[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]
What’s Wrong With the World?
Increasingly, protesters fill the streets—waving signs and chanting slogans. They want change, and they want it now. And honestly, who can blame them? We may not agree with all their individual causes, but only the blind could fail to see that our world truly is broken. And only the heartless could not want to fix it.
How can you and I go about fixing the world? But we can. And no, I’m not just pulling your leg. Yes, the problems are big, and yes, the actions we need to take are great as well. But they are the only actions that will work. Stick with me today, and I’ll explain.
I’ll also give you an opportunity to request our free resource on the Ten Commandments. Like everything we provide our viewers, this resource is completely free of any cost or charge at all. Just keep an eye on your screen for the information you need to get your free copy.
In the 1980s, the pop duo Tears for Fears had a huge hit with the song, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” The song was written with an eye toward the ongoing Cold War between the Western world and Russia (or the Soviet Union), the potential for nuclear war, the possibilities of totalitarianism, and other social concerns of the day.
Frankly, with barely any changes at all, those are our concerns today, as well.
As a teenager listening to the song, it resonated with me, because it was clear that the world was broken. And while I might like to think I’m not ancient,” let’s be honest—I’m not a teenager anymore. And yet the world is still broken.
Current Global Issues
Even as I speak here in our studio today, major wars still rage in the Middle East and on the doorstep of Europe. Haiti continues to suffer under a “gang-ocracy,” and civil war continues to destroy the lives of millions in Sudan.
Within our nations, it is clear that racism is still very real. Poverty is still very real. Broken families are still very real. Fears of violence are still very real.
In the United States, considered by many the most powerful and successful nation in the world, suicide rates have climbed with rare interruption for the last 25 years (“Suicide,” National Institute of Mental Health, nimh.nih.gov, March, 2025).
Consider the irony of our current situation.
On one hand, we live in one of the most remarkable times in the entire history of civilization.
Scientifically, we may today understand more about how the physical world works than any other generation in the history of man. We may not yet know how to wed quantum mechanics and general relativity, but man’s comprehension of the physical laws of the universe is truly astonishing.
And our level of technological advancement has surpassed levels that many would have found wondrous even just 20 years ago. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, we’re talking with our machines as if they were people, and some are literally drawing up plans to begin colonies on Mars.
God told Daniel that in “the time of the end…knowledge shall increase” (Daniel 12:4)—and it has.
Yet, for all of that knowledge we’ve accumulated, the knowledge of how to actually live with each other continues to escape us.
Our attempts to address racism in recent years have made relations between the races even worse. Our attempts to expand sex and gender equality to the limits of our secular philosophies have done nothing but thrown sex and gender into utter confusion, to the point that we are surgically, chemically, and irreversibly altering children to appear as the opposite sex. Our approach to sexuality—meant to maximize human freedom and silence moral judgment—is resulting in a world of broken relationships, broken hearts, and broken families that seems to benefit no one but the makers of drugs for sexually transmitted diseases.
Even democracy and democratic republics—supposedly the best of all political systems—result these days in chaos, as stability gets thrown out the door, and each new election threatens to bring in a new party that will spend most of its time throwing out all the decisions of the previous party.
We Need to Change from Our Way to God’s Way
We all want to fix the world. The problem is that no one seems to know just how to do that.
The reality of our world was well summarized by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 59 of his book.
The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace. Therefore justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us; we look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness! We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as at twilight; we are as dead men in desolate places (Isaiah 59:8–10).
If we’re going to fix the world, we need someone to show us how. And the only “someone” who truly qualifies is our Creator, the Designer of Humanity—the God of the Bible.
God’s Answer Is the Ten Commandments
More than three millennia ago, God gave His people ten simple commands—commonly called the Ten Commandments. They can be found in Exodus 20.
- You shall have no other gods before Me.
- You shall not make for yourself a carved image [or idol].
- You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
- Remember the [seventh-day] Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
- Honor your father and your mother.
- You shall not murder.
- You shall not commit adultery.
- You shall not steal.
- You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- You shall not covet.
These are more than just a list of “religious-y sounding rules” for children to memorize for a prize in church. They are inspired commands from the Creator of life itself—the Designer of humanity, who knows how we should live with Him and live with each other.
How to Love God and Love Your Neighbor
A careful look at the Ten Commandments reveals a structure.
Notice the first four commandments—about having no other gods, not worshiping God with carved images, not misusing His name, and keeping His Sabbath on the seventh day—are all about our relationship with Him.
And the six commandments that follow—about honoring your parents, not murdering, being sexually faithful to your spouse, not stealing, lying, or coveting your neighbor’s things—are all about our relationship with each other—what the Bible calls your neighbor.
Jesus Christ Himself talked about these two great objectives of the Ten Commandments as the greatest commands of God’s law. We see this in Matthew 22, when someone comes up to Jesus and asks Him a question.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:36–40).
Look at that again, and then look at the Ten Commandments again.
You shall love the Lord your God, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
These ten simple commandments are at the very heart of the way of life Jesus came to exemplify for humanity. In fact, when a young man asked Jesus how to have eternal life, Jesus told Him:
“If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17).
In fact, God’s commandments were so important to Christ that later, His beloved disciple John would say of those who claimed to be Christian:
He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:4).
Now that might sound odd to those of you brought up to think that the Ten Commandments were not important for Christians, or that keeping the commandments wasn’t necessary for Christians. But it is the inspired word of your own Bible.
And it doesn’t take much meditating on the commandments before you realize that keeping them would radically alter our entire world for the better.
For instance, consider the impact of a world that embraced a way of life in which children honor their father and mother like we’re told in the fifth commandment, and in which spouses are faithful to each other like we are encouraged in the seventh.
Imagine a world in which broken families became a thing of the past, a world in which children learned to respect their elders and those in authority, in families that were committed to staying together through thick and thin.
With those changes alone, how much closer to a “fixed world” would we become?
But go further.
Ten Commandments Define How to Love Others
Consider the simplicity of the ninth commandment about not lying. What a radical remake of civilization would be experienced if this value were embraced by the world!
What if honesty were considered one of the highest values of society, to the point that none would dare ever want to utter an untruthful word? What if lies were not expected of our politicians, like they are today, but were unheard of? What if everything you were ever told about the products you considered purchasing could be trusted? What if every news story you ever heard was always true and reliable?
Throw in the sixth and eighth commandments, as well, and you’d never again have to lock a door. Never again have to take the keys out of your car—or even need keys at all. You’d never have to worry about a lost child or a dark alley. Women would not need to worry about “safe spaces,” because all spaces would be safe.
Even the first four commandments—it’s easy to think those aren’t as important, but of course they are. How much trouble in this broken world is caused by religious confusion—people following gods that aren’t gods? What would it mean for the world for everyone to embrace the true Creator of the world? To worship Him how He wants to be worshiped—not according to our own ideas, which often clash and conflict with each other, but according to His own commands.
How to Change the World: Change Ourselves
Because fixing the world begins with fixing ourselves. Not in the meaningless way such talk is normally used, where “focusing on yourself” is code for simply embracing your character flaws and changing nothing.
No, we need change. I need change. You need to change. And changing the world—99.9999+ percent of which is outside of our control—begins with changing the minuscule part that is in our control. It begins with you deciding to fix your life, your family, your relationship to God, Your Creator, and to Jesus Christ, Your Savior.
Define Repentance: Deciding to Change
That decision to change—to turn around from the direction you’re going and to go a new direction, a direction taking you closer to God in obedience to His commandments instead of in continued rejection of them—that decision to change is called repentance. And it is at the heart of the message that the Son of God brought to this planet 2,000 years ago.
Don’t take my word for it—look at it with me. In Mark chapter 1, we see the very beginning of Jesus’ mission to the world and the message He brought simply put. Look in verses 14 and 15.
Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14–15).
Repent. It’s not a word you hear very often anymore, sort of old-fashioned maybe. But the commands of God never go out of fashion. In fact—they are the key to fixing this world.
We Need God’s Power and Help to Change
Now, I know this will sound like I’m undermining all I have said so far, but while the Ten Commandments are vital, they’re not enough.
Even if we could somehow convince every one of the 8 billion human beings on planet Earth to begin keeping the Ten Commandments—worshiping God as He commands us to worship Him, loving our neighbor as God instructs us to—it would not be enough to fix the world.
Don’t get me wrong—it would be wonderful, at least for a while. But it wouldn’t last. How do I know? Because God proved that to us in the experience of the children of Israel.
Gathered together as a free people at the foot of Mount Sinai more than 3,000 years ago, God delivered the Ten Commandments to them—laws of life and living that would build a beautiful society. Before they entered the Promised Land, Moses made clear to them the blessing they had been given in these commands. Read it with me in Deuteronomy in chapter 4, beginning in verse 5.
Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day (Deuteronomy 4:5–8)?
Yet the history is clear. They did not keep those laws. They made covenants and agreements to do so over and over again, but then they broke them, over and over again. Faced with the good, pure, righteous commandments of God and the rich, remarkable, rewarding way of life that they make possible, their selfish, carnal, human nature won out time and again. As the Apostle Paul summarizes in Romans 8:
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:7–8).
And like they did, you will fail, too. Those who choose to turn to the Ten Commandments—the only way of life God blesses and endorses in this world, the only way to true peace and happiness, and the only way to fix the world—will find they inevitably fail. They slip up, and they sin.
“Well, that’s just great,” you might be thinking. You bring us this whole way and tell us that the Ten Commandments are the way to fix our lives and the world—and then you pull the rug out from under us! What’s going on, Tomorrow’s World guy?
Well, I can understand your frustration. But the good news—the VERY good news—is that all of those who seek to truly keep God’s commandments are NOT alone in their efforts. And the help we need is within reach.
How to Change Yourself
We just read that:
The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:7–8).
But read further.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you (Romans 8:9).
Repent, Be Baptized, Receive the Holy Spirit
For those willing to turn and repent, God makes help available to keep His laws—His commandments. Read earlier in the same chapter.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:3–5).
Yes, God has not abandoned us to our carnal nature. Jesus Christ died so that we may be forgiven of our sins, and He lives NOW in the lives of those who commit their lives to Him—transforming them through His Spirit so that, day by day, week by week, they learn to keep His laws and commandments, just as He did.
We see this promise of aid and transformation reflected in the words of the book of Hebrews, itself quoting from the Old Testament. Read with me in Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 16.
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:16–17).
And for those who are willing in this life to fix their own worlds—to repent and to embrace the Ten Commandments of God, and to allow Jesus Christ to forgive them of their sins and begin the process of transforming them, from the inside out—there really is good news ahead. Because those who have allowed Jesus Christ to fix their lives in this way, in this life, will be allowed to reign alongside Jesus Christ after His return, and to truly begin fixing the whole world.
Yes, if we really want to fix the world—truly and profoundly fix it, and make it the world of peace, joy, and contentment we’ve always longed to see—then the key is to allow God to fix our own lives first. So, in the end, if we want to join Jesus Christ in finally fixing the world tomorrow, we need to turn to Him in obedience and let Him fix our lives today.
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