Wednesday, December 30
There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting.—2 Pet. 3:13.
To please God, decisive action is needed. Recall Elijah’s words to the Baal worshippers and the apostate Israelites at Mount Carmel: “How long will you be limping upon two different opinions? If Jehovah is the true God, go following him; but if Baal is, go following him.” The sons of Israel knew what they ought to do, but they were “limping” with indecision. In sharp contrast, years earlier, Joshua set a fine example when he told the Israelites: “If it is bad in your eyes to serve Jehovah, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve . . . As for me and my household, we shall serve Jehovah.” Joshua and those who stuck with him were blessed with settling in the Promised Land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” As the Greater Joshua, Jesus is now poised to bring this corrupt system to its end and lead his followers to the promised new world of righteousness.
COMMENTARY
Decisive action will be required in the very near future. As this system implodes and the world is engulfed in war, famine and plagues, the evidence will be overwhelming that the Watchtower has perpetrated a massive hoax upon Jehovah’s Witnesses regarding the supposed establishment of the Kingdom in 1914.
Even their day’s text betrays their deceitful form of divination. That is because the Watchtower teaches that the new heavens has already been established. But if that is true, why should Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to wait for it? Here is a quote from the second volume of their Isaiah commentary:
Today, too, Jehovah makes Jerusalem “a cause for joyfulness.” How? As we have already seen, the new heavens that came into existence in 1914 will eventually include 144,000 corulers, who have a share in the heavenly government. These are prophetically described as “New Jerusalem.” (Revelation 21:2) It is with regard to New Jerusalem that God says: “Here I am creating Jerusalem a cause for joyfulness and her people a cause for exultation.” New Jerusalem will be used by God to shower untold blessings on obedient mankind. No more will be heard the sound of weeping or a plaintive cry, for Jehovah will satisfy “the requests of
[our] heart.”
The 65th chapter of Isaiah has to do with the coming of Christ to a people who are not receptive. For that reason God brings upon them destruction, but not upon all. Verses 8-9 illustrate what is to occur: This is what Jehovah says: “Just as when new wine is found in a cluster of grapes and someone says, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is some good in it,’ so I will do for the sake of my servants; I will not destroy them all. I will bring out of Jacob an offspring and out of Judah the one to inherit my mountains; my chosen ones will take possession of it, and my servants will reside there.”
The context indicates that the new heavens and the new earth are created in the aftermath of the destruction of the national vine. Yet, the Watchtower claims it has to do with Christendom being destroyed along with Babylon the Great. But if that were true, it means that according to the Watchtower’s interpretation God has created the new heavens before the destruction. But that is not what the prophecy states.
In truth, the preservation of the chosen ones will take place during the harvest, when the weeds are collected out from his Kingdom.
