God’s coming reign
God’s Plan for the World
From creation onwards a Plan
The world has to know there is only One eternal Source, Who has been always and always shall be, "The I Am that I Am" or "I Am Who I Am", Jehovah God Almighty greater than all gods and above all gods and kings.
He That is the Being in Itself, made everything and allows everything to exist. Without Him there shall not be anything. As the Divine Sovereign Maker of everything, He, like an architect, had ideas how to compose everything and made a Plan for it.
A universe given to man
From the onset of creation the invisible God wanted to have planets with heavens and substances but also living beings. After He had created the globe, seas (or waters), land, animals (in the water, the air and on earth), the Creator made a human being in His image, and asked it to take care of His creation.
The Plan He had, with the human beings to become more by populating the earth, and to fill the world, got interrupted by the rebellion of the first Adam and his mannin Eve. As punishment for their rebellion against God, Jehovah put them out of His Royal Garden, the Gan Eden (Garden of Eden).
“For thus says ADONAI, who created the heavens, God, who shaped and made the earth, who established and created it not to be chaos, but formed it to be lived in: “I am ADONAI;there is no other.” (Isa 45:18 CJB)
From the Sriptures we can learn that normally God had foreseen that man could have lived happily in that beautiful garden where they had everything they needed to have an incredible life.
We think it is logical to assert that if there is a Great Designer, and if He created a race of beings to inhabit this planet and no other, then there must have been an ultimate objective in His mind. Happily, we have not been left to guess what that goal might be. From the day that God put a human being on this earth, His one supreme purpose was that His creation should willingly respond to His own perfection, the earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah.
“For the earth will be as full of the knowledge of ADONAI‘s glory as water covering the sea.” (Hab 2:14 CJB)
We may assume that God has still not changed His Plan and that He looks forward to greeting man back in his delicious Garden of Pleasures.
A Real Kingdom
Worldly governments and kingdoms
Throughout the ages man tried to find good ways of living and ways of organising lifeforms. Man asked God to have priests and kings and God gave it to them. But soon man had to learn such kings, queens, pharaohs and other governors were not bringing the right solution.
Kingdom of peace
Kingdom for the seed of King David
No worldly government has ever been able to bring complete peace.
But the Planner God has foreseen that there would come a king from the tribe and seed of King David, who would govern the world in peace, after he has judged the living and the dead and decided who might enter his kingdom and God's rest here on earth.
From Scriptures we do know that we may look forward to the establishment of a great Kingdom. It will be in every physical and political sense a real kingdom it will have a king, a government, a capital, and an international system of laws.
God has already delegated
“all power in heaven and in earth”
to His own beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. What is more, we learn that the date has been set in the divine calendar:
“30 For a certainty The God has overlooked such times of ignorance. However, now He commands every human to repent. 31 Because He has fixed a day on which He will ‘judge the inhabited earth in righteousness’,and this by a man whom He has appointed. He has furnished assurance to everyone by resurrecting him from the dead.”” (Ac 17:30-31 mhm)
Jehovah God Himself authorised the man from Nazareth, Jeshua, whose name became corrupted to Issou (Hail Zeus) or Jesus.
A Kingdom soon to come
Jehovah God has given mankind a long time to prove that they could govern the world better than He. But they did not succeed.
Gradually the patience of God will run out, and He will find it time to put an end to people's efforts.
God gave already His only begotten son to show the way to Him and to have the relationship between Him and man to be restored.
The kingdom of God on earth will soon be here. This coming Millennium will be the most exciting thing the world has ever seen. It will overshadow all those periods in history labelled with names like ‘the age of enlightenment’, ‘the age of classical antiquity ’, ‘the renaissance’ and so on.
The coming years we shall come to see more and more signs which should be a warning, so that we know the time is near and shall be prepared for the times to come. We may not miss those signs of the endtimes.
The kingdom of God will provide a superb environment on this lovely planet for all who will acknowledge God as supreme Creator and Jesus Christ as king of the world.
Beautiful World
When the time of God shall arrive and people shall receive entrance in His Kingdom, man shall be able to come to see God's Plan coming into fulfilment.
Then at last there shall be a world at peace, its inhabitants healthy and well-fed and doing rewarding work. From then onwards it shall be a time when people shall not any more be exploited and where all people shall be able to live in harmony with nature and with others. Everybody shall be able to live a long and prosperous life, without fear, pain or any form of suffering.
The world God has foreseen for mankind is one of pure happiness. A world in which famine and pestilence no longer kill one quarter of the population and where the full resources of the land and the seas are harvested.
In the Book of books, the Bible, a vivid picture of what is to come is given (for example in the books of Isaiah) Already you are getting a picture of the Kingdom of God.
Get a picture
Now ponder on the absence of religious bigotry or sectarian strife; imagine the benefits of internationally accepted laws, with justice administered by fair-minded yet uncompromising judges. Conjure up a mental picture of life without terrorism and child-abuse; where good-neighbourliness prevails and evil tendencies are discouraged, where governments establish good standards of behaviour, and implement just forms of retribution.
The prophet Isaiah’s vision of the wolf and the lamb feeding together is not only a beautiful description of a restored harmony between man and the animal creation, but it also has a special reference to future peace between previously warring nations. Isaiah speaks of the Arabs, coming to Jerusalem to
“show forth the praises of Jehovah” (Isaiah 60:6).
He pictures them helping to build up the walls of the new city, working with their former half- brothers, the Jews, and feeding their flocks and becoming farmers and vine dressers. That will be a wonderful reversal of the present state of affairs in the Middle East: a fulfilment of major promises which God made long ago to the Arab branch of Abraham’s family.
That world of peace and co-operation will be the kingdom of God on earth!
To many people, the Kingdom of God is just a vague hope that one day man will bring about a state of happiness on earth. To others, the Kingdom is a dream of heavenly bliss in the skies. But the realist knows that the aspirations of men are not producing a better world for us or our children. And anyone who reads his Bible carefully knows that there is no evidence for the common belief in an afterlife in heaven. The Kingdom has to do with a real, tangible world empire which will be set up when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth from heaven in the near future.
Request for a kingdom to come
A kingdom to come
In many Christian groups people pray what they call "The Lord's Prayer" or "Our Father". Christendom still repeats in that prayer. “Your kingdom come” and this should always be on the lips of the faithful Christian.
Jesus said:
“9 So, pray: Our Heavenly Father,Let your Name be sanctified.10 Let your Kingdom come. Let your Will take place, as in heaven, also on earth.11 Give to us our bread today.12 Forgive our debts as we forgive those in debt to us.13 Bring us not into temptation but rescue us from evil. (Mt 6:9-13 mhm)
When the son of man returns
God appointed Jesus as His heir and therefore we see the New Testament as that Gospel of Good Tidings. Jesus who learned people to ask for that kingdom to come also left no doubt when that kingdom would happen:
“31 “Further, when the glorious Son of Humankind returns with all his angels, at that time he will sit down upon his glorious throne of judgment.32 He will gather together right in front of him all those from the nations and he will separate these persons from each other just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. (Mt 25:31-32 mhm)
The kingdoms of this world shall at that time have become the kingdoms of Jehovah and of his beloved son Christ Jesus; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
“ And the 7th Angel trumpeted. Great voices occurred in the Celestialum, saying: “The sovereignty of the world of humankind became our Sovereign Lord's and His Messiah. The Sovereign Lord will reign throughout all future periods of time.”” (Re 11:15 mhm)