Conclusion of Reasons for Confidence

To my readers: There was a power outage this morning and both cable and Internet were out, so I could not do a blog until now.  I apologize for that. Thank you for your patience and God bless you all.


Similarly, those faithful to God as part of the new earth, the society of true worshipers in the new world, will keep standing individually because they will be rendering pure worship to the Creator of all things.  That will not be occasional or haphazard worship.  God's Law, provided to Israel through Moses, called for certain acts of worship each month, as marked by the new moon, and each week, as marked by the Sabbath day.  (Leviticus 24:5-9; Numbers  10:10; 28:9, 10; 2 Chronicles 2:4) So  Isaiah 66:23 points to regular ongoing  worship of God, week after week and month after month. Atheism and religious hypocrisy will not exist then.  "All flesh will come in to bow down before Jehovah.

Isaiah 66:24 assures us that  the peace and righteousness of the new earth will never  be in danger. Wicked people will not ruin it. Recall that 2 Peter 3:7 says that ahead of us is "the last day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men."  Those coming to their end will be ungodly.  No harm will come to innocents, unlike what often happens in human wars, where civilian casualties  outnumber military one.  The Great Judge guarantees us that his day will a destruction of the ungodly.  

The surviving righteous ones will see that God's prophetic word is true. Verse 24 foretells that "the carcasses of the men that were transgressing against" Jehovah will be proof of his judgment.  The graphic language Isaiah used may seem shocking.  Yet, it is consistent with  a historical  fact.  Outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem were dumps for garbage and, occasionally, for the corpses  of executed criminal judged unfit for a decent burial.  There the worms and incinerating fire would soon eliminate both the garbage and those corpses.  Evidently, Isaiah's imagery illustrates the finality of Jehovah's judgment on transgressors. 

Next time:What He Has Promised 

From the Watchtower magazine, 2000