Thursday, March 11, 2021
“For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody” (Isaiah 51:3 KJV).
Behold, the glory days—both past and future!
When God placed man on the Earth, Adam was the first king. Adam and Eve should have reigned, reproducing and multiplying, with mankind glorifying its Creator God in the Earth: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).
Adam sinned, failing to bring Earth under the control of the Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ. He relinquished his office to Satan, thus explaining the Devil’s boasting that the kingdoms of this world were his (Matthew 4:8,9; Luke 4:5-8). Yet, that is not the story’s end. From Genesis chapter 3 onward, the LORD God established a wise plan to defeat his chief Adversary: “And I will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (verse 15).
By the time of Acts chapter 3, Earth’s renewal is still at the forefront of God’s plans: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (verses 19-21). With Israel’s restoration comes Earth’s restoration….