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The Wonderful World Beyond Today! Part 3, Refreshing News: God's Government Is Coming! By Mike Bennett After thousands of years of abuse, corruption and misrule, finally there will be a government that is always for the people -- truly serving with everyone's best interest in mind.
he statistics, and the human stories behind them, are horrifying. Dictators, tyrants and leaders of every stripe have cheated, robbed, starved, repressed, jailed, tortured, raped and murdered their own subjects.
Sadly, there are many more stories like these today, as there have been throughout history. Think of Suharto, estimated to have embezzled $15 to $35 billion during his rule of Indonesia, and Stalin, who killed thousands in his purges of "enemies of the people" and starved millions more Russians with "the worst man-made famine in human history" (www.infoplease.com; www.pbs.org). Before them were countless others -- from Nimrod to Nebuchadnezzar to Nero to Napoleon -- with power and the corruption that seems to inevitably ensue. An image destroyed Since so many leaders seem to set up idealized images of themselves, it is only fitting that a prophecy of the end of human misrule includes the toppling of a huge statue.
They knew he wasn't kidding when he threatened, "If you do not make known the dream to me, and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made an ash heap" (Daniel 2:5). No one could do what the king demanded, but Daniel, a Jewish captive serving in Nebuchadnezzar's court, asked God to reveal the dream and its meaning to him. With God's inspiration, Daniel was able to remind the king of the great image he had seen in his dream. It had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. Daniel explained to Nebuchadnezzar, "You are this head of gold" (verse 38). The other parts of the image were revealed to be other human empires to follow him -- Medo-Persian, Greco-Macedonian and Roman -- all the way up to the time of Christ's return. "You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces... And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth" (verses 34-35). The towering image of human government and corrupt rule will finally come to an end and "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed" (Daniel 2:44). It seems this vision did not squelch the pride and arrogance of Nebuchadnezzar for very long. He went on to command his people to bow down to a 90-foot gold statue or be thrown into a blazing furnace (Daniel 3:1-6, New International Version). But Daniel's prophecy has given hope to millions of oppressed people through the ages. Regime change is coming! The despots and petty bureaucrats will no longer cheat and abuse them. A dream come true! Jesus Christ promised to return and clean up the corruption and set up the perfect government -- one that truly serves the people.
This begins the time of refreshing, the time of restoration that the apostle Peter and all the holy prophets had proclaimed (Acts 3:19-21). It was not to be a restoration of some idyllic golden age of man, but a restoration of the perfect government of God that had been lost when man rejected God in the Garden of Eden. Actually, it seems this earth lost God's government even earlier when Lucifer arrogantly rebelled against his Creator. He started the pattern of selfish government the Bible identifies with Babylon and continues to this day (Isaiah 14:12-15; Revelation 18:1-5). Real civil service Why will God's government be different from all that have gone before? Christ described the contrast in a gentle rebuke to His own students, who had been themselves vying for power. "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:25-28).
This is certainly not to say that God's government will not exercise power when necessary to prevent people from harming each other. The difference will be that all decisions will be based on just laws that are for the real benefit of those governed (Psalm 119:172; Deuteronomy 6:24). Love is the underlying foundation of all God's laws (Matthew 22:37-40), and these good and fair laws will be administered by perfect leaders and judges who have learned to apply justice with mercy (Matthew 12:7; 18:23-35; 23:23). Perfect leaders In the human realm, even the best leaders are too often stymied by red tape, corrupt bureaucracies and humanly insolvable problems. And sadly, too many of them also get trapped in the web of corruption and scandal. But God has been working with people today to form in them His own righteous character so that He can make them incorruptible in every way at Christ's return. Those who have been faithful, some even to death as a martyr, will be changed or "raised incorruptible," with godly power and immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-53).
With the power and love of the Creator behind them, these resurrected servants of God will be able to clean up the corruption and cut through the Gordian knots that have humanity in a stranglehold. Who will rule with Christ in His Kingdom? The Bible actually mentions a few people with their specific job assignments in God's future government. For example, in Ezekiel 34 God compared His nation of Israel to a flock of sheep. (This includes both the people of Judah and the northern 10 tribes that had previously gone into captivity and become lost in history. See the booklet for more about this fascinating part of the story.) During this time of man's misrule, the people of Israel have been mistreated by their "shepherds" and been preyed upon by those around. But God promises to save them at Christ's return. "I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them -- My servant David" (verse 23). David will be resurrected and will again serve as king of the whole nation of Israel (Jeremiah 30:9).
The Bible doesn't tell the exact job titles of most of the saints. But it is clear that Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Moses and Rahab, and many more heroes of faith in the Old and New Testaments and beyond, will serve with Christ in bringing a fair and compassionate government to a world that so sorely needs it (Hebrews 11). Copyright 2008 by United Church of God, an International Association All rights reserved. |
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