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A New World Is At Hand!The Watchtower—1991 | July 15
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“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. I saw also the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 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.’”—Revelation 21:1-5.
The “new heaven” is the heavenly Kingdom of Jesus Christ. The “new earth” is not another earthly globe but a new society of people on this planet—all of them obedient subjects of Christ’s Kingdom, without racial, national, or linguistic divisions. (Compare Psalm 96:1.) The present symbolic heaven and earth—the Devil’s system of things with its governmental structure influenced by Satan and his demons—will have been destroyed. (1 John 5:19) Though literal seas will remain, the figurative sea of restless, wicked mankind will be gone. Jesus’ associate heavenly rulers constitute the New Jerusalem and in association with him form a capital organization that will govern righteous human society. God will ‘tent with’ obedient mankind representatively while they are being fully reconciled with him through Christ during the thousand-year Judgment Day.—Revelation 14:1-4; 20:6.
Under Kingdom rule there will be many reasons for happiness. Mourning, outcry, and pain resulting from illness, grief, and the like will be experiences of the past. Even death that spread to mankind from our first parent, sinful Adam, will be no more. (Romans 5:12) What joy will prevail when this worldwide cause for tears is gone forever!
Not mortal humans but God himself gives a guarantee regarding these blessings. He is the One who says Re 21:5: “Look! I am making all things new.” Yes, and Jehovah God told the apostle John: “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”
Basic Needs Fully Satisfied
In the new world of God’s making, the earth will ultimately become a paradise. This is certain, for Jesus promised a contrite evildoer impaled alongside him: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) Amid paradisaic conditions, such human needs as food and shelter will be fully met.
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A New World Is At Hand!The Watchtower—1991 | July 15
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But famine will be forgotten in God’s new world. Under Kingdom rule “there will come to be plenty of grain on the earth; on the top of the mountains there will be an overflow.”—Psalm 72:16.
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A New World Is At Hand!The Watchtower—1991 | July 15
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In the future Paradise, “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.”—Isaiah 65:21, 22.
Ecological problems will vanish in God’s promised new world. Health-threatening and crop-damaging air pollution will no longer exist. Pollution and habitat destruction now imperiling numerous plant and animal species will then be no threat. And such factors as ozone-layer depletion will not endanger life on earth. We can be sure that Jehovah God will solve all these problems, for his Word assures us that he will soon “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”—Revelation 11:18.
In the new world, warfare will also be a thing of the past but not because statesmen have succeeded in disarming the nations. Rather, God will act where political rulers have failed. He will bring peace to obedient mankind in keeping with these words of the psalmist: “Come, you people, behold the activities of Jehovah, how he has set astonishing events on the earth. He is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth. The bow he breaks apart and does cut the spear in pieces; the wagons he burns in the fire.” (Psalm 46:8, 9) In God’s promised new world so near at hand, people will wage war no more but will enjoy true peace and security.—Micah 4:2-4.
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