Christian Themes In Music - Future World by Helloween

Although I am a Christian, I was not raised on Christian music or gospel – and I still have no real ear for either.  I came down through the years on a much edgier path, one littered with loud guitars, booming drums and crying keyboards.  While it is admissible that much of mainstream rock has no Christian elements in it, there is, I believe, a modicum of faith in the Creator evident in the styles of some.  I believe there is a great deal of beautiful and worthy poetry that remains to this day, sadly untapped.  So it is my intention to tap into this and present a continuing series of “lyric” studies for songs that have flown under the radar.  I do believe they hold a deep and meaningful message for us all.  I do not profess to know what the artist’s intentions were in creating their songs, but much like any work of art, it is open to interpretation by the hearer.  I am conveying my take on how they have affected my life.

So how does one find the wisdom of Christ in a song by a band called “Helloween?”

I think one does it by realizing that everyone, no matter how unholy and atheistic they claim to be, is lonely in this universe and seeking a way to provide for that loneliness. People feel forsaken. Even in a crowded room, our spirit can feel isolated from everyone around us. In truth, our friends and our families cannot serve as a substitute for our connection with the Great I Am. Our relationship with the Creator is the most vital and unique relationship we will ever have – or not have.

“If you’re out there all alone, and you don’t know where to go to, come take a trip with me, to future world.”

For me, future world is not a place one finds on this earth. It is a world yet to come – a promise made to me by my Creator and His Son.

Revelation 21:1 ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.’

I believe Christianity appeals best to those realize they have a hollow part within them. No one on earth can fill this hollow space. Your spouse can’t fill it. Your children, friends and community cannot fill it. It is a place inside each temple reserved for the presence of the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit is not occupying that space, there is a loneliness that people can only forsake by distraction.

Most people run through life simply being busy to keep busy – doing nearly anything they can to avoid feeling, thinking, or talking about that troublesome hollow space. They think that if they pretend it’s not there, perhaps it will go away.

“And if you’re running through your life, and you don’t know what the sense is, come and look how it could be, in future world.”

Matthew 19:21 ‘Yahshua saith unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me.’

I wonder are you following anyone other than yourself. If you’re feeling alone a lot, that comes from following yourself.

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Proverbs 14:21 ‘He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth: But he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.’

In one form or another we all seek perfection in this life, because perfection is really a desirable state of resolute safety.

When we feel safe, we feel confident to speak and to act. When we feel intimidated or fearful, we are more inclined to curb our testimony and even doubt our faith in the Creator. We will say and do what is best for us. And if we don’t have the protection of a government and its agents, we will readily grab hold of a gun and defend ourselves. Somehow, someway, we believe we need to take precautions; we need to put our body in a relative state of ease, so beyond jeopardy we can declare our hope.

In short speak; we can be wonderfully spiritual once our body feels safe.

Romans 8:13 ‘For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’

Galatians 2:20 ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of Yahweh, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’

To find perfection or maturity in this life, we have to lose our fear of losing this life. And to lose our fear, we have to mortify the deeds of the body by being crucified with Christ and allowing Him the right to live through us.

As Christians we have to be happy to living this life as though we already died and went to heaven.

“We all live in happiness; our life is full of joy. We say the word ‘Tomorrow’ without fear.”

Most people have never known what it is like to live day by day. They have enough stored up in money and goods for, at the very least, tomorrow, this week, even the next month. Some have enough saved, they believe, to get by for years. They think because of their earthly savings, they have no fear; and yet and still they do have fear – because they know, by the hollow place in side, the savings they have here on earth is never safe. Someone can always take it from them. Hence the need for a government, for agents of government, and for guns, knives, missiles, spies, and technology.

Matthew 6:19-21 ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’

Is your heart in heaven or still on earth?

“The feeling of togetherness is always at our side. We love our life and we know we will stay.”

John 10:16 ‘. . . and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.’

There is one body of togetherness in Christians around the globe and no national boundaries can circumvent it, no president or king can sever it. We know who our Shepherd is.

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Actually I was never a big Helloween fan but my brother Steven was. He liked almost everything they did and had all their albums. After he passed away, I took a bit more interest in listening to them just to see a bit clearer where his mindset was while he was dying slowly on a ventilator.

I think we need only listen to the chorus of the song to understand.

“Cause we all live in future world, a world that’s full of love. Our future life will be glorious. Come with me, future world.”

With Muscular Dystrophy raging through his flesh, his body was already dead to him, so his heart and his mind were focusing on future world. Before he died, he was already seeing the glory to come.

This is an interesting dynamic in Christianity that even today many Christians fail to understand and/or accept.

Although we are alive in this world today, our hope in that future glorious world of heaven has to be strong enough and incorruptible enough that we can live out the rest of our life as if we were already in heaven. We can’t be scared to die.

1John 4:17 ‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.’

We literally ask ourselves daily, “What Would Yahshua Do?”

And the response to that is love. But that love is not an empty word full of selfish feelings that incorporate no actions. Our love has to encompass and embrace the world. It has to reach out beyond our personal and communal circumstances and help neighbors, strangers, anyone that is scared and lonely. We have to be Christ-like and we can’t be afraid to sacrifice everything in order to show this love.

1John 4:20 ‘If a man say, I love the Creator, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love the Creator whom he hath not seen?’

This world is full of hate and spite. There is racism and class warfare everywhere. Everybody is worried about losing something, about forfeiting something they think they earned, so they fight and they kill to preserve what they have. No one wants to lose. No one wants to sacrifice.

They don’t see people of different races, nations, or even economic levels and political parties as brothers. They believe it is “God’s will” that the strangers and the enemies of their homes and nations be sacrificed for peace and prosperity. I don’t think that is what Christ was thinking when He went to the pole and was crucified.

Being fearful of what will happen to you and yours is the philosophy of most everyone in the world and the reason why there is such an absence of love. If everyone is protecting and saving, no one is sacrificing and giving.

1John 4:18 ‘There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. . .’

What are you most scared of? Are you afraid what will happen if certain people are in charge of your nation and your land? Are you afraid of communists, democrats, tyrants, republicans or gangs? Are you afraid of terrorist, illegal immigrants, unemployment or poverty? Are you afraid of getting sick or afraid you can’t pay all your bills?

In Christ – you can’t be. You can’t have fear.

In Christ, you have to be fearless. You are already a citizen of heaven and the deeds of this world are dead to you. All you can do in this world is what Christ asked you to do; and that is to love thy neighbor as thyself.

Find joy and happiness in charity because charity is the only real love there is.

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John 6:60-61 ‘Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Yahshua knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Doth this offend you?’

You have to understand that Christ could still save everyone, but not everyone is willing to be saved.

Many are offended by what they see as a tyrannical form of government under Yahshua and Yahweh. They don’t believe there are any rules or an order to the universe, just a consciousness that is being made up as it goes. For them, much of what Christ said was hard and offensive. Much of what His followers believe and say is offensive.

“You say you’d like to stay but this is not your time. Go back find your own way, to future world.”

Many are going to try to find some other way.

John 6:66 ‘From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.’

At one time there were more than twelve disciples following Christ but these had not the fortitude or faith to go on with Him. Yahshua’s narrow road was too narrow. They decided not to enter in by the straight and narrow door but to try another path – the same as many are doing today.

John 10:1 ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.’

Those of us determined to enter in by the door – by Christ – have a message, a gospel message for everyone that wants to know the way to future world.

“Life can be for living, just try to never give in. Tell everyone the way, to future world.”

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“One day you’ll live in happiness with a heart that’s full of joy. You’ll say the word “Tomorrow” without fear. The feeling of togetherness will be at your side. You’ll say you love your life and you’ll know why.”

Do you love your life?

Are you thankful daily to the One who created you and breathed into you, and gave you a special and important soul?

How you act and respond to this life with that soul makes all the difference in the world.

Hebrews 9:27 ‘And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.’

I know there are many who don’t choose to believe in the judgment.

I believe they are simply trying to distract themselves anyway they can from addressing and confronting the hollow in themselves. They can’t fill it so they lie to themselves. They tell themselves all kinds of fairy tales to make the emptiness seem a bit more plausible, and yet it still will not go away. It haunts them. They suffer from depression and loneliness. They wile away their days in idle pleasures meant to pacify the flesh, quiet it, keep it content. But it can’t be quieted. The flesh will never be satisfied.

Ecclesiastes 1:8 ‘. . . the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.’

This is why Paul says in 1Corinthians 15:31 ‘I die daily.’

If we are earnest to live in joy and happiness, we have to stop being afraid of everything and everyone. We have to stop seeing people as enemies, and rather as souls to be saved. We have to mortify our stomachs, and shut off our ears. We have to breathe in deeply and step out boldly on our faith towards that future world of hope and promise we preach and teach.

2Corinthians 5:7 ‘For we walk by faith, not by sight.’

Close your eyes my friends, and ask yourself, “Who is it I really trust now?”

Be blind so you might be made to see.

Make no mistake about it; you are alone in this life until you ask Him to fill that hollowness with faith in the door to future world.

Amen

If you’re out there all alone and you don’t know where to go to

Come and take a trip with me, to future world

And if you’re running through your life and you don’t know what the sense is

Come and look how it could be, in future world

We all live in happiness; our life is full of joy. We say the word “tomorrow” without fear

The feeling of togetherness is always at our side

We love our life and we know we will stay

(Chorus) Cause we all live in future world, a world that’s full of love

Our future life will be glorious. Come with me – future world.

You say you’d like to stay but this is not your time

Go back; find your own way, to future world

Life can be for living; just try to never give in

Tell everyone the way to future world

One day you’ll live in happiness with a heart that’s full of joy.

You’ll say the word ‘tomorrow’ without fear.

The feeling of togetherness will be at your side.

You’ll say you love your life and you’ll know why

(Chorus)