The term Utopia was first used in the book Utopia by Sir Thomas More in 1516.

The description is often cited as a place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

One often thinks of such places as paradise, Eden, Garden of Eden, Shangri-La, Elysium, or Nirvana.

“It may be your idea of Utopia but it’s not mine……”

More’s book compared social and economic conditions in Europe with those of an ideal society. This place was to him an imaginary island located off the coast of the Americas.

More wanted to imply that the perfect conditions on his fictional island could never really exist, so he called it Utopia, a name he created by combining the Greek words ou (meaning “no, not”) and topos (meaning “place,” a root used in our word topography).

But as we should well know, there is no place on earth that is like a utopia. One can search far and wide and climb the mountains in Nepal looking for this idyllic place of peace and supposed happiness, and find some monastery of solemn stones and quietness, but in the end it will prove to be fruitless.

Man has always searched for such a place where one can live peacefully with his fellow man. But actually there is no place such as this to be found because the heart of man is prone to selfishness and greed.

But the time will come as the prophet Isaiah has said:

“And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,” Isaiah 2:4.

One can live in the woods as Thoreau and others have done and escape to a place of solitude amidst the trees and birds, and yet in the end the search will only prove to be temporal.

Those who lived during the time of the Jesus and hippie movement of the 60’s and early 70’s, developed communes and small communities where they could live together in peace.

But ultimately even these found out that they could not rid their place of greed or anger, or selfishness. Also, some escaped into the use of drugs and other behaviors.

Eventually these types of places were replaced by those who pursued capitalism and success.

Karl Marx ultimate solution was Communism, which would give people the freedom that the middle class society denied them. He had explained that transcending private property and self-estrangement, would be the correct ideal for man, and that in the end he would return to himself as a social being.

Many have disagreed with Marx and praise his reflections upon human freedom, but in the end it seems that his concept of freedom is anything more than a way defending tyranny and oppression.

But even in the best of idealistic propositions, either a single person or an elitist group, comes to lead, and filters everything into themselves, thus betraying the ideal of sharing all in common.

No form of government, idealism of man, or philosophy can ever fulfill or personify the concept of Utopia upon this earth. It cannot be done, but it will be done when the new heavens and the new earth replace the old ones.

While one cannot find Utopia upon this earth, there is a time and place where it will ultimately be found.

The prophet Isaiah says this:

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.
And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord,” Isaiah 65:17-25.

 

Selah,
~ Stephen Hanson

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Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the LORD is a special way in 1975 and has prophesied regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?

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