Page 76 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

you to know the times or the seasons that the Father hath put in His own power. But
ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be
witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the

uttermost part of the earth! ... This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into
Heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen him go into heaven!”

In every age since the fall of man, God has imposed the duty upon His testimony

people to bear witness of Him. What it lies within the power of man, under the
endowment of the Holy Spirit to do, God commissions him to do.

There are two great things that the testimony people are unqualified to do. No mere

man could possibly redeem a world lost in sin, and no mere man or group of men,
even with the indwelling Holy Spirit, can possibly set up Christ‟s kingdom on earth.
To set up Christ‟s kingdom on earth demands the forcible elimination of sin and its
author Satan as a governing force, from the face of the earth. Please note! We did not

say that the earthly reign of Christ demands the final eradication of sin (with its
inevitably corollary—death), root and branch, as an existing entity. This will indeed
occur later as set forth in I Cor. 15:24-26: “Then cometh the end, when He shall have
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all

rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under
His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Before the thousand years‟
reign of Christ, Satan, the dragon, will be incarcerated in the bottomless pit and made
helpless to carry on his opposition to God or to incite men to rebellion but he will not

be finally destroyed till the end of the thousand years, when he shall have been loosed
for a while and allowed to go out again and stir up the nations for a little season.

Jehovah God is going to allow this to come to pass to demonstrate finally and

conclusively the wickedness of the human heart, which was planted at Adam‟s
betrayal. It will be shown then that the best environment imaginable, wherein Christ
Himself will rule in uninterrupted peace and righteousness and every outcropping of
evil will be summarily dealt with, will still be insufficient to eradicate the deep-dyed

rebellion of the human heart. Evil is the ruling force on earth today, even though
righteousness does exist. When Christ reigns, righteousness will be the ruling force
but sin will not be entirely removed. Indeed, those who are born by natural generation

will still be “in Adam,” though subsequent faith toward Christ will be the rule rather
than the exception.

When Christ returns to reign He will “thoroughly purge His floor.” His “floor” will
already have been purged in a measure by the decimating judgments of the latter days,

68