The presence of Satan and his angels in the material universe is temporary. They are not material (not having flesh and bones) and do not belong in the material universe. They eventually will be contained in a spiritual prison.

The material universe is dead apart from spiritual life. Today the spiritual aspect of the material universe has been contaminated, and its spiritual capacity diminished by the spirits that rebelled against God. As a result, death instead of life is present in the world.

The Kingdom of God, which soon is to come to the earth, will drive out the unclean spirits and replace them with the Spirit of God.

As soon as our inner spiritual nature has been transformed into the image of Christ, and brought into perfect union with the Father through Christ, we will be ready for the redemption of our physical body. At the coming of the Lord from Heaven the Life of Jesus will change our mortal body, making it like His own body.

The kind of body we will receive in the day of resurrection depends on what we have sown during our pilgrimage on the earth. If we sow to our flesh, obeying its appetites and demands, we will not receive a body like that of the Lord. If we sow to the Holy Spirit, setting our minds on things above, following the Lord with our cross, we will receive a glorious heavenly body.

The kind of body we receive will reflect our inner nature, being a direct result of the process of death and resurrection that works each day in the victorious saint. Numerous believers who are living careless lives suppose that in the day of resurrection they will be clothed with a body like that of the Lord Jesus. But the Scriptures do not teach that believers will receive a glorified body by mercy, faith, or any means other than patient, cross-carrying obedience to Christ.

A glorious body like that of the Lord is a major aspect of our inheritance, of the rest toward which we are pressing.

We of the elect have been called of God to be brothers of Christ, to be kings and priests of God. Our subjects, the peoples over whom we shall rule and whom we shall serve in a priestly capacity, are the saved inhabitants of the earth. We who are sanctified through Christ are the spirits of righteous men made perfect. We shall return with Christ so the material universe may be governed by holy instead of unclean spirits.

Our land of promise includes the material universe. Today the material universe is governed (with God's permission) by the enemies of the Lord. Tomorrow the material universe will be governed by Christ and His saints.

To enter the rest of God is to enter the stream of Divine wisdom and energy that is moving toward establishing Christ as the Head, Center, and Circumference of the entire creation of God. We must fight, in the Spirit, to bring ourselves and others into the perfect rest of God, because the unclean spirits have made the peoples of the earth their dwelling places and always teach them rebellion against God.

To be continued.