The history of mankind on the earth began with one man and one woman in a paradise of love, joy, and peace. The history of mankind on the earth will end with one last effort by the nations of the earth to rid themselves of the Presence of God—and this after a thousand years of rulership by the saints!

Truly the heart of man is desperately wicked. Truly the Lord God is justified in all He does.

Then will come the judgment of all people (except the firstfruits of the Bride, who will be raised at the beginning of the thousand-year Kingdom Age—Revelation 20:4-6).

After the judgment there will appear the heaven and the earth that the Lord God had planned from the beginning—now populated with the people whom God had marked out from the beginning for eternal life.

Love, joy, and peace will multiply forever in the new world, for it will be guarded and ruled by the saints in whom has been established the throne of God and of the Lamb. Sin and death will be conditions of the past. The memory of sinners will have been banished from the earth.

Those who have need to remind themselves of the consequences of sin and rebellion may, at that time, go and view the spiritual prison in which are confined wicked angels and wicked people. The wicked will not experience love, or joy, or peace forever—ages without end.

Were one of the wicked to be released, he would set out immediately, as Satan will do at the end of the thousand-year period, to express his discordant nature in God's creation. Soon it would become necessary for God to repeat the cycle of wrath and restoration that mankind has had to undergo throughout the course of history. We all are familiar with the pain and dread of living in the valley of the shadow of death and desire no more of it.

To possess all authority and power over the nations of the earth and over all the works of God's hands.

And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. (Revelation 2:26,27)

Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. (Hebrews 2:8)

The concept of man having rulership over the works of God's hands is a central idea of the Scriptures. But almost at the moment man was created, his rulership was wrested from him by a cunning cherub, and man—God's image—became the slave of Satan.

God's sons have been called to glory, to the rulership of the creation. No other creature of God has been given the rulership of the creation.

Today the Son of Man, Christ, possesses all authority in Heaven and on the earth. Christ is waiting until the Father puts all His enemies under His feet. When God has done this, King Jesus will return and receive the earth and its peoples, which are His lawful inheritance.

To be continued.