Human Imperfection, Teboho Kibe [read a book .txt] 📗

1977 Britannica Macropædia defines the millennium as follows: “This 1,000-year period, known as the millennium, is viewed as a time during which man’s yearnings for peace, freedom from evil, and the rule of righteousness upon earth are finally realized through the power of God. . . . millennialism is concerned with the earthly prospects of the human community. . . . millennialism attempts to answer in vivid imagery such questions as: What will be the final end of this world? Will mankind ever fulfill the agelong dream of dwelling in an earthly paradise or will all men be destroyed in a cataclysm of fire brought on by their own folly or God’s judgment?”—Italics ours.

For certain encyclopedia writers and faithless religious leaders, those questions may be merely of academic interest. But for many honest-hearted people in all lands they are very realistic present-day problems of burning interest. Jehovah’s Witnesses have found the answer to these questions in the Bible. For them, the hope of living forever “in an earthly paradise” is not an “agelong dream.” That hope has sure foundations, being based on sound Bible scholarship. Both the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures show that God will not allow wicked men to destroy the earth “in a cataclysm of fire.” (Rev. 11:18; Isa. 45:18) Neither is he going to destroy the earth himself. (Ps. 104:5) After creating man and placing him in a localized paradise, God revealed to him His purpose, namely, for man to “subdue” the earth by extending paradise conditions worldwide, and to “fill [not overfill] the earth” with a righteous race of men and women ‘made in the likeness of God.’—Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15.

Such is still God’s “will,” which, through his Messianic kingdom, will be done “on earth as in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10, JB) The whole tenor of the Bible shows beyond doubt that God has not abandoned this original purpose. (Isa. 46:9, 10) The millennium, or 1,000-year reign of Christ, fits into God’s “eternal purpose,” part of which is “to gather all things together again in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.” (Eph. 3:11; 1:8-10) In other words, the millennium is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end, the carrying out of God’s original purpose for the earth.

NOT A “MATERIALISTIC DREAM”

Religious adversaries deride Jehovah’s Witnesses for preaching the millennial hope. Yet these scoffers are perfectly happy to send all the good to heaven and all the wicked to everlasting torment in hell, thus leaving the earth completely out of God’s “eternal purpose.” For example, French Dominican priest H. C. Chéry, who has made a speciality of criticizing Jehovah’s Witnesses, calls the hope of paradise restored on earth “a materialistic dream.”

First, this Catholic priest should be reminded that the millennial hope has never been formally condemned by the Catholic Church or defined as heretical. This is not surprising, since it is based on the Bible and was considered to be “one of the essential dogmas of the Christian faith” by most of the earliest and best-reputed of the “Church Fathers.” Were Polycarp, Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Tertullian also ‘materialistic dreamers’?

True, some of these, and others in later times, discredited the millennial hope, by giving the foretold millennial blessings a carnal application or even a sociopolitical twist. But nobody can in good faith accuse Jehovah’s Witnesses of doing this today. Even now, in a pleasure-oriented world, these Christians are putting up a hard fight against materialism and pleasure-seeking in their own lives and within their congregations. They put the accent on spiritual values. They fully realize that if any fall victim to materialism in this “time of the end,” they may never see the millennium. (Luke 21:34-36; Dan. 12:4) Furthermore, they have no hopes of bringing in the millennium through human programs of social reform. They rely entirely on God’s intervention through his Messianic king. At the head of heavenly combat forces, this “King of kings” will fight to put an end to all wickedness on the earth.—Rev. 19:11–20:3.

PARADISE—SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL

Jehovah’s Witnesses are already living in a spiritual paradise. Moreover, they look forward with confidence to their becoming more spiritual throughout the 1,000-year reign of Christ, when symbolic “scrolls” revealing God’s requirements will be “opened.”—Rev. 20:12.

From a careful reading of scriptures that speak of the millennial reign of Christ (for example, Revelation 20:11–21:8), Jehovah’s Witnesses know also that the millennium will call for much self-sacrifice on the part of those who share the earthly hope. There will be much work to do in cultivating and beautifying the earth, but they will not selfishly cultivate paradise conditions just for themselves and their families. Christ’s 1,000-year reign is in fact a “day” of judgment for those who survive the fast-approaching “war of the great day of God the Almighty” (Acts 17:30, 31; Rev. 16:14, 16); it is also the judgment day for the millions of the dead who will be resurrected and judged according to the works they will practice in paradise on earth. (John 5:28, 29; Luke 23:42, 43) These innumerable resurrected ones will need to be unselfishly taught the ways of righteousness by those who are already living under the millennial rule of the Messiah. (Compare Isaiah 11:1-9.) No “materialistic dream” that! It will mean much hard work, also, on a spiritual level.

What is more, the millennium will be just a beginning. After a final test, when the 1,000 years have ended, those men and women who remain faithful to God’s universal sovereignty will be ushered into an eternity of life on a paradise earth.—1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rev. 20:7-10.

A HOPE THAT CAN BECOME YOURS

Such is the hope now cherished by over 8,000,000 Christian witnesses of Jehovah in over 200 lands. It is very much alive in their minds and hearts, so much so that they are always happy to give others the ‘reason for the hope that is in them.’—1 Pet. 3:15.

Since 1914, world events in fulfillment of Bible prophecy show that we are now living in the “time of the end,” and that the unprecedented “time of distress” is near. (Dan. 12:1-4; Matt. 24:3-21) The remnant of the “chosen ones” and the “great crowd” of their companions have been promised survival through that “great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:22; Rev. 7:9, 10, 14) Thereafter, their respective millennial hopes will be fulfilled. Do you believe that? “May the God who gives hope fill you with all joy and peace by your believing, that you may abound in hope.”—Rom. 15:13.

Now, friends, Jehovah God is the One to whom all the poor of the earth should look in this day of world distress. He does not despise their abject condition. His ears are not closed to their sighs and groans, but he takes note of their need and holds forth the true relief to them right now. Abraham Lincoln, a man who rose from poverty to the presidency of the United States of America, once said: “God must love the poor, because he made so many of them.” But God is not the one who made man poor and who made the few rich and the many poor. It is not he who has created class distinctions between rich and poor. He has not willed for the many to be poverty-stricken so long that now, finally, the poor in their masses are rising up under communistic leaders to overthrow the rich capitalists and to equalize all people socially and economically under communist dictators. God’s adversary, Satan the Devil, is the one who has done this. It is this wicked one who now proposes false political and economic systems of relief for the oppressed masses so as to turn them away from the only effective means of relief, that provided by Jehovah God. The applying of these human emergency measures to improve the conditions of the poor and to help the backward areas of the world will result only in increasing the burdens of the people, impoverishing them and oppressing them more. But God Almighty has always come to the rescue of the poor of his people. Now he will completely vindicate their cause and usher them into riches surpassing even those which the first man and woman had at mankind’s start in Eden. The means God uses is his kingdom in the hands of his Son Jesus Christ.

The people’s poverty is not only with regard to material riches. It is principally with regard to the spiritual riches. The clergy of the orthodox Christian and Jewish religious systems are now obliged to admit they have left the people in spiritual poverty. They have been partial to the worldly rich and winked at and kept silent at their oppression of the poor, and all the while they have put on an appearance of great righteousness. Spiritual riches, however, would have lightened the lot of the people amid the injustice and hardships of this world. Such riches would have prevented their violent, radical uprising against the constituted world arrangement today. A person does not need selfish material riches in order to be really wealthy, happy and contented.

Jesus Christ on earth as a man was among the poorest of the poor measured by earthly goods. He was laid in no fine cradle at birth, but in an animal’s manger, because there was no room for visitors at the village inn. As a preacher of God’s kingdom he had no home of his own. “Foxes have dens and birds of heaven have roosts, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay down his head.” (Matt. 8:20, NW) But because of his spiritual riches he had real and loyal friends, particularly his Father in heaven and the people of good will on earth. He had a joy no creature could remove. He was the happiest person on earth, so that he could well describe true states of happiness in his sermon on the mount, beginning with “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them”. (Matt. 5:3, NW) By getting acquainted with him all poor people can now be made spiritually rich and can enjoy hope of early being made possessors of all other riches in the equitable new world under his kingdom.

Back there Jesus knew that Satan’s world was to last without God’s interference till the “appointed times of the nations” ended in 1914. So he endeavored to make those people who were conscious of their spiritual need rich spiritually with the message of God’s kingdom and with the increasing understanding of His recorded Word. He showed that the time had come for God to turn the tables on those who were rich in worldly goods, political power and religious control and influence, and to lift up those who felt their spiritual need. He illustrated this in a parable which he gave, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. “Parable,” we say, because if we interpreted this description of the affairs of the rich man and Lazarus literally, it would reduce Jesus’ interesting word picture to an absurdity. Because of its clear meaning to us now we shall take up a consideration of this comforting parable. As we go along we shall note the points which show it could not be a literalism such as the religious clergy say it is, to terrify people into their power for fear of being tormented in literal fire and brimstone forever after death.

THE RICH MAN

When Jesus gave this parable, members of the strict religious sect of the Pharisees were listening, and it was doubtless for a warning to them. “Now the Pharisees, who were money-lovers, were listening to all these things, and they began to sneer at him.” So after some fitting remarks Jesus said: “To continue: A certain man was rich, and he used to clothe himself with purple and linen, enjoying himself from day to day with magnificence.” (Luke 16:14, 19, NW) “Di′ves” was not his name, but the Latin Vulgate Version of the Bible