When I was younger, I often had dreams of the Earth quite different than it is today, with lakes that are crystal clear and air that is clean and man living in harmony with nature instead of conquering nature, and in harmony with himself, and everything looking fresh and new and no signs of rot or decay anywhere and I wonder, was I privileged to get a glimpse of the same new Earth that John the Revelator was describing?
I was shown this many times in dreams along with two visions of how the Earth was transformed from the old Earth to the new, and that transformation took two different extremes, one transition was peaceful and spared man of a great deal of death, destruction, and pain, the other was violent and destructive with many people dying, and many of those that died did so in lava streams from many volcanoes. The difference between these two transitions was a function of man’s attitude. If we were loving, kind, treated the Earth and all of it’s inhabitants, which are God’s creation, with the respect a creation of God deserves, then the transition was kind and loving to us. If we continued with our greed, hate, and wars, and disrespect for God’s creation, then the transition was not going to go well for us.
It was going to come whether we did God’s will and flowed peacefully with it, or opposed God’s will and got bowled over by it. Either way I’m looking forward to the end of death and decay. Even though I pray for understanding and direction, my role is still not clear to me.
The following is today’s Our Daily Bread verses:
Revelation 21:1-8King James Version (KJV)
21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.