w73 685 Sowing Seeds of Good News in a War-plagued World “This hope you heard of before by the telling of the truth of that good news which has presented itself to you, even as it is bearing fruit and increasing in all the world.”—Col. 1:5, 6. TWO KINDS of seeds are being sown world wide today—the seed of good news of a lasting peace and the seed of war propaganda. The latter seed is being sown by the majority, the first-mentioned seed by the minority. 2 The armed nations are occupied with sowing the seed of war preparedness. Both in the field of agriculture and in the field of international relations it always works out that what is sown reproduces itself, produces its own kind. This has been true ever since the first man took up farming. (Gen. 3:17-19; 4:1, 2; 1:11, 12; 9:20) This law also operates relentlessly in the lives of nations. The divine prophecy has been true of many nations, and not just of ancient Israel: “It is wind that they keep sowing, and a stormwind is what they will reap.” (Hos. 8:7) Since the majority of men are engaged in sowing the seed of war preparedness, what about the seed of peaceful good news? Can it thrive and produce fruit and increase? Yes, for time and again it has been demonstrated to be an infallible rule that “whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap.” (Gal. 6:7) Man’s Creator fixed it that way. 3 Today those who are sowing the seed of the good news of lasting peace are really carrying on a work that started nineteen centuries ago. They are now carrying on this work upon such a scale that it cannot help but be observed by all the world. What was experienced by the seed sowers back there in the first century of our Common Era is being experienced by the seed sowers of today in this war-plagued twentieth century. Lovers of a lasting peace on earth ought to be interested. But we all have to decide on whether we care to be sowers of war propaganda or sowers of the peaceful good news. Our decision will determine the consequences to us. 4 During the sixties of the first century C.E., the air was electric with heated feeling against the Roman Empire. This was particularly so in the Middle East in the Roman province of Judea. Rebellion was brewing against the occupancy and domination of that land by the Roman armies under a pagan Roman administrator. The violent end of the sacred city of Jerusalem was drawing near. That city as a center of Jewish worship was in its time of the end. The generation of Jews whom Jesus Christ himself addressed during his public ministry on earth was the one that he said would not pass away until Jerusalem and its gorgeous temple were destroyed. (Matt. 24:34, 1-22) History records that this terrible destruction came in the mournful year of 70 C.E. Was there anything that could keep Jews from being overwhelmingly grieved at such a religiously shocking destruction? Yes, there was! There was just one thing that could comfort a Jewish heart, provided that the Jewish heart would accept it. What was that? Jesus Christ mentioned it when giving his marvelous prophecy upon the conclusion of the Jewish system of things over there in the Middle East. This cheering, heartwarming thing he spoke of after telling of the persecutions that would come upon his faithful disciples. He said: 5 “But he that has endured to the end is the one that will be saved. And this GOOD NEWS of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.”—Matt. 24:13, 14. 6 The calamitous destruction of Jerusalem and her temple was heartbreaking news to the Jews around the world who still looked to that earthly city as their religious center. It was for them the worst of news. But the information that Jesus Christ proclaimed throughout his earthly ministry was GOOD NEWS, gospel, evangel! But good news of what kingdom? It was not the kingdom that Jesus Christ said would rise against kingdom at the same time that nation would rise against nation, to be accompanied by famines, pestilences and earthquakes in one place after another. It was the only kingdom that Jesus advocated and proclaimed. It was the one that he mentioned in this selfsame prophecy, calling it “the kingdom of the heavens.” (Matt. 24:7; 25:1) He foretold the signs of its nearness, saying in this very prophecy: “In this way you also, when you see these things occurring, know that the kingdom of God is near.”—Luke 21:10, 31. 7 So, then, even before the destruction of earthly Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E., because of her rebellion against the Roman Empire, “this good news” of God’s kingdom, of the kingdom of the heavens, was to be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, nations inside and outside the Roman Empire. With what effect? Well, when the Roman legions wrecked Jerusalem and her temple, this would not shock the Christian believers in God, even the Christianized Jews. These were actually expecting that destruction. The Christianized Jews in Jerusalem and in all the rest of the province of Judea acted upon the advice given in Jesus’ prophecy; they fled from Judea and Jerusalem as quickly as they could after the temporary surrounding of Jerusalem by Roman armies in the year of Jewish revolt, 66 C.E. (Matt. 24:15-22; Luke 21:20-24; Mark 13:14-20) They knew that the desolating of Judea and Jerusalem did not mean the destruction of the “kingdom of the heavens,” “the kingdom of God.” No earthly city represented God’s kingdom to them any longer. They rested their hope in God’s heavenly kingdom that was to come, in which they were to share. 8 Jerusalem’s destruction filled them with more confidence than ever in the true Messianic kingdom of God. The evidence is that they continued to proclaim the good news of that kingdom to the very end of the first century, in spite of bitter persecution by the Roman Empire. The Christian apostle John, who died about the year 100 C.E., received the Revelation (the book listed last in the Holy Bible) shortly before his death. In the opening chapter he writes: “I John, your brother and a sharer with you in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance in company with Jesus, came to be in the isle that is called Patmos for speaking about God and bearing witness to Jesus.” (Rev. 1:9) By this time the “good news of the kingdom” had been preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations to even a greater extent than such good news had been preached before Jerusalem’s end in the year 70 C.E. Thus Jesus’ prophecy concerning the worldwide preaching of the good news of God’s Messianic kingdom had not failed. This set the pattern for similar preaching of “this good news of the kingdom” in our present-time conclusion of the system of things, to which Jesus’ prophecy applies in a culminating sense.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 00:20:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015