The Why of It

Dorothy of South Island rang yesterday and we had a long chat. She has been teaching her little grandaughter to ski.  She is building some wonderful memories for the little girl.  I still think, and even dream, of magical times with my granny, at Nabbs Cottage.  

Feel very down today, and in a lot of "discomfort" - my whole leg is cramping. To cheer me up Captain Butterfly took me out for a small ride.  We circled the vastness of Lobbs Wood - that took 3 minutes- and went to the doctors to put my prescription in. It was lovely not to have to go in and have needles stuck in me.   And we admired the daffodils and magnolias in the gardens everywhere.

Thank you to everyone with beautiful front gardens. They lift the heart.

But I want to come back to the question why, if God's Kingdom began its rule from the heavens in 1914, are things on the earth getting more and more violent, more and more lawless?  Why is the earth so close to ruin?

The book of Job tells us that Satan spends his time between heaven and earth.  He is never in hell - the common grave of mankind - and never will be there.   All those in hell - Sheol/Hades - are sleeping in the dreamless sleep of death and will be resurrected into the earthly Paradise.You will remember that Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would do one act of worship to him.  Jesus refused, but he never denied Satan's right to offer those kingdoms. They are in Satan's power to this day.

Job 1:6,7 says:  "Now it came to be the day when the sons of the [true] God entered to take their station before Jehovah, and even Satan proceeded to enter right among them.  Then Jehovah said to Satan: “Where do you come from?” At that Satan answered Jehovah and said: “From roving about in the earth and from walking about in it.” "   So here we see that Satan moves freely between heaven and earth.But, after Jesus was installed as King in 1914, Satan and all the angels who had followed him (and made themselves demons) were thrown out of heaven.

Here is the next paragraph from Sundays Watchtower:

"The first mission of God's newly installed King, was to wage war against his father's chief Adversary, Satan. Jesus and his angels cast the Devil and his demons out of heaven. This brought great rejoicing in heaven but a time of unprecedented calamity to the earth.  (Read Revelation 12:7-9, 12*)..."

Revelation 12:7-9 says:  "And war broke out in heaven: Mi′cha‧el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled  but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven.  So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."  

The result?

Revelation 12:12 tells us:   "On this account be glad, you heavens and you who reside in them! Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.”

Before I began to study the Bible with the Jehovah's Witnesses, I remember reading what one young soldier had written about his experiences in the terrible trenches of WW1.  In part he said:  "We cowered in the trenches as if angry demons were stamping above our heads".    The power of the description stayed in my mind, and when I began to study Revelation, I wondered if he hadn't felt that anger - Satan knowing he has only a short time now to go on ruling and misleading.  


Still no sign of the missing Malaysian airliner!  Such suspense for the families, hoping against hope. As I probably said before, its like something from a James Bond film, only so far no James Bond has come to the rescue.