[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]

Mission to Mars?

Elon Musk wants to put human beings on the planet Mars. He’s not alone. NASA aims to send astronauts to Mars as well. But what if we make it? What sort of world would we turn Mars into? Actually, we already know the answer—and there’s a lot we can learn by exploring just how we know.

Join us for this episode of Tomorrow’s World where we explain “How to Build a New World.”

What Would Life on Mars REALLY Be Like?

Greetings, and welcome to Tomorrow’s World, where we help you make sense of your world through the pages of the Bible.

And “your world”—for right now, at least—consists of only ONE world: the one we enjoy right here on good ol’ planet Earth. But many are looking to expand that list of possible worlds to include the planet Mars.

Would you like to travel to another world? Well, some very wealthy, very powerful individuals and organizations are very invested in trying to make such a possibility a reality—and possibly within your lifetime.

Multibillionaire Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, suggested in 2022 that he would land a manned mission to Mars as early as 2029 and released a video in 2023 depicting one of his planned Starship spacecraft landing on the planet and joining a thriving and growing human colony (“Elon Musk hints at a crewed mission to Mars in 2029,” NPR.org, March 17, 2022).

But Mr. Musk isn’t alone. America’s NASA is working on its own efforts to put a manned mission on the Red Planet. Through their Artemis program, NASA plans to establish humanity’s first long-term base on the Moon. And there, they plan to learn what it takes to establish a base on Mars (“How NASA is planning to get humans to Mars,” TheWeek.com, April 17, 2023).

I’ll be honest—I find these missions fascinating. From the earliest days I can remember, the idea of mankind placing colonies on another world has gripped my imagination. Yet even for a relatively close planet like Mars, the technological challenges are formidable. For one, the trip to Mars could take six to seven months, during which the European Space Agency estimates astronauts would be potentially exposed to 700 times the amount of radiation we’re normally exposed to on earth (“The radiation showstopper for Mars exploration,” The European Space Agency, ESA.int, May 31, 2019).

And surviving the long, lonely, and dangerous trip there isn’t the hardest part. Mars may be the most earth-like planet in the solar system, but it is not even close to hospitable. Even at the relatively “temperate” equator, the temperatures drop to negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit (or minus 73 degrees Celsius, for our metric friends). The air on Mars is as thin as you’d find 21 miles above the surface of the earth, and 96% of it is carbon dioxide, with oxygen making up less than two-tenths of a percent.

But, for the moment, let’s set all of that aside. Let’s suppose that we made it. Let’s imagine that humanity—whether the United States, or Elon Musk followers, or anyone else—has been able land craft on Mars and build a permanent settlement. In fact, imagine that settlement 100 years in the future. Even 500 years. All technological challenges met and surpassed—a large, thriving, new outpost for humankind. That is, imagine we’ve achieved our wildest dreams, conquered the final frontier, and successfully transplanted humanity and human civilization from planet Earth to the planet Mars.

In such futuristic outposts, what should we expect to see?

And let me be clear: I don’t mean what technology should we expect to see. That could be anything—domed cities, environmental reengineering machinery, new forms of transportation. No, I mean in terms of the civilization, itself—the people—the citizens of our new interplanetary metropolises, their lives, their relationships. What should we expect to see concerning human life on this new world?

Or maybe I should ask the question differently. Is there any reason we should expect life on Mars to be fundamentally different from life here? Troubled relationships? Broken families? Government corruption? Educational confusion and nonsense? Political rancor? Crime? Theft? Murders? Rapes?

Because no matter what new and fantastic technology we might invent and deploy there, the one common element in our imagined civilization on Mars and our very real civilization here on Earth is us. Human beings.

And thousands of years of experience teach us an important lesson: We don’t know how to live together on our own world—how would we expect to know how to build a new one?

If we one day begin building new worlds on other planets, the key import we will bring with us is ourselves. And with us, we bring all the same spiritual problems we have allowed to corrupt and corrode our civilization here: Lust. Greed. Hate. Envy. Covetousness. Deceit. Pride. Malice. Arrogance. Bigotry. Cruelty. Hedonism. Selfish ambition.

No matter where we take ourselves in this universe, those terrible facets of human nature will ride alongside us as unwelcome, but inevitable, stowaways.

Why is that? Why are such self-destructive vices so inevitable in our world? Is there a way to build a truly better, new world?

Yes, there is. But understanding how to do that will first require us to answer a different question: why is our current world the way it is?

Believe it or not, the answer to that question is a simple one. And understanding that answer points us to the only way to create a new and better world.

Human Nature in Rebellion to God

Experience teaches us that wherever we go, we take our problems with us.

The key to solving that problem is to understand why our world is the way it is. And the reason why has to do with the foundation on which our world is built.

In Psalm 11:3, King David asks, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

The answer is assumed to be obvious: “Nothing.” If the foundations are broken, then nothing of lasting value can be built upon them. And as we will see, the foundations on which we continue to try to build our world are utterly broken.

To understand why, we have to go back to the beginning of our civilization—the very beginning.

We see that beginning in the book of Genesis, when God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 1 and verse 26, we read, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:26).

Man was to be given full control over the whole world and everything in it.

That was because humanity had a very special purpose to fulfill. Continue in verse 27: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Unlike all the animals, each created according to their kind, man was created after the God kind—designed to reflect his Creator and, ultimately, to become fully like his Creator. But becoming like the Creator requires more than being in His likeness and image. It requires building His own character. And building character requires choice.

So, God planted two trees in the Garden of Eden that would present man with a choice: to obey or to disobey: “And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. … And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Genesis 2:9, 16–17).

And, if you know the story, then you know Adam chose to eat of the wrong tree. His wife, Eve, was deceived by the devil to do so, but when she gave fruit from the forbidden tree to Adam, the Apostle Paul tells us that “Adam was not deceived” (1 Timothy 2:14). He knew what he was doing, and he willingly chose to disobey God.

That single act laid the foundation for all of human history and civilization. God had given Adam and Eve, the first humans, all they could ever want—a safe, beautiful paradise, honest labor, fellowship with their Creator, and a future family to grow and nurture. They had only to obey their Creator’s loving will.

But Adam chose otherwise. In choosing to purposefully eat from the forbidden tree, Adam told God, in effect, “Not Your will, God, but mine.” Adam rejected God’s will in favor of his own. And, really, if you and I are honest about it, we’ve made the same choice ourselves from time to time. Choosing our own will over God’s express will is sin. And the Bible assures us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

And that statement—“Not Your will, God, but mine”—is the fundamental basis of virtually every human institution we see around us today.

In government, we see lip service paid to God—in America, for instance, politicians like to say things like “God bless America,” but they don’t want to seek His blessings in their laws and policies. In the ivory towers of academia, credentialled elites tend to believe they’ve outgrown God and constantly come up with humanly devised codes of ethics and morality that result in little more than continued moral rot. Calling the entertainment industry a cesspool is an insult to cesspools. And—as shocking as this may seem—our religions, even the vast majority of so-called “Christianity,” is filled with ideas and philosophies of mere human beings and pagan superstitions—not a devotion to the word of God over human tradition.

The foundation of our collapsing society can be summed up in that single phrase: “Not Your will, God, but mine.”

Building on the Foundations of God’s Will

For millennia, man has sought to build its own world his own way—never committing to do it God’s way—not fully!

Since we can’t build a new world on a broken foundation, we have only one choice: Remove that foundation and replace it with a good one. And Jesus Christ provides that foundation!

We see it revealed in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night Jesus was to be betrayed and ultimately delivered up to crucifixion.

As His disciples slept that night, Jesus pleaded before His Father in prayer. Knowing the pain and agony to come, He knelt there in the garden and asked His Father if there was any other way that Their great plan could be accomplished. Like any of us would, He did not want to be tortured to death for hours! He did not want to go through the agonizing trial and cruel, lonely, excruciating death that lay ahead!

Yet, in all His passionate pleading His focus and resolve never wavered. Even in the face of one of the cruelest executions mankind has devised, He told God in prayer, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

That is the foundation on which new worlds can be built!

Surrounded by paradise and comfort, Adam told God, “Not Your will, but mine.” Yet, facing agony, suffering, and a torturous death, Jesus told God, “Not My will, Father, but Yours.”

That, my friends, is the only foundation on which a new world of true, unending peace, joy, hope, and love can ever be built! It is the very opposite of the foundation today’s world is built on—but it will be the rock-solid foundation of tomorrow’s world!

Suffice it to say that what God intended the world to be, illustrated in the abundant and beautiful Garden of Eden, will be restored! It will be, in a very real sense, a new world—built by the returned Son of God and His glorified followers, guiding, directing, and teaching mankind for 1,000 years.

Instead of the broken, plagued world we’ve always known, mankind will experience a world of peace, joy, health, and abundance all because the new world ahead will have been built on a NEW foundation: “Not my will, God, but Yours.”

How we long for Christ to return and that day to come, as Jesus Christ taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9–10).

Repentance and New Life—In This World and Beyond

The only foundation on which a truly new world can ever be built is an utter and complete submission to the will of God in obedience and love. As Jesus Christ said, “Not My will, but Yours.”

And unless Elon Musk or NASA plan on building on that foundation, expect any civilizations we build on Mars to be mere reruns of the horrors we’ve created here on earth. Different planet, same humanity, and same devastating problems.

But the world Jesus Christ will establish after His return will be built on that new foundation—transforming the world and then, afterwards, the entire cosmos.

As Paul tells us in Romans 8,

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:18–21).

Indeed, eventually all of creation—the entire universe—will get to experience the liberation that comes with being ruled by the divine Family of God, which will include the glorified followers of Jesus Christ, who are eager to build on the new foundation that their Savior had laid. So, yes, even Mars may finally get its shot!

But we do not have to wait until Christ returns to begin knowing the joy of building a new world. None of us may control a whole planet right now, but we each have our own world—our own families, our own spheres of influence, our own lives—in which we can begin to build anew. We can experience, in our own worlds, now, a taste of the joy, hope, peace, and happiness that awaits the rest of the world at the Savior’s return.

All that is required is to begin building that new world in our lives now is the choice to begin building on that new foundation: “Not my will, God, but Yours.” We need only to repent. Give up our sins. Ask God for forgiveness. Give up our devotion to doing things our way, and ask God to help us begin doing things His way—the way Jesus Christ would do them. And with every step we take in doing so, we will find the blossoms of that new world growing beneath our feet, and bringing with them the aroma of the world tomorrow that Christ is bringing with Him.

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