The Days of Satanism Are Numbered
JEHOVAH GOD created Adam and Eve, put them in a paradise garden, and told them to multiply and fill the earth with righteous offspring. They were to take care of the garden, dress it and keep it, and live forever, all on just the one easy condition: ‘You are not to eat of a certain tree in the middle of the garden. If you eat of it, you will die.’—Genesis 1:27, 28; 2:8, 9, 15-17; Isaiah 45:18.
A mighty angel rebelled against God and became Satan, meaning “Resister,” because he wanted to seize control. He wanted to have the worship of the human race for himself. He influenced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, claiming that it was good for food and that she would not die but become like God, able to decide for herself what is good and what is bad. Her first decision was bad; she decided that to eat the forbidden fruit would be good. Eve ate, gave some of the fruit to Adam and he ate, and both ultimately died. Thus Adam brought sin and death upon their offspring, who have been dying ever since. (Genesis 3:1-6; Romans 5:12) The first human pair chose to follow Satan and became the first converts to the worship of Satan. Down to this day, millions have decided that the religion of those original parents was and is good enough for them. “If you keep presenting yourselves to anyone as slaves to obey him, you are slaves of him because you obey him.”—Romans 6:16; John 17:15, 16; 1 John 5:19.
Jehovah pronounced Satan’s ultimate doom, but allowed him to continue for a time. This would give Satan the opportunity to prove a challenge he made, that God could not put men on earth who would prove true to Him under test—a challenge so dramatically portrayed and answered for Jehovah’s side of the issue in the first two chapters of the Bible book of Job. Under cruel and vicious attacks from Satan, Job himself chose to keep integrity to God, thereby proving Satan to be a liar. (Genesis 3:15; Exodus 9:16; Job 42:7) Hebrews chapter 11 also records a long list of Witnesses who took Jehovah’s side of the issue of universal sovereignty.
Christ Jesus is the outstanding one who for all time provided the complete answer for Jehovah’s side of the great issue of universal sovereignty and human integrity to God. This was a crushing defeat for Satan. Jesus flatly turned down Satan’s offer to give him rulership over the whole world in return for just one act of worship to Satan. Jesus also endured unflinchingly a horrendous ordeal as he died on a torture stake. He overcame both Satan and Satan’s world, providing us with a perfect model to follow.—Matthew 4:8-10; 27:50; John 16:33; Hebrews 5:7-10; 1 Peter 2:21.
In view of the calamitous times in which we are living, it may seem that Satan is getting stronger than ever and that Satanism itself is on the increase. The Bible book of Revelation, however, paints an entirely different picture at Re chapter 12, verses 7-9, 12:
“War broke out in heaven: Michael [Christ Jesus] and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. On this account be glad, you heavens and you who reside in them! Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.”
The Days of the Paradise Earth Will Be Without Number!
“Knowing he has a short period of time,” Satan steps up his demonic activity in these “last days.” (James 5:1-3) Yet there is a silver lining to the clouds of our days. Revelation 21:1, 3-5 reveals what it is: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea is no more. With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: ‘Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. 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.’ And the One seated on the throne said: ‘Look! I am making all things new.’ Also, he says: ‘Write, because these words are faithful and true.’”
Thus, Christ Jesus will reign for a thousand years, during which time Jehovah will carry out his original purpose in creating the earth and putting mankind on it. (Revelation 20:1, 2, 6) You will recall that mankind was originally to fill the earth with righteous offspring, care for the earth, look after its plants and animals, live in peace, and love one another. Fulfillment of that purpose has been held in abeyance to let Satan attempt to prove his challenge that he could turn all people away from Jehovah God. He has enslaved billions of people, but he has failed in the case of some millions of integrity keepers.—Romans 6:16.
During a time of restoration, Jehovah’s mercy through Christ Jesus will reach even into the grave to give opportunity for everlasting life in a paradise earth to billions who have died during the past thousands of years: “Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”—John 5:28, 29.
Any who then refuse to fit into the righteous environment of that new earth will not remain to pollute or destroy it, its plants and animals, the peace of mankind, or the true worship of Jehovah God. Psalm 37:10, 11, 29 confirms this: “Just a little while longer, and the wicked one will be no more; and you will certainly give attention to his place, and he will not be. But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”
Micah 4:2-4 promises true peace and security: “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; for the very mouth of Jehovah of armies has spoken it.”
This peacefulness will also spread to include animals, as Hosea 2:18 says: “I [Jehovah] shall certainly conclude a covenant in that day in connection with the wild beast of the field and with the flying creature of the heavens and the creeping thing of the ground, and the bow and the sword and war I shall break out of the land, and I will make them lie down in security.” Ezekiel 34:25 speaks also of a covenant that excludes the presence of any “injurious wild beast.”
Further, Isaiah 11:6-9 promises peace between the animals in Paradise: “The wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together; and a mere little boy will be leader over them. And the cow and the bear themselves will feed; together their young ones will lie down. And even the lion will eat straw just like the bull. And the sucking child will certainly play upon the hole of the cobra; and upon the light aperture of a poisonous snake will a weaned child actually put his own hand. They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain; because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.”
The meek will inherit the earth. They will care for the air, the water, and the soil. Springs and streams of water will soak the parched lands. Forests will clothe the mountains that have been denuded for selfish gain. Woodlands will flourish and former deserts will blossom as the rose. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, and the speechless will talk. (Isaiah 35:1-7) Appreciation for Jehovah’s glorious mountains and valleys and his coastlands bordering surging seas and oceans will never allow human greed to rise up again to ruin the earth. It will be easy, natural, for perfect mankind, filled with the fruits of Jehovah’s spirit, to delight, each one, in loving his neighbor as himself, and above all to love Jehovah with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yes, all mankind will bear the spiritual fruitage of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control.”—Galatians 5:22, 23.
Too Good to Be True?
By now some readers may be saying, ‘All of that sounds too good to be true.’ But, no, the conditions existing now are too bad to continue. We are in what the Bible calls “the last days.” Look around, and you can see that this is so. “In the last days,” says God’s Word, “critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away. But wicked men and impostors will advance from bad to worse, misleading and being misled.”—2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13.
Even with this graphic picture of our times, many will still ridicule. That also is to be expected. Their ridicule is itself a piece that fits into the pattern of proof that we are in the last days: “In the last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires and saying: ‘Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.’ . . . The heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men. . . . There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.”—2 Peter 3:3, 4, 7, 13.
Jehovah promises that, in his new world of righteousness, this wicked old system of Satan’s world will not even come to mind: “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. But exult, you people, and be joyful forever in what I am creating.” (Isaiah 65:17, 18) The days of Satanism are numbered, and in God’s due time, Satan himself will be destroyed forever.—Revelation 20:1-3, 7-10.
Indeed, the blessed conditions to come in the Paradise earth are not too good to be true; Jehovah considers the present conditions of this old system under Satan too bad to remain.
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The blessed conditions to come in the Paradise earth are not too good to be true