The Ideal World

Our Advent Prophet, Isaiah, presents the picture of the ideal world with the startling yet comforting images of animals who are natural predators of each other, but who "on THAT DAY" now get along with each other, sharing their food and beds with one another.
The wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
 and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
 the calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them....
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord,
as water covers the sea.  (Is 11: 6-7).
All of this because of the shoot that springs from the root of Jesse, and upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests:  the Messiah.
Isaiah wrote 700 years before the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, and it has been over 2000 years since his coming, yet the lion still devours the lamb and justice only thinly reigns and that in only a few places on the globe.  We are far from seeing the prophecy fulfilled.  Even in our own lives, we see (and often we cause) division and the absence of peace.  This is what Advent is for, to beg for the full reign of the Savior and to do what we can in our own lives, families, workplaces and communities to make that reign possible.  Look at the turmoil in Ferguson, the tension in Syria, Israel, Iran, North Korea... would these be hotspots if each person's heart in these places were filled "with the knowledge of the Lord?"  We who claim to know the Lord, might give the example to the world by what we do today.
Bro. Rene