Introduction

If This Isn't Heaven, I Don't Know What Is

Biblical Reasons Why We Should
And Practical Suggestions on How We Can
Create Heaven on Earth

During the 1970's the number one book on the New York Times bestseller list was a "Christian" book. But it was not a book on how to end abortion, bring down the atheistic communism which then enslaved half the globe, or convert the Muslim world to Christianity, it was Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, an almost wholly fictional account of how the world was going to end after Christians were "raptured" in 1981 (forty years after the formation of the State of Israel in 1848, but 7 years short of Armageddon and "the Great Tribulation").

This was not the first failed prediction. Since World War I, fringe Christian groups have repeatedly identified the Antichrist, the Beast, 666, and numerous other "literal fulfillments" of biblical prophecy, setting dates for a "secret rapture," and waiting for the end. Perhaps more than any other century in church history, the 20th century saw the rise of false predictions and those who believed them. This was due to the invention and rise of "dispensational premillennialism" in the 1800's.

Although false prophecy was a capital offense in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 13:5), the real offense of dispensational premillennialism is not making Christianity look stupid by repeatedly mis-identifying some political figure -- Mussolini, Hitler, Kruschev, Henry Kissinger, or Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) -- as "the antichrist." The real offense of premillennialism is convincing Christians they should be waiting instead of working. To elaborate, premillennialism has convinced millions of Christians to wait for a "millennial kingdom" which is a socialist workers' paradise and a police state to the core, instead of working in this life to bring about a New Heavens and a New Earth, the fulfillment of Micah's Vine & Fig Tree vision (Micah 4:1-7).

Micah 4:1-7

And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the House of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains
And it will be raised above the hills

And the peoples will stream to it.
And many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD
And to the House of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths."
For from Zion will go forth the Law
Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their
swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation
And never again will they train for war.
And each of them will sit under his
Vine and under his fig tree,
With no one to make them afraid.
For the LORD of hosts has spoken.

America's Founding Fathers were motivated by this passage, and they worked to create a land of "Liberty Under God." But Americans have not been spreading Liberty Under God, they've been waiting for the rapture.

Isaiah spoke of the "New Heavens and New Earth":

¹⁷          "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
          And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
¹⁸          "But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
          For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing
          And her people for gladness.
¹⁹          "I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people;
          And there will no longer be heard in her
          The voice of weeping and the sound of crying.
²⁰          "No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,
          Or an old man who does not live out his days;
          For the youth will die at the age of one hundred
          And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred
          Will be thought accursed.
²¹          "They will build houses and inhabit them;
          They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²²          "They will not build and another inhabit,
          They will not plant and another eat;
          For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people,
          And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands.
²³          "They will not labor in vain,
          Or bear children for calamity;
          For they are the offspring of those blessed by the LORD,
          And their descendants with them.
²⁴   "It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer;
and while they are still speaking, I will hear.
²⁵   "The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent's food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain," says the LORD.
Isaiah 65:17-25

This passage completely destroys the premillennial conception of the future. In the New Heavens/New Earth people still work, have children, and die. The elimination of death is not promised, but the elimination of taxes is! The age in which people obey God's Law is an age of "heaven on earth." It is an age of "laissez-faire capitalism," to use a term from the field of political economy, but an age of obedience to God's Law is also an age of compassion and charity.

With millions of Christians focused on "the rapture" as a means of escaping a world they don't like, and also focused on a "millennial kingdom" which in every respect is a socialist police state, Christians have ignored the rise of socialism in the 20th century. Half the world's population became enslaved by socialist dictatorships, while Christians mis-identified these dictators as "666" or "the antichrist" and sat back to wait for their own rapture. Socialist governments murdered -- on average -- 10,000 people per day during the 20th century, but Christians, waiting for their own rapture, did nothing.