Although made in God’s image, mankind performs disgracefully throughout Genesis. In an ill-intentioned plot to be like God, man rebels against God’s authority. Universal decay and death are God’s judgement. Still, mankind becomes so wicked that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5), provoking God to flood the whole earth in judgment. You can find just about every evil under the sun in Genesis. The narrative describes with brutal honesty the grotesque horrors of sin.

Despite mankind’s sin, God is gracious in his judgment. He does not instantly strike Adam and Eve dead in the garden but preserves them to populate the earth. He does not completely obliterate humanity in the flood but preserves Noah and his family. Just 200 years after the flood we get mankind building the Tower of Babel. In another judgement, God creates many new languages and therefore nations in order to get people to populate the entire world. God then creates His own nation Israel to be His witness to the world. Its history reveals continual disobedience and judgement.

GOD THEN STEPS INTO HISTORY

God sends His own Son, Jesus, first to die for us, to provide a way for mankind to come back into a right relationship with Him. Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to indwell the spirits of those that repent of their sin and give their lives to Jesus as Lord thereby enabling them to live a life in Christ.

JESUS SECOND COMING

We have Jesus’ promise that He will return to right all injustice on this planet which will also fulfill God’s covenant promises He made to Abraham and His nation Israel. God’s plan from the beginning was for mankind to rule and reign on this earth for six thousand years. God has ordained that there will then be a final one thousand years when Jesus will rule and reign (with a rod of iron) with the resurrected Saints. Only then will God destroy this earth with fire then the second resurrection followed by the White Throne judgement and finally a new heaven and new earth where only the righteous will dwell.

To keep the history short I have deliberately left out mention of the spiritual realm where we also have good and evil, angels and demons. Nevertheless, Satan and his demon’s role in our history has of course been diabolical. Jesus acknowledged Satan as God of this fallen world. During Jesus Millennial reign on this earth, Satan is bound in the abyss for most of the thousand years but at the end of the thousand years, he is released and he is still able to raise an army like the sand of the sea.

“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Revelation 20:7-10

Despite Jesus and the Saints ruling the nations (with a rod of iron), many will choose to rebel and join Satan’s final battle against God. Many of us like Satan want to be God and not be subject to His commandments/rules.