That has certainly been very true in modern times...greed for profit is the driver of everything. But humans with selfish motives will never accomplish what only God's Kingdom can achieve IMO.
I too believe this, but I think we just have a different view on how it will be achieved.
The one necessary ingredient to the successful implementation of the Kingdom's rule is man's co-operation with God so that his guidance will be followed and his laws obeyed. When God has given humans free will, that is a precarious balance. God will never force people to obey him so what do you believe is the solution to this dilemma? How can this level of cooperation ever be achieved when humans in this day and age are less spiritual than their last century counterparts, who were different again from theirs. Humans are getting less spiritual and more secular, more materialistic, more greedy, more lazy, more immoral, and still divided racially in their thinking.....so how will the current level of cooperation (lack of it) ever overcome these obstacles? Are Baha'i's just highly optimistic or very naive?
As we see it, in this world, God is giving everyone an opportunity to express their free will, but they also have the guidance that he has provided in his instruction manual. This gives us humans two choices....to acquaint ourselves with God's requirements and laws, and then decide if we will act on them....or not. It has to be our choice...to obey God from the heart without reservation.
But realistically, from man's history, we can see that the majority choose to please themselves rather than to please God. This ingrained selfishness can be overcome but we have to want to please God more than we want to please ourselves. You can only come to love God on that level if you really know him and see what he has done in the past, and what he is doing now, and what he will do in the future, because he has already told us all about it.
Yes, and I have hope that this scripture in Isaiah will have a literal fulfillment as well. None of God's creatures will do any harm to humans or each other either. His prophesy predicts that God's worshippers will put down their weapons and make farming implements out of them. There will be no more war. But in order for all that to take place, God must remove all causes of harm and eliminate from existence all those who will not peacefully co-exist with their fellow man. For the sake of the faithful, God must eliminate the unfaithful. His Kingdom cannot function amid division and animosity.
Jesus will come and he will separate the "sheep from the goats", ushering in a new age of peace, but only after he has cleansed the earth of all who would threaten the peace of others. Its all written down for us, so it will take place as God promises.
In all of man's history, we have never seen it happen. The progress and maturity is just not there. We have less excuse in our day than any other time in the past....but here we are staring down the barrel of another war in the middle of a pandemic and race riots! How intelligent are we? How good are we at addressing what is fundamentally wrong with the way humans think and act? We are no further forward than the Barbarians of old.
If you have to wait for humans to get their act together, you do understand that from the Bible's perspective, that has never happened.....and it never will. Humans will never solve the problem because humans ARE the problem. It is God's actions by means of his son that will bring in the rulership of the Kingdom.....it will "come" ready or not and "crush" all corrupt human rulership out of existence and replace them as man's only government. The prophet Daniel says it will happen in our day....in the rulership of the current world powers. (Daniel 2:44) So now is the time to decide where we stand. Its not too late until God says it is....and that time, we believe, is fast approaching.
Thank you, that would be my wish as well....but it will not wait for man to be ready.....it will come when God is ready, so this is why I believe we have to prepare ourselves for it as individuals along with our fellow worshippers. Jesus said his return would be just like the days of Noah...and here we are...the earth is again filled with violence. (Matthew 24:37-39) Its time for God to act and finish this mess once and for all.
That is how we see it.