31, 1983.

Unanimous conclusions from the conference: The death toll from direct bomb effects was projected at over two billion​—half the world’s population. Temperatures would drop far below freezing and remain so for months. Darkness would prevail at noonday. Light would be insufficient to sustain photosynthesis, and plants would die. Most animals would die. Food would be scarce. Agreement was unanimous that “we could not preclude the extinction of Homo sapiens.”​—Science News, November 12, 1983, pages 314-7.

Similar warnings appeared in Science, official magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The editorial in that issue raised this crucial point: “There remains the question of who is listening and how deeply these warnings penetrate and adhere to the nation’s thought. For a few days, the news of potential biological catastrophe is the stuff of media prominence, only to be quickly displaced by the next catastrophe.”​—Science, December 23, 1983, pages 1281-1300.

Obviously, the superpowers are not listening, common sense is not functioning, and concern about suicidal and globicidal nuclear weapons is insufficient.

The threat of a nuclear holocaust is frightening, but other calamities are already engulfing humanity. War, hunger, moral breakdown, family collapse, greed, violence, crime, murder, terrorism, meism​—to name a few.

Actually, all these things are symptoms. A symptom, according to Webster, is “something that indicates the existence of something else.” These conditions indicate the existence of something else, namely, morally diseased hearts. Much effort is expended to combat the symptoms, but little is done to cure the heart.

Because the physical heart lies deep within the body, it is used figuratively to mean what a person really is deep within. So it is that the Bible speaks of “the secret person of the heart,” and that God does not look on the outward appearance but “sees what the heart is.” Jesus said: “Out of the heart come wicked reasonings, murders, adulteries, fornications, thieveries, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things defiling a man.”​—1 Peter 3:4; 1 Samuel 16:7; Matthew 15:19, 20.

Curing Diseased Hearts

This world’s propaganda fills minds and hearts with garbage. Through its press, movies, television and stage plays true values are belittled while decadence and sin are glorified. The message is, Those who shun immorality are prudes; those who practice it are normal. Just as in an ancient time of moral decay, everywhere today there are “those who are saying that good is bad and bad is good, those who are putting darkness for light and light for darkness, those who are putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”​—Isaiah 5:20.

It is time for honest-hearted people to think about the cure. It is time to be “making your mind over.” It is time to “make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, for why should you die?” (Romans 12:2; Ezekiel 18:31) That’s right​—die. Even now, thousands are dying hourly from avoidable calamities spawned in the hearts of men. If a nuclear war occurs, the human race could die.

It need not be so. The cure is simple. Jesus said it long ago: “Love your neighbor.” Immediately the cry goes up: ‘That’s not just simple, that’s simplistic! It’s not practical. People won’t do it! It won’t work!’ It has never been tried. And it is true, not all people will do it. But if they did? There would be no armies, no armaments, no wars. No stealing, no embezzling, no violence. No rape, no murder, no crime. That would mean no police, no criminal courts, no prisons. All very practical.

Yes, “make for yourselves a new heart.” “Put away the old personality . . . Put on the new personality which was created according to God’s will in true righteousness and loyalty.” (Ephesians 4:22-24) Doing this, you may be one of those who will remain on the earth after it is cleansed.​—Psalm 37:10, 11, 29.

Yes, it will be cleansed. The woeful symptoms now afflicting the world will pass. They not only are symptoms of morally bankrupt hearts but constitute a sign of the last days of this present decadent system of things. And the polluting of the earth now taking place for the first time in history will not succeed in totally ruining the earth, nor will the feared nuclear holocaust be allowed to wipe out the human race. Jehovah God will not allow it. He has promised to “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”​—Revelation 11:18.

“When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount, we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of the whole world.”​—Gandhi, to Lord Irwin, former viceroy to India