When you pray the Lord's Prayer, have you ever really thought about the part, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven"? (Luke 11:2). We who know and love the Lord already have His kingdom in our hearts, thank God, but is do we see His kingdom on earth today? Sadly, there is much confusion, selfishness, unhappiness, and war throughout the planet.

One day the Lord is going to change all that when He sets up His own kingdom of peace and goodness and fairness and mercy and love. Then His kingdom won't only be in the hearts of His believers, it will be all around us. God's kingdom is literally going to come in all its power and glory right here to earth!

But before that can happen, other events must play out: The evil Antichrist world leader must come to power and rule for seven years, the second half of which will be a time of trouble called the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:21; Revelation 7:14), when the Antichrist and his forces will persecute but not completely overcome God's children (Revelation 13:7; 11:3-5). Then Jesus will supernaturally gather all of His saved children, dead and alive, and instantly give them all powerful new resurrection bodies (Matthew 24:31; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). He will whisk them away to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven (Revelation 19:7-9), while the wicked Antichrist and his followers back on earth suffer the wrath of God (Revelation chapter 16). Bloodied but unbowed, the Antichrist and his forces will be poised to try to crush their opponents—all the people left on earth who have refused to worship the Antichrist or receive his mark of the beast (Revelation 13:16-18)—when Jesus and His children return to defeat the Antichrist and his forces at the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:14,16; 17:14; 19:11-15).

Then at last Jesus will put an end to man's cruel and destructive rule and set up the kingdom of God on earth for 1,000 years. Jesus will rule the earth in person, and all His saved children will rule with Him (Jeremiah 23:5-6; 32:1; Revelation 19:5; 20:6). The surviving peoples of earth will then have the blessing of living under the most perfect, righteous, and fair government the world has ever known (Isaiah 11:1-5).

All wars will finally cease. Men will "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4). Man will live in peace and plenty, like God planned for him to live in the beginning, and nothing will hurt nor destroy in all of God's kingdom (Isaiah 11:9).

There will be no carnivorous beasts or poisonous insects or serpents, or any such pests. Man and beast will no longer need to eat meat, and all will be at peace with each other. Even a little child will be able to lead the formerly wild beasts around, playing with the lions and tigers and leopards and elephants as pets.

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den" (Isaiah 11:6-8).

Earth will be a paradise—the restored Garden of Eden. There will be no more gasoline-powered, pollution-spouting, environment-hurting and life-destroying transportation. We will be free from today's rat race, where everything moves at breakneck speed that there's no time to even enjoy life anymore. There will also be no more smoke-belching factories or destructive modern machinery. The world is going to go back to those beautiful days when people took the time to appreciate the beautiful creation of God around them. It won't be a primitive society, but it will certainly be a peaceful one.

There will also be very little, if any, disease or sickness, because the Bible says that if somebody dies at the age of 100, he will still be considered a child (Isaiah 65:20). People may again live nearly a thousand years, as they did in the days before the Flood.

During this time, all of God's saved children will already have received their new eternal bodies that will never die. And they will be helping to teach God's ways to the millions of mortal human beings living during these 1,000 years. "Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).

If you've received Jesus as your Savior, you can look forward to the brightest and happiest future you could ever imagine—when His kingdom has truly come on earth as it is in heaven.