1) It is amazing how many things that we as a society do of our own “free will” that are actually mindless societal conditioning: what we eat, what we wear, what we do, how we think, how we live. Perhaps, like never before, we are experiencing the great herding of the masses. ...

2) Our modern culture is under the control of expansive marketing campaigns: political, commercial and religious manipulation and domination. Nearly all of our calendars are filled with things about which even our more recent ancestors knew nothing. ...

3) At least every once in a while we should stop and venture to think for ourselves.

Nonetheless, behind it all is the unrelenting purpose and plan of God. For now, He is developing a stark contrast to His future righteous rule of the universe and, be assured, it will not ...

4) ... look anything like life as we know it. Most of us, so conditioned by the current world system, can’t even begin to imagine what such life will actually be like. All we currently know is the passing shrines of democracy, capitalism, materialism and Christianity. One day ..

5) ... this will all change.

“Let those who mix in the world live as if they were not engrossed in it, for the present phase of things is passing away” (I Corinthians 7:31, Moffatt).