Did you know that God does indeed have a plan for human prosperity? The proverbial old man dressed in a white robe, holding up a sign, “The End is Near” only has part of the picture. The end of the world is near only in the sense that God is nearly finished with the wickedness of mankind, and elects to bring that free reign of wickedness to an end. In that sense, wickedness—the end—is near, but the Bible clearly proclaims this new time to be a beginning.
So how is it a beginning? It begins the restoration of man to a full and whole relationship with his creator. God has made a plan involving everyone that responds to him in faith, believing in the grace that was shown to reconcile man to God through Jesus’s offering on the cross. Christ himself will return to earth (this time as a roaring lion rather than a sacrificial lamb) and will reign over mankind.
He will reign over Jerusalem, bringing in the prosperity and peace so often promised to the Jews in the Old Testament. Scores of prophecies from the Old Testament all sound the trumpet: there is a coming peaceful time for the Jews, when even the Gentiles will come to the Jewish homeland in subservience to the leadership of Christ in the world. There is a peace plan—one that Christians fully subscribe to. The time that at last swords shall be beaten to plowshares, and the blessing of God himself will flow outward from Jerusalem to the frontiers of the world.
Then we will have everlasting peace. We will have Christ himself reigning and bringing prosperity to what is now a “cursed” world, but in that day, will be a blessed world. God’s plan, and every Christian’s hope.
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