ANXIOUS citizens, worried legislators, fearful manufacturers, distressed agriculturalists people everywhere are appalled by the pollution that has resulted from modern city life. Blankets of pollutants hang heavy over once beautiful valleys and orchards, affecting lives of people, animals, and plants. The concentration of contaminants has reached alarming proportions in many streams, lakes, and coastal waters.
Not only has man's physical environment near the cities been dangerously polluted but the spiritual degeneration that brought judgments to Sodom again typifies city life of this last generation.
More than sixty years ago earnest appeals were given the membership of the church regarding the destructive atmosphere surrounding the cities.
Many now will plead to remain in the cities, but the time will come erelong when all who wish to avoid the sights and sounds of evil will move into the country; for wickedness and corruption will increase to such a degree that the very atmosphere of the cities will seem to be polluted. Country Living, p. 29.
Fearful as air and water pollution is; distressing as the noise level (ear pollution) of cities is, what the Christian most fears is heir pollution! That children of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ, should immerse themselves and their families in the miasma of sin characteristic of today's cities is unthinkable.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God . . . , we shall be like him. . . . And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure (1 John 3:2, 3).
In a society where nakedness and drunkenness, profanity and violence, are glorified, the possibility of heir pollution is almost unavoidable; but the balanced counsel that covers all the needs of God's work is clear:
Let children no longer be exposed to the temptations of the cities that are ripe for destruction. The Lord has sent us warning and counsel to get out of the cities. Then let us make no more in vestments in the cities. Fathers and mothers, how do you regard the souls of your children? Are you preparing the members of your families for translation into the heavenly courts? Are you preparing them to become members of the royal family? children of the heavenly King? Ibid., p. 13.
Inspired guidelines to preserve God's family from heir pollution are in convenient form in two booklets printed by the Review and Herald Publishing Association: Country Living and From City to Country Living. These compilations of counsel with practical instruction on how to move, where to move, and when to move from the cities are timely, priceless guides in this age of pollution. Here instruction is given to "think candidly, prayerfully, studying the Word with all carefulness and prayerfulness" (ibid., p. 26). In such an attitude God will lead us so that the needs of each family are met according to individual circumstances.
In avoiding the heir polluting atmosphere of today's urban life it should be noted we are not turning our backs on the evangelistic responsibilities of the church to the masses in the inner city.
As God's commandment-keeping people, we must leave the cities. As did Enoch, we must work the cities but not dwell in them. Ibid., p. 31. (Italics supplied.)
God wants His heirs of the heavenly kingdom to enjoy a foretaste of that better land while still on this earth. The beauty of the countryside, the profit and joy of seeing your land produce, the wonder and delight that comes to children playing and working in clean and open air these are but a few of the blessings intended in His invitation to better living.
He wants us to delight in the beautiful things of His creation, and to see in them an expression of what He will do for us. He wants us to live where we can have elbow room. His people are not to crowd into the cities. He wants them to take their families out of the cities, that they may better prepare for eternal life. Ibid., p. 17.
