Chapter 9:
Imagine the gentle dawn, the day after. The violent storm of the night has passed. Around you lies devastation: the weapons of the wicked lie scattered. Their clean-picked bones are everywhere. Roads are buckled, buildings collapsed, wires down. But you don’t mind. The air is fresh and sweet. Lilting, cheerful birdsongs delight your ears. You feel an incredible sense of peace, a heavy load lifted off your heart. The old world is gone! You are alive!
You look around for your family, your friends. There they are, picking their way over the rubble toward you. What a happy reunion! Together you all turn your eyes to the heavens and shout a joyful song of praise to the great God who has brought this wonderful deliverance!
Can you see yourself as a survivor of the end of this world? What will the new world be like? How will it become paradise? Let us look into the Bible for the answer. You may be surprised at how much it has to say about it.
Jesus said: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matt 5.5, AV) He was quoting Psalms 37.9-11, which adds, "the evildoers will be cut off, but those hoping in Jehovah will possess the earth... they will find exquisite delight in the abundance of peace." Then verse 29 says "they will reside forever upon it." This is a promise. God keeps his promises. At Proverbs 2:21 he says: "The upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it."
According to Ezekiel’s account of the final war, God’s people will help clean up afterward. They will "build fires with the armor and shields, bows and arrows and handstaves and lances; with them they will light fires seven years. They will not gather firewood out of the forests, for with the armor they will light fires. And they will plunder those who had been plundering them... there will be men continually employed, passing along through the land, burying, in order to cleanse it. To the end of seven months they will keep making search. If one sees the bone of a man he must build beside it a marker, until those who do the burying will have buried it. And they will have to cleanse the land." This is in addition to the work of the birds and other animals in quickly consuming the flesh.---see Ezek 39.9,10,14,15,17-19.
Many centuries ago, the land of Canaan was "unclean" because of its wicked inhabitants. But Jehovah did not destroy the land itself. Rather, he had the ungodly people removed and gave the land to his people, the Israelites. They moved into houses they had not built and drank from wells they had not dug. Likewise, at Armageddon, Jehovah does not destroy the earth; he will remove the wicked people and give the earth to the "meek", those who respect and obey him. They will be able to make some use of the buildings and stores and other physical things left over, for a little while. —Leviticus 18.24-28, Deut 6.10-12.
Before long, of course, we will begin to reshape the land, to beautify and repair it, to build homes according to our own design. The old system that raped the earth will be gone. The survivors will be godly people who appreciate creation and its Creator. They will not serve the god named "jobs", which justified clearcutting vast areas of forest and polluting the land and water with foul chemicals. Although humans are naturally gregarious and will no doubt choose to live in villages and communities, no more will there be sprawling cities with urban decay and poverty, rush-hour traffic, and great skyscrapers isolating people in stacked offices. The Bible does not spell out the new system in detail, but we can be sure it will not revolve around money like this one does. Rather, it will be centered on serving God and loving life according to His high moral standards. Adam was given the assignment to "cultivate the garden of Eden and to take care of it." We will be able to focus on finally fulfilling that assignment earth wide.
In this old system of things, it is said that we have "government by law." Lawyer’s bookshelves groan from the weight of thousands of thick law books. There are so many laws— and many are so incomprehensible— that people often break them without even knowing it. (also see Isaiah 10.1,2.) Yet for every problem it seems the cry is "There ought to be a law!" But more law is not the answer. Paul said, "law is promulgated, not for a righteous man, but for persons lawless and unruly, ungodly and sinners." (1 Tim 1.8-11) In other words, if people are good, having godly law written in their hearts, they need very few laws to regulate their dealings with one another. And that is how it will be in the paradise earth after Armageddon. Jeremiah 31:33,34 says: "I will put my law within them, and in their heart I shall write it. And I will become their God, and they themselves will become my people. And they will no more teach each one his companion and each one his brother, saying, ‘know Jehovah!’ for they will all of them know me, from the least one of them even to the greatest one of them." The laws will be so few and so simple that everyone will know them. There will be no need for lawyers!
At Romans 13:8-10 we read: "Do not you people be owing anybody a single thing, except to love one another; for he that loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. For the law code, ‘You must not commit adultery, You must not murder, You must not steal, You must not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there is, is summed up in this word, namely, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does not work evil to one’s neighbor; therefore love is the law’s fulfillment." This is the "perfect law that belongs to freedom", the "kingly law", the "law of the Christ". (James 1.25, 2.8, Gal 6.2) What a relief it will be to be freed from the confusing laws, legislatures, and litigation of this world!
Ezekiel 34:23-28 says, "I will raise up over them one shepherd, and he must feed them, even my servant David. He himself will feed them, and he himself will become their shepherd. And I myself, Jehovah, will become their God, and my servant David a chieftain in the midst of them. I myself, Jehovah, have spoken." This loving shepherd is Jesus Christ, reigning as King (see John 10.11, Luke 1.32, 33). Ezekiel continues: "And I will conclude with them a covenant of peace, and I shall certainly cause the injurious wild beast to cease out of the land, and they will actually dwell in the wilderness in security and sleep in the forests. And I will make them and the surroundings of my hill a blessing, and I will cause the pouring rain to descend in its time. Pouring rains of blessing there will prove to be. And the tree of the field must give its fruitage, and the land itself will give its yield, and they will actually prove to be on their soil in security. And they will have to know that I am Jehovah when I break the bars of their yoke and I have delivered them out of the hand of those who had been using them as slaves. And they will no longer become something to plunder for the nations; and as regards the wild beast of the earth, it will not devour them, and they will actually dwell in security, with no one to make them tremble." Just stop for a while now and think about this. Let it sink in.
See how beautifully Isaiah describes the new earth: "‘Here I am creating new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be called to mind, neither will they come up into the heart. Exult, you people, and be joyful forever in what I am creating. They will certainly build houses and have occupancy; and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat their fruitage. They will not build and someone else have occupancy; they will not plant and someone else do the eating. For like the days of a tree will the days of my people be; and the work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full. They will not toil for nothing, nor will they bring to birth for disturbance; because they are the offspring made up of the blessed ones of Jehovah, and their descendants with them. Before they call out I myself shall answer; while they are yet speaking, I myself shall hear. The wolf and the lamb themselves will feed as one, and the lion will eat straw just like the bull; and as for the serpent, his food will be dust. They will do no harm nor cause any ruin in all my holy mountain,’ Jehovah has said." —Isa 65:17-25; see also 11.6-9.
No longer will the one building a house have to worry about keeping up the mortgage payments! No longer any need for concern about burglars and arsonists! Forget security alarms, chainlink fences, even locks! Can you imagine a world like that?
Lions eating straw? Now that will be a miracle only God could accomplish. Lions do not have the digestive system to survive on grass like ruminants such as cows and deer. At present they are clearly designed for eating high-protein food. And they are superbly equipped for catching it on the run. For the prophecy to be fulfilled literally, some design changes will surely occur. The primary lesson of the prophecy is that there will be nothing to fear in the new earth. People and animals that are vulnerable and helpless, like little lambs, will live peacefully and safely beside creatures who were once instant death, but now are friendly. It is not so hard to believe. Even now some animals which are very dangerous in the wild have been tamed, and they prove to have an affectionate, loyal side to them.
Concerning the taming of people, Micah was inspired to write: "Many nations will certainly go and say: ‘Come, you people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem. And he will certainly render judgment among many peoples, and set matters straight respecting mighty nations far away. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. They will not lift up sword, nation against nation, neither will they learn war anymore. And they will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble." This learning process has already begun among God’s people. It will reach its complete prosperity in the new earth. Anyone who "likes a good fight" will be gone. If any cause for taking offense ever occurs, we will know how to handle it without bloodshed. Other causes of war, such as greed, racial pride, and envy, are even now being rooted out of our hearts. —Micah 4:2-4, Col 3.12-14.
The result will be, not only peace, but prosperity. The amount of resources wasted in this world on defense readiness and war staggers the imagination: in dollars, trillions; in lives neglected, sickened, injured, or lost, billions; in sorrow, beyond recounting. Micah described the prosperity of the new earth as ‘each one sitting happily and securely under his own vine and fig tree.’ What a change that will be!
In this old world we have health problems. It is like being trapped in a web from which no amount of struggling will free us. Eventually the sting of death finds us. God knows our pain, and in the new world he will set us completely free. Notice how Isa 25:7,8 says it: "And in this mountain [the Kingdom] he will certainly swallow up the face of the envelopment that is enveloping over all the peoples, and the woven work that is interwoven upon all the nations. He will actually swallow up death forever, and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will certainly wipe the tears from all faces. And the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for Jehovah himself has spoken it." And God keeps his promises. This promise is repeated near the end of the Bible, at Revelation 21:4: "And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away."
Notice that Isa 25.8 did not say, ‘and his people he will take away from all the earth.’ No, it is the reproach of his people that will be taken away. The context shows this "reproach" to be the sting of death, the grief caused by dying. This proves that the new earth will be this earth, where death is now, made new.
Jesus demonstrated how easy it is for God to cure our sicknesses. He simply told a paralyzed man to get up and walk, and he did! Jesus was merely touched from behind by a woman who was hemorrhaging, and the account says that "power went out of him" and she was cured. He even raised at least three people up from death! One of these had even been dead long enough to begin to decompose. —Luke 5.24, 25, 7.11-16, 8.43-56, John 11.38-44.
With power like that, the prophecy of Isaiah 35:1-6 becomes easy to believe: "The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron... Say to those who are anxious at heart: ‘Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! your own God will come with vengeance itself, God even with a repayment. He himself will come and save you people.’ At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain." —see also Isa 33.24.
Jesus also had the power to control the weather. On one occasion he simply commanded a storm to abate, and it did. (Luke 8.22-25) This assures us that there will be no violently destructive weather to fear in the new world. And areas of the earth now uninhabitable due to extreme climate should then become habitable. Isaiah 35 above mentions deserts blossoming; we can also imagine arctic regions becoming livable as well. On the other hand, Genesis 8.22 says that "summer and winter shall never cease," so we need not expect the weather to be bland and uninteresting.
The Revelation adds detail to this beautiful picture. After describing the war of Armageddon, it shows Satan being caught and bound and put into an "abyss" for a thousand years. The purpose is "that he might not mislead the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended." So, for a while we are to be protected from his influence. This peaceful and prosperous period is also called the "Millenium", which simply means "thousand years." —Rev 20.1-3.
It also describes a "first resurrection." Those "executed for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God," staying faithful under supreme test, are raised up and "power of judging was given them." They rule with Christ as kings for the thousand years. They also become "priests of God and of the Christ." This is that "royal priesthood" Peter spoke about. It is that chosen nation, that true Israel through whom all other nations will be blessed. (See Chapter 6, Let Your Kingdom Come, for details.) Real priests teach the truth about God and help people become pleasing to him. And these faithful ones will be true and incorruptible Christian kings, not like the pretenders this world has known. — Rev 20.4-6
At Rev 7.9, 10, 13-17 John sees a "great crowd out of all nations" praising God. He asks, "who are these?" and gets the answer, "these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation." These are the Armageddon survivors, you and I and millions more. We are not shown as rulers or as judges, but as sheep and as servants. Under the heavenly Kingdom, we will be led to "fountains of waters of life." Our "robes" (our appearance before God) are already white (pure, clean, holy) by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus), so why do we need any "water of life"? Because God has used the "blood of the Lamb" only to declare us righteous, to forgive our sins. But we are still imperfect, we continue to sin, despite trying very hard not to. During that Millenium, that will change. We will be cured of all our imperfections. We will have perfect health and clear minds. We will then stand before God like Adam at his creation: perfect, able to serve without sin. —Rev 22.1, 2, 1 Cor 6.11, 1 John 1.7-10.
But then, at the end of the Millenium, Satan will be set loose again! Why would God do such a thing? Would this not destroy all the advances made during that time?
Certainly that will be what the Devil will have in mind. The account reads: "Now as soon as the thousand years have been ended, Satan will be let loose out of his prison, and he will go out to mislead those nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog*, to gather them together for the war. The number of these is as the sand of the sea. And they advanced over the breadth of the earth and encircled the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city." The original attack of "Gog" was cut short at Armageddon (Rev 19.19). Yet as soon as he is released, Satan goes out to assemble another army of people willing to attack just like before! —Rev 20.7-9.
Satan’s release will be a test on everyone. After a thousand years of peace and healing and godly education, will we be prepared and not listen to his deceptions? Will we do any better than Adam did? This is the purpose for setting Satan loose. (Compare Deut 13.1-4.) His release date should be known in advance, almost to the day. Yet a sizable number apparently will not have the love of God and of righteousness rooted very deeply in their hearts. This stands as a warning to us: we must not merely go through the motions of serving God, being good while it is convenient and popular, yet not really "getting the sense of it" with our hearts. Those who do that will quickly succumb when the going gets tough. —compare Matt 13.19-21.
Those who follow Satan launch an organized attack on those who are faithful to God. Jehovah does not delay a moment longer: fire comes down out of heaven and devours them. "And the Devil who was misleading them was hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur, where both the wild beast and the false prophet already were; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." —Rev 20:9,10.
After that, all creation will be united in perfect harmony. There will be no rebels or opposers alive anywhere. Will you be there to see it?
Revelation 20 goes on to describe another resurrection, different from the one for those raised up to reign as kings with Christ. When does this occur? Who are involved? We will consider this in our next chapter, "All Those in the Graves Shall Hear His Voice".