As Kirkpatrick Sale points out in his book The Conquest of Paradise, “an opportunity there certainly was once, a chance for the people of Europe to find a new anchorage in a new country, in what they dimly realized was the land of Paradise.” But discovering a new world is one thing; creating a new world is another.

A New World Still Awaits Us

Nevertheless, failures to build a new world in the past do not mean that the quest is hopeless. In the book of Revelation, the apostle John, echoing the words of Isaiah, describes the following dramatic scene: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away . . . And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”​—Revelation 21:1, 4.

These words assure us that God himself is determined to have a new government over all the earth and a new society of people who will respond to his rule. The benefits will be incalculable. It will be an authentic new world.

A new world of God’s making may seem farfetched. But Columbus’ conviction that continents lay to the West likewise seemed incredible to many of his contemporaries. The description of God’s promised new world may also sound most improbable, yet how many 15th-​century scholars could have imagined that a third of the earth’s landmass was unknown to science?

The scientific ignorance of Columbus’ day made the discovery of the New World seem most unlikely. Ignorance of God’s purposes and of his power can likewise demolish confidence in his promised new heaven and new earth. But Almighty God follows up his description thereof by saying: “Look! I am making all things new. . . . Write, because these words are faithful and true.”​—Revelation 21:5.

Doubtless, all mankind yearns for a new world of some sort. Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes once observed: “Utopia is something of the past and of the future. On the one hand, it is the memory of a better world that once was and is no longer. On the other hand, it is the hope that this better world, more righteous and more peaceful, will come one day.” Bible students are confident that a better world​—not a fanciful Utopia—​will indeed come because God has promised it and because God can accomplish it.​—Matthew 19:26.