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When Will God’s Will Be Done on Earth?The Watchtower—1971 | February 1
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“LET your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.”—Matt. 6:10.
Nineteen hundred years have passed since those words were first spoken by Jesus of Nazareth as part of a model prayer given to his disciples. Since then they have been repeated by thousands of millions of persons, thousands of millions of times, all over the earth.
Is what we see on earth today a fulfillment of that prayer? The answer obviously is, No!
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When Will God’s Will Be Done on Earth?The Watchtower—1971 | February 1
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GOD’S WAY TO BRING THE NEEDED CHANGE
The Bible shows that the Creator of earth, man and all forms of life, is the only One who can and will provide the global direction and moral guidance the inhabitants of this planet so desperately need. His selected means for doing this is a government, heaven based and headed by his own Son, Christ Jesus. That government is the Kingdom for which persons have been praying for centuries.
But someone may here say, “Just how realistic is it to put our hope in God to straighten out matters on earth if, after nineteen centuries, that prayer still has not seen fulfillment?”
Would it not be better to ask: “How realistic is it to keep on putting hope in imperfect men to do the job when, after all these centuries, their leaders now admit their concern and even anxiety for the future of mankind as a whole?” Rather than think it strange to turn to the everlasting God for hope for the future, is it not far stranger that people should keep on trusting dying men to bring them out of the world’s worsening situation?
Men of affairs admit that for any real improvement to come there must be full cooperation on the part of people, rulers and subjects, earth wide. Selfishness, national and individual, must be set aside. Do you personally see any genuine progress in that direction? Are people in your neighborhood changing in that direction?
Make no mistake about it, however. The Bible does not say that the needed change will come about by world conversion of all persons by religious organizations. It foretold in plain terms that conditions on earth would develop to their present point for the very reason that the nations—rulers and people in general—would stubbornly refuse to submit to God’s will and bring their lives into harmony with it.
In the last book of the Bible, the nations of the earth, their armies, and the people, from both the ‘free world’ and the ‘enslaved world,’ are shown as opposing the carrying out of God’s will for the earth by his kingdom. For that reason, Christ Jesus is represented as ‘shepherding the nations with a rod of iron,’ ridding the earth of all who oppose his Kingdom rule. (Rev. 19:11-21) This is, in fact, what you pray for if you pray, “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.”
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