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Paradise on Earth Earth’s Coming Glory 8. Food for the Nations The subject of food supply has become a burning question in recent years as the world population is expected to grow to 10 billion by 2050. The present commercial system, based on greed and selfishness, has produced a condition of things in which those who cannot pay cannot eat; some nations produce more than they can consume and so they destroy the excess while others cannot produce enough to avoid starvation. Humanity seems unable to solve the problem, but God can, and God will. The first step towards this end will be taken when He does away with the world monetary system and the use of money, and substitutes a condition of society in which all will willingly play their parts in the production of the food that is required and each take from the common store that which they need. In a world where there is mutual trust and universal unselfishness there will be no need for money. The prophet Isaiah foresaw this happy state of affairs when he declaimed (55:1) "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." This is the spirit that will pervade the world; people happily playing their part in the world’s work, and sharing with their fellows the results of their labours. The abundance of those days and the luxuriance of earth’s productivity was foreseen by some of the other keen‑sighted men of old, such as Amos (9:13) "The days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt" (this latter an allusion to the rippling effect of wind sweeping over luxuriant close‑packed corn covering the hillsides). Again, Joel 3:18 "It shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters." The picture is that of earth bringing forth abundantly for the sustenance of all creatures that dwell therein. That is all very well, says someone, but the experts tell us that with the expected increase of world population during the next half‑century there is not going to be enough land to grow the food they will need. There will be fratricidal wars to secure what can be produced just for the victors. If you are going to resurrect all the past dead where on earth—literally as well as metaphorically—are you going to grow their food? The experts, as is often the case with experts, are somewhat behind the times. Recent years have seen some startling discoveries in the power of earth’s natural forces to produce foodstuffs at a rate and in quantities so far superior to what has in the past been regarded as normal that there is no longer need for uncertainty as to the power and intention of the Lord, through the medium of Nature, adequately to feed all the living creatures He has brought or will bring into being on this planet. Of that more anon. Now we have another questioner. All right, he says. You will grow more wheat than you ever have before. You will breed more cattle and keep more sheep, and catch more fish, than you ever have before. Your Millennium will have more slaughterhouses, and more battery hen establishments, and bigger fishing fleets, than ever this world has had before. So, your eternal life for humanity is going to depend on the continuity of violent death for many of the lower creatures, and when God said that in that coming day "nothing will hurt or destroy." (Isa.11:9 NLT), He meant us to understand that the animal creation would have to be excluded—even although He had arranged for the wolf to dwell with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion, the cow and the bear to feed together, and the lion eat straw like the ox. (Isa.11:6‑7) The animals are to be safe from each other, but not from humans. What have you to say to that? This one is admittedly a poser. There are, of course, a small proportion of vegetarians in every community but in the main practically most rely on flesh products for daily sustenance and known history does not seem to yield any evidence that the position has been different in the historic past. But the fact that people today only know a world in which animal flesh is the staple diet does not necessarily require that it was always so in the unknown past nor that it will be so in the unknown future. A little consideration of basic facts is indicated. The best place to start is where the Bible starts, at the appearance of man upon earth. The story of Eden and the first man recounted in Genesis enshrines the basic principles of human life upon earth, and this is true whether the story is literal fact or as an elaborate metaphor. When it touches upon the question of food there is one rather surprising factor. When the Lord told the first human pair of the conditions of life upon earth He said that He had provided the grasses of the earth for animal subsistence and the seed‑bearing plants and fruit bearing trees for human subsistence. Said He "I give you all plants that bear seed everywhere on earth, and every tree bearing fruit which yields seed: they shall be yours for food. All green plants I give for food to the wild animals, to all the birds of heaven, and to all reptiles on earth, [to] every living creature." (Gen.1:29‑30 NEB) The distinction between food for humans and animals here is between plants fully ripe and in seed, "eseb zara zera" and fresh young herbage suitable for animals, "yereq eseb;" and there is no mention of a meat diet. Two thousand years later there is a difference. Immediately after the Flood the Lord told the survivors "every creature that lives and moves shall be food for you; I give you them all, as once I gave you all green plants." (Gen.9:3 NEB) In no plainer terms could the change from a vegetarian diet to a flesh diet be expressed. The question obviously comes up for answer, why? There is a possibility that the Lord regularised a custom that had grown up before the Flood. The two apocryphal books that deal with events before the Flood, the book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, both declare that there was general lawlessness, men and animals devouring each other’s flesh. This rests only on Jewish legend but there is usually a sub‑stratum of truth underlying legend. More significant perhaps is the statement in Gen.4:20 that Jabal, last descendant of the line of Cain and close up to the time of the Flood, was the first man to breed cattle. It could be argued that Abel at the beginning kept his sheep for the sake of their wool, but Jabal could hardly have kept cattle for purposes other than food. Remembering that Lamech (Gen.5:28‑29) at about the same time bemoaned the unproductivity of the cultivated land, it might well be that people began to turn to a flesh diet on account of inability to obtain the food they needed from the ground—they experienced a severe shortage of protein. If this reasoning be correct, it can be reasonably expected that in the future Millennial world, when the "curse" on the ground is lifted and the earth yields its increase, the fruits of the earth will recover the elements needed for human sustenance and animal food become unnecessary. If it can be conceded that such was the case at the beginning, that the failure to maintain that position during the rule of man, this world of sin and death, rendered the alternative necessary, it might be reasonable to expect a resumption of primitive conditions in the restored and perfected earth. One might be led then to enquire if possibilities inherent to current human achievement could lend substance to such expectation. First of all, how much land is there available for food‑growing? The total land surface of the earth amounts to about sixty million square miles [Nasa Earthdata says more than 57m square miles and Wikipedia 58m.] of which only five square million or less is at present used for growing food and up to another fifteen [ourworlddata.org] million for pasturing cattle which ultimately become food. But since a bullock must eat 10lb of grass to produce 1lb of protein, and soya beans can produce protein twelve times as fast as a bullock, it would seem that some of that pastureland could be better used for growing soya beans. Then there are the vast deserts occupying more than ten per cent of the land surface which under Millennial conditions will be irrigated and made fertile. "The wilderness and the solitary (uninhabited) place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose...in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert." (Isa.35:1‑7 RV) If only twenty million square miles, one‑third of the land surface, were used for food production on this scale there would be enough to feed so many more than the highest possible estimate of the number of human beings who have lived that the calculation becomes farcical. In previous decades the author commented on the calculated, then current and emerging agricultural practices, which predicated the earth could produce thirty times as much dry organic matter for consumption by the human race there would seem to be little risk of starvation when the resurrection takes place, even if, as has been calculated, earth’s population is as much as five or six times as much as now. (1980s) Predictions now suggest the world population is likely to be 10 billion by 2050, not accounting for the resurrection. This ignores what new discoveries appear in the field of intensive food production. The author recognised new discoveries appeared in the field of intensive food production. Progress had been made and in spheres not normally expected. With the unimaginable advances since then professors in the 21st Century are intensely researching ways to feed the expected 10 billion population using multi‑facetted approaches which look at the very things the author had commented on of plant based diets, agricultural methods and the environmental impacts of previous and in some places current intensive practices that are reported to be damaging the earth’s ecosystem. But it need not be thought that the sustenance of humankind will necessitate resort to such highly intensive methods of food production. The earth is fully able to bring forth a sufficiency of food in a perfectly orderly and leisurely manner in the way ordained by the Lord at the first. The source of all life and growth is the sun and if in his wisdom the Lord saw that the first men could produce sufficient for their needs by a reasonable amount of daily labour, it follows that the same procedure in the future Age will produce the same results. The declaration in Gen.2:15 is that God put the first man into the garden He had already prepared "to dress it and to keep it" where "dress" is abad, to till, serve, work, and "keep" is shamar, to watch, observe, take heed. Man was to till the ground and supervise the growth of the plant creation, God would do the rest. In real life the growing plant absorbs carbon dioxide and water vapour into its leaves from the surrounding air. Energy from the sun—sunlight—falls upon the leaves, combines with those elements to form carbohydrates, fats, oils and proteins, by the addition of mineral elements synthesised from the sunlight itself; this is called photosynthesis. The plant then exhales water vapour and oxygen (this latter for people to breathe, the only source from which humanity obtains it) and in the outcome the plant with its fruit or seed has acquired 75% of its weight from the air and water, and 25% from the sunlight transmuted into solid matter. Humans exhale carbon dioxide to go back into the plants and the sunlight does the rest. Truly did the Psalmist sing "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man...and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart." (Psa.104:14‑15) Most certainly the earth will yield its increase, and there will be plenty for all. AOH In 2025 according to the Houses of Commons Library 4% of individuals in the UK used a food bank which is an increase from the previous year. According to ourworlddata.org from 1961 to 2022 the world population has grown by 2.6 fold and world cereal production by 3.5 fold. 16% of the agricultural land is used to provide 83% of the global calorie supply. 38% of habitable land is covered by forests and 13% by shrub |
