Chapter 1

Our Basis for Hope in Its Restoration

1. How does the matter of Paradise differ from the evolution theory?

PARADISE, the original perfect garden home of mankind, is no myth, no fairy tale. It is unlike the theory of evolution, which was taught in ancient Babylon, later taught by pagan Greek philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ and recently revived in these last few centuries. *

2. Why does mankind need an early restoration of Paradise?

² Paradise, where all was beautiful, peaceful, happy, healthful and life-sustaining, was a real parklike residence that was early lost to mankind. For almost six thousand years now mankind has been trying to exist outside and away from that garden home of pleasure and delight. The effects of this are seen in both the condition of the earth and the condition of mankind today. As the world situation of our generation worsens and becomes more threatening, one thing becomes plainer, becomes more certain: If the human family is to survive, Paradise needs to be restored early to this earth. Nothing could be better or more desirable for all mankind.

3. What Paradise hope was held out to us, by what creditable man?

³ It seems almost too good to be true​—that Paradise in all its grandeur will be restored, yes, be made earth wide, and that a numberless crowd of right-hearted persons today living will still be here on earth when this marvelous restoration begins. Why, that would mean entering into an opportunity to live forever on a paradise earth in complete peace, health and happiness! But this hope was held out to us by no one less than  Jesus Christ, the Founder of Christianity, not of Christendom. Paradise is no more a myth or legend than He is. The proof of history is overwhelming that he was on earth as a perfect man nineteen centuries ago. Eyewitnesses and personal companions of His have left us written testimony of what he said and did​—his blameless life, his unjust, violent death and his miraculous resurrection from the dead.

4, 5. As involving Paradise, what did Jesus say about the first marriage and divorce?

⁴ This remarkable man, Jesus Christ, referred to the original Paradise of mankind and also to the one to come. How it came about was like this: It was in the early part of the year 33 of our first century, and Jesus Christ was on the east side of the Jordan River, in the Roman province of Perea. He was approached by men who were acquainted with religious law and was asked whether divorce should be an easy matter between a man and a woman. Lawmakers of today ought to be interested in what Jesus Christ said to those inquirers. According to the record of an eyewitness he said:

⁵ “‘Did you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh”? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.’ They said to him: ‘Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?’ He said to them: ‘Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.’”​—(Eyewitness) Matthew 19:3-9.

6. From what book did Jesus there quote, and from what chapters?

⁶ Jesus Christ asked them: “Did you not read?” Read where? Why, in the first book written by the prophet Moses in the sixteenth century before Jesus Christ. Then Jesus Christ quoted words from the first two chapters of that book, now called Genesis.

7. Where did God marry the first human couple, and what did he say regarding future marriages?

 ⁷ Jesus Christ did not say that the human male and female evolved or ascended from some lower form of earthly life, say, from apes, but he said that they were created to be male and female. As such, they were meant to be married as husband and wife. Where were this first man and wife created? The second chapter of Genesis states that the Creator performed the marriage in the Paradise of Pleasure, the Garden of Eden. It was in that Paradise of Pleasure that their Creator, when marrying them, said the words quoted by Jesus: “That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh.”​—Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7-24.

8. Why and how did God put purpose into the lives of that first human married couple?

⁸ The lives of this first married human couple were not to be without meaning, without purpose, without responsibility to anybody else. Paradise was here before they ever got here on earth. But it was not yet earth wide. They did not first make this Paradise before moving there, any more than mankind has made this whole earth a paradise since the days of that first human married couple. Their own Creator made it, preparing it for them and having it ready when he created them. He himself had a purpose in putting them in the Paradise of Pleasure. So he put purpose also into their lives. This he indicated, when he told them what he had in mind for them, saying: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.”​—Genesis 1:26-28.

9. What prospect did God thus set before that human couple?

⁹ Thus he set before humankind the prospect of a Paradise of Pleasure all around this earthly globe, comfortably filled with the perfect offspring of that first human couple, all of them living together as one big family in perfect peace, health and happiness and keeping the whole earth in a Paradise state. This was  to continue on forever! Divorce would never have marked that perfect state of things.

10. How did Jesus know all that, and whose son did he know Adam to be?

¹⁰ Jesus Christ, when on earth, knew all that. He had read for himself all that the prophet Moses had written and all the rest of the inspired Scriptures that had been written in Hebrew and Aramaic. He made quotations by memory from the book of Genesis all the way to the book of the prophecy of Malachi. He did so because he knew and believed all those Holy Writings to be the inspired truth of the Creator. That Creator was God, whom Jesus Christ spoke of as the one yoking the first man and woman together in what was to be an indissoluble marriage. (See Mark 10:3-9.) Jesus Christ knew, therefore, that that first man, as a perfect human creature, was a human “son of God,” not the son of some evolving apeman.

11. Why did Jesus call himself “the Son of man,” and what did he believe about human life?

¹¹ Jesus Christ knew that, as far as his human fleshly body was concerned, he was a descendant from that first man, whom the Holy Scriptures call Adam, a name meaning “earthling man.” The fact is, Jesus knew his whole line of descent from that first man Adam. His line of descent was on record in full in the registry of the town where his human mother, Mary the daughter of Heli the son of Matthat, lived. (Luke 3:23-38) There was a reason, therefore, for speaking of himself as “the Son of man,” for he had been born into the human family. (Matthew 8:20; 16:13; 24:30; 25:31) He did not go along with the pagan Greek philosophers of ancient times and claim to have the blood of a so-called apeman in him. His human line of descent stopped with “Adam, son of God.” (Luke 3:38) He recognized that human life began in the Paradise of Pleasure, and not before that, and by the special creation of God, apart from the creation of any other kind of earthly living creature. He accepted as true what the prophet Moses wrote down in Genesis 2:7-14:

12. What did Jesus believe about man’s creation and the locality of it?

¹² “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of  the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads. . . . And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates.”​—Douay Version of the Bible.

13. What ancestors of Jesus were exiles between those two rivers, but why was Paradise not then existing in that general area?

¹³ As regards the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, human ancestors of Jesus Christ, namely, Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (whose name means “Seed of Babel [or, Babylon]”), had been exiles for many years in the Mesopotamian valley that lies between those two rivers. That was during the years 607 to 537 before our Common Era. (Luke 3:23-27; Matthew 1:1, 12-16) But at that time the original Paradise of Pleasure was not in existence, in that neighborhood of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It had been wiped out completely by that global deluge of which Jesus Christ spoke, saying: “Just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”​—Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26, 27; Genesis 6:9 to 9:17.

14, 15. (a) Was Jesus there reciting a myth or legend about the Flood? (b) In his kingdom, about which he spoke to Pilate, what will Jesus do about Paradise?

¹⁴ Jesus Christ was talking here, not about pagan myths and legends, but about hard facts of history. He taught and believed in the onetime existence of mankind’s original home, the Paradise of Pleasure,  and the expulsion of Adam and his wife from it for disobedience to God their Creator, and the destruction of that unexpanded Paradise in the global flood of Noah’s day, not in the days of Uta-Napishtim of the pagan epic of the god-man Gilgamesh. * He also looked forward to the restoration of Paradise to mankind, and also expected to have a hand in restoring it. When would he be privileged by God to do so? During the thousand years that he reigns at God’s right hand in heaven, as the Messianic king over all mankind, the living and the dead. When, on Passover Day of the year 33 C.E., he was on trial for life before Pontius Pilate and this Roman governor tried to find out whether he would be an earthly king or not, Jesus Christ replied in the negative, saying:

¹⁵ “My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source.”​—John 18:33-36.

16. (a) How did Jesus on the execution stake tie in Paradise’s restoration with his kingdom? (b) To where did he ascend after his resurrection, and why?

¹⁶ Hours later, when he hung by nails to the execution stake at Mount Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem, Jesus Christ made it known that he tied in the restoration of Paradise to mankind with his heavenly kingdom. One of the two criminals who hung on stakes alongside him turned sympathetic and said to Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you get into your kingdom.” This sympathetic man thus revealed that he believed in a resurrection of the dead both for Jesus Christ and for himself. Was he right? Yes! For Jesus said to him: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43) By Almighty God’s all-performing power Jesus Christ his faithful Son was resurrected from the dead on the third day of his death. Forty days later, in the presence of eleven or more eyewitnesses, he ascended back to heaven to  present the value of his perfect human sacrifice to God in behalf of all mankind, including that sympathetic criminal on the stake.​—Acts 1:1-11, 21, 22; Luke 24:50-52; Hebrews 9:24-28.

17. How will Jesus see to it that his promise to that sympathetic evildoer is fulfilled?

¹⁷ Thus, after his reign of a thousand years begins, the King Jesus Christ can remember that sympathetic evildoer and see to it that he gets into the Paradise restored to this earth, in fulfillment of the promise made to him on that dark day of suffering death by execution. The dead body of that sympathetic evildoer and that of his fellow criminal were buried that same Passover Day, as was also the body of Jesus Christ. But that kindly-disposed criminal was not resurrected on the third day along with Jesus Christ. No, but he still lies sleeping in death in the dust of the earth along with all the rest of mankind, waiting for Jesus to remember him and favor him with a resurrection after Jesus enters upon his thousand-year reign His resurrection to life on earth will bring him into the Paradise that will by then have been restored to mankind. The King Jesus Christ will extend his interest and attention and dynamic energy to that earthly Paradise, and in that sense he will be with the inhabitants of Paradise, including that sympathetic criminal. What a comforting hope that man had with which to die on that Passover Day of 33 C.E.!​—John 11:25, 26.

THE NEED OF GOD RULE (THEOCRACY)

18. What are scoffers at such a thought obliged to admit about survival of the human race?

¹⁸ Restoration of Paradise to mankind is assured, is guaranteed! This is no thought to be scoffed at by fanatical believers in the theory of evolution or other unbelievers. Even they themselves will have to admit that something needs to be done before very long if the human family is to survive to the end of this twentieth century and into the twenty-first century of our Common Era. All such doubters and disbelievers will have to agree that this earth needs to undergo a transformation to a Paradise state if what they may  call “the human species” is to enjoy existence much longer. If it were left to mankind itself, even in this scientific, nuclear, space age, to bring this about, the case would be hopeless.

19. In this day of disintegrating human society, with whom does restoration of Paradise rest?

¹⁹ Mankind has already gone too far in polluting and ruining his natural environment, and no reversal of the trend is possible, even with the world organization of the United Nations for international cooperation. However, the sorely needed restoration of Paradise to our earth does not rest with deteriorating mankind and disintegrating human society. The guarantee of this lifesaving transformation comes from a loving Creator, God!

20. Whose rule, then, can do it?

²⁰ This is the only alternative. Man’s rule of the earth cannot do it! People’s rule (democracy) cannot do it! Wealthy persons’ rule (plutocracy) cannot do it! Technical experts’ rule (technocracy) cannot do it! God’s rule (Theocracy) can do it!

21, 22. (a) Under what rulership was mankind from the start? (b) During the six creative days, what was the Creator’s moving idea, and in what expressed thought of His was this set out?

²¹ Theocracy will not be defeated in its purpose toward mankind and mankind’s earthly residence. Let none of us be fooled any longer by the false philosophies of self-conceited men, but let us all face the fact: Mankind started out under Theocracy! Mankind, at its perfect beginning in Paradise with an unsubdued earthly globe outside, was not absolute ruler of all that it surveyed. Mankind had a ruler higher than whom there is no one. That ruler was mankind’s Creator, God, the Maker of heaven and earth and the Planter of Paradise. He is The Theocrat. From the start he was mankind’s Theocratic Ruler. He rightly laid down the rule for mankind’s living in the Paradise of Pleasure. He set before mankind its tasks. The Theocratic Ruler had a beautiful purpose concerning mankind’s realm. the earth. This purpose was conceived within his own Self. It was his moving idea during the six creative days in which he was making the earth ready  for being inhabited by mankind under just the right and perfectly balanced conditions. It is set out in the thought that he expressed, of which we read:

²² “And God got to see that it was good. And God went on to say: ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.’ And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.”​—Genesis 1:25-27.

23. In these days of sickening conditions, what should be encouraging to us as regards God’s purpose?

²³ God is unchangeable in his expressed purpose. He is undefeatable in his declared and recorded purpose. When he declared that it was his will for man to have in subjection “all the earth,” he meant for that to be fulfilled without fail. He foresaw the Garden of Eden (on soil already subdued) extended all around and over this earthly ball, a delightful thing to look at from the heavens and a praise to the Creator who had made man in his image and according to his likeness. In spite of all that the Great Theocrat has permitted to take place on earth for the past almost six thousand years of human existence, that is still his purpose, his grand objective. This fact should be encouraging to all of us who are sickened at heart at seeing this earth, which has such wonderful possibilities, being ruined by selfish men, even being stained with human blood violently shed, aye, even more than this, being threatened with total depopulation by international nuclear and chemical warfare.

24. (a) Breaking God’s prohibitory command in Paradise was really what? (b) Into subjection to what did the lawbreakers come, and why?

²⁴ When the first woman and then the first man used their free moral agency and broke a simple prohibitory command of their God Ruler, they were rebelling against Theocracy. They were really taking themselves out from under Theocracy and putting themselves under the rule of the demon that brought  temptation to sin through the instrumentality of one of the serpents in Paradise. The results down to this day show that mankind thus came under demonocracy. (Genesis 3:1-13) The Scriptural question is straight to the point: “Do you not know that if you keep presenting yourselves to anyone as slaves to obey him, you are slaves of him because you obey him, either of sin with death in view or of obedience with righteousness in view?” (Romans 6:16) Yes, we know that. Out of our own experience and observation, we know that the presenting of themselves to sin against Theocracy brought the dying process and eventual death upon the sinners, Adam and his wife Eve. It made them slaves to sin and to the promoter of sin, the Demon Tempter, who is well designated “the original serpent.”​—Genesis 3:16-19; Revelation 12:9.

25, 26. (a) How long could Adam and Eve have lived, and where? (b) With what words did God pronounce sentence upon Adam?

²⁵ Adam and Eve could have lived till now, yes, forever in Paradise, if they had not disobeyed the law that was first stated to Adam in Paradise: “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.” (Genesis 2:16, 17, Douay Version) When sentencing the breakers of this theocratic law to death, but before driving them out of Paradise to the unsubdued ground outside, God said to Adam:

²⁶ “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”​—Genesis 3:17-19.

27. Where were Adam and Eve to work out their death sentence, and for what reason there?

²⁷ As yet childless, Adam and Eve were driven out of their perfect home to work out the sentence of  death. As we read concerning this action of God: “And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to fill the earth from which he was taken. And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”​—Genesis 3:22-24, Douay Version.

28. Did that curse on the ground debar forever restoration of Paradise, and how long did the curse last?

²⁸ Instead of being a Paradise keeper or gardener, Adam now had to become a farmer. God said to him: “Cursed is the ground on your account.” This did not mean that all the ground outside the Paradise of Pleasure was to continue cursed forever, preventing any restoration of Paradise. Because Adam had been created in perfection and had just begun to mar it, he had tremendous physical stamina, and despite his hard work he lived to be nine hundred and thirty years of age, fathering many sons and daughters. (Genesis 4:1 to 5:5) During all that time the ground continued cursed on his account. He and his many offspring could not convert it into anything like a paradise. It appears that that cursed state of the ground outside the Paradise continued down through seven hundred and twenty-six years more to the global deluge of Noah’s day, Noah being the tenth man in line of descent from Adam.

29. Was the curse renewed after the Flood, and to what state has swarming mankind been unable till now to bring the whole earth?

²⁹ Then that earth-engulfing flood wiped out the unextended Paradise, and there was no longer a distinction between it and the rest of the earth. Noah, his wife, their three sons and the three women who had become their wives, eight persons in all, rode out that astounding cataclysm in a huge ark constructed according to God’s orders and design. When these eight human survivors let out all the animals and birds from the ark and themselves stepped out on the cleansed ground, God spoke as the Theocratic Ruler  of mankind. He stated his theocratic laws for mankind. He caused the rainbow to appear and used it as a sign of his covenant or solemn promise never again to bring on a global deluge. But he made no mention of renewing his curse upon the ground. Yet, despite the absence of a curse upon all the ground, mankind that has swarmed over all the earth has been unable to bring it up to a Paradise state everywhere. According to our twentieth-century scientists known as ecologists, mankind is ruining its natural environment and endangering all human life.​—Genesis 6:9 to 9:19.

30. Why can we, after nearly six thousand years of human existence on earth, be encouraged regarding God’s unchanged purpose?

³⁰ There is no need, however, for discouragement on the part of us who do not look to sin-enslaved, dying men to make this earth a place fit to live in forever. Rather, how glad we can be that Almighty God, the Theocratic Owner of the whole earth, is unchanging in his purpose to have a Paradise on this earth, not just over there in the neighborhood of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, but in all four quarters of the earth! If it is his purpose to have this beautification of the whole earth accomplished by the end of his seventh creative day​—Scripturally a period of seven thousand years, then the time is near at hand for the ruining of the earth by exploiters to be stopped by theocratic power and for the blessed transformation to a delightsome garden to begin. Already, nearly six thousand years of man’s existence from the close of the sixth creative day have run their dreary course. We must be approaching the threshold of that thousand-year-long reign of Jesus Christ, which must be accompanied by Paradise according to what Jesus promised the sympathetic evildoer on the stake there at Mount Calvary.​—Revelation 20:4, 6.

31-34. (a) As an illustration of what he can do about restoring Paradise, what land did God use to paint a prophetic picture? (b) Telling of the astonishing transformation, what did he say by his prophet Isaiah?

³¹ Beauty just impossible for us to paint in mere words will then adorn the whole earth. Natural beauty will be attended by physical, mental and spiritual  health for those who dwell amid such Paradise glory. The loving Theocratic Restorer of the garden home of perfect man and woman gives us prophetic word pictures of what he can actually do for the eternal happiness of mankind when reconciled to Him. He uses as a sample illustration a small land not too distant from the original Paradise, a land that had lain desolate for seventy years during the exile of His disobedient people to Babylonia in the Mesopotamian valley. From that pagan land of false idolatrous worship he redeemed them, released them, to return to their long-desolate homeland and its holy Mount Zion. Telling them of the astonishing transformation that was to be brought about there under his blessing, the Great Theocrat said by his prophet Isaiah:

³² “The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron. Without fail it will blossom, and it will really be joyful with joyousness and with glad crying out. The glory of Lebanon itself must be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and of Sharon. There will be those who will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, you people, and make the knees that are wobbling firm. Say to those who are anxious at heart: ‘Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your own God will come with vengeance itself, God even with a repayment. He himself will come and save you people.’

³³ “At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain. And the heat-parched ground will have become as a reedy pool, and the thirsty ground as springs of water. In the abiding place of jackals, a resting-place for them, there will be green grass with reeds and papyrus plants.

³⁴ “And there will certainly come to be a highway there, even a way; and the Way of Holiness it will be  called. the unclean one will not pass over it. And it will be for the one walking on the way, and no foolish ones will wander about on it. No lion will prove to be there, and the rapacious sort of wild beasts will not come up on it. None will be found there; and the repurchased ones must walk there. And the very ones redeemed by Jehovah will return and certainly come to Zion with a joyful cry; and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head. To exultation and rejoicing they will attain, and grief and sighing must flee away.”​—Isaiah 35:1-10; written in the eighth century before our Common Era.

35. As a further encouragement to the exiles released from Babylon to repair their homeland, what did Jehovah also say by Isaiah?

³⁵ As a further encouragement to the ones repurchased and ransomed from exile and captivity in idolatrous Babylon to go forth and return to their homeland with the prospect of making it something like the Garden of Eden, the Creator of heaven and earth went on to say through the same prophet: “So my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it. For with rejoicing you people will go forth, and with peace you will be brought in. The mountains and the hills themselves will become cheerful before you with a joyful outcry, and the very trees of the field will all clap their hands. Instead of the thicket of thorns the juniper tree will come up. Instead of the stinging nettle the myrtle tree will come up. And it must become for Jehovah something famous, a sign to time indefinite that will not be cut off.”​—Isaiah 55:11-13.

36. In all our hopes of a Paradise restored, whom can we not leave out of consideration, nor leave what out of account?

³⁶ Lovely prophecies those, and Oh how they do emphasize one vital fact! In all our hopes for Paradise to be restored to our earth we cannot leave out of consideration earth’s Creator. We must also take into account another important thing. What? The worship that we owe to this wonderful Creator. This is something that people generally overlook. Oh, yes, they  would like to have “heaven right here on earth,” but they do not care to worship the Only One who can make it like that, by restoring Paradise to earth.

37. In man’s failure to create his own paradise, how has the matter of worship been the vital factor?

³⁷ It is obvious that man cannot create his own paradise. Why, look at all his efforts over millenniums of time. Look at all the scientific means he has at hand today. And yet man has proved to be unable to bring this earth up to a Paradise state free from drought, blight, plant pests, famine, deadly undernourishment and starvation. Something has been wrong. This has to do with man’s worship. He has obscured the true worship. He has failed to worship the Creator of all lovely things, the divine Planter of the original earthly Paradise, yes, the Great Theocrat who drove out the first man and woman from that Paradise because they broke off their unselfish worship of Him. Paradise is for worshipers of him.

38. Whose blessing is needed for man’s return to Paradise, and in the ancient illustration of this, whom did the Creator raise up to point out what was wrong?

³⁸ Without the blessing of this worshipful Creator there can be no return of mankind to a Paradise home. Ancient history provides us with a real-life illustration of the truth of that principle. This historical example was furnished through the very people whom the Owner of all things repurchased from exile and slavery in ancient Babylon, in 537 B.C.E. They were reinstated in their beloved homeland, the desolate state of which was to be restored to its natural beauty according to the glowing prophecies of the Creator’s prophets. More than sixteen years of opportunity passed, but why did that favored people not prosper? Something must have been wrong. Something had been overlooked. Something had been pushed into the background. What was it? The Repurchaser and Theocratic Ruler of that liberated people knew. To point out what was the matter, he raised up his prophet named Haggai. What Haggai pointed out then is of serious concern to us now. Let us see.

[Footnotes]

[Study Questions]