it is estimated that the total world population will exceed 75,000,000,000. Thus, the vast majority of people are destined to receive God’s purified and consolidated message (see diagram).
World Population from now(1989) to the end of the world(2280) |
[the black section represents the world population since Adam]
It all began billions of years ago when one of God’s high-ranking creatures, Satan, developed a supercilious idea that he could run a dominion as an independent god besides God. This challenge to God’s absolute authority was not only blasphemous, it was also erroneous. Satan was ignorant of the fact that God alone possesses the ability to be a god, and that there is much more to godhood than he realized. It was the ego—arrogance augmented by ignorance—that led Satan to believe that he could take care of a dominion, as a god, and run it without disease, misery, war, accidents, and chaos. The vast majority of God’s creatures disagreed with Satan. Yet, the minute egotistic minority that agreed with him to various extents were in the billions. Thus, a profound dispute erupted within the Heavenly Community (38:69). The rebels’ unjustifiable challenge to God’s absolute authority was met and resolved in the most efficient manner. After giving the rebels sufficient chances to denounce their crime and submit to Him, God decided to exile the hard core rebels on a space ship called Earth, and give them yet another chance
to redeem themselves.
If you claim that you can fly a plane, the best way to test your claim is to give you a plane and ask you to fly it. This is precisely what God decided to do in response to Satan’s claim that he could be a god; God appointed him a temporary god on the tiny speck Earth (2:30, 36:60). As for those who agreed with Satan, they were given a chance to kill their egos and submit to God’s absolute authority. While the vast majority of the guilty creatures took advantage of this opportunity, a minuscule minority consisting of about 150 billion creatures failed to take advantage of this offer (33:72).
The white area represents the vast majority that did not agree with Saran. |
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The gray area represents the vast majority that repeated and submitted. |
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The dispute in the Heavenly Community led to the classification of God’s creatures into different categories:
(1) The Angels
Creatures who never questioned God’s absolute authority were classified as angels; they knew that God alone possesses the ability and qualifications to be a god. The vast majority of God’s creatures—countless numbers—belong in this category. The number of the angels is so enormous, even the angels do not know how many of them there are; only God knows their number (74:31).
