6. The Millennium in relation to Creation.

The blessings which will be brought to the world upon the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom will not be confined to the human family but will be extended to all creation.

As we have shown in earlier chapters, the Curse which was pronounced by God upon the ground in the day of Adam’s fall, and which resulted in a creation that has groaned and travailed ever since, is yet to be revoked. Creation is not to remain in bondage for ever. God has set a hope before it, a hope, which like ours, centers in the personal return of Christ. “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope; that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19–21 R.V.). A passage closely connected with the one just quoted is found in the ninety-sixth Psalm—“Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice. Before the Lord: for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth” (vss. 11–13). These verses picture the joy of all Nature consequent upon the advent of its Creator to the earth.

One striking effect of Creation’s deliverance from its present bondage is described in Is. 30:26—“Moreover the light of the moon shall be (in the Millennium) as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” An illustration of the Curse being removed from the “ground” is found in Is. 35:1. When the Times of Refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord then shall “the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose.” This is further amplified in Isaiah 41:17–20—“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.”

Not the least of the beneficent changes introduced during the Millennium will be the restoration of the animal kingdom to its Edenic state. The present ferocity of the wild beast is abnormal and due to the fall of man. It is very clear from Genesis 2 that, originally, man had full dominion over all the animal kingdom, but this was forfeited when he rebelled against his Maker. In the kingdom age—the Times of the Restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets—the fierce nature of the beasts will be subdued, for in that day, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw as the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of an asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Is. 11:6–9).

By comparing Scripture with Scripture it would appear that, during the Millennium, there will be no earthquakes, no tornadoes, no storms at sea, but all Nature will be at rest and share in the general blessing which the personal presence of Christ shall bring. And yet, there will be droughts and plagues upon the rebellious and disobedient (see Zech. 14:18, 19), which leads us to consider,