We can rejoice when good is in ascendancy and we can take comfort that what is evil will not always or necessarily be like this, even if the Lord tarries….the Lord remains sovereign and continues to build His church until He returns and makes all things new.

As a good Amillennialist, I believe that the gospel age (or, church age) was inaugurated at the cross. The kingdom of God is here. We are in the millennium now and it ends with the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Good and evil will continue together until the Lord returns. When he comes, the saints will be caught up with him, the world will be destroyed, and then the New Creation.

As I judge it, this means sometimes good will be in the ascendancy while sometimes evil might appear to have the stranglehold. Empires will rise and fall, governments may do much good or may do significant ill, suffering and persecution may come intensely at times and less forcefully at others, on and on. We are liable to find that some things are on an uptick at exactly the same time as other things are on the downturn. A generation later these things may be turned on their head. Such will it be until the Lord Jesus returns.

It is Premillennialists who will generally see everything as getting worse. It is quite interesting how the Premillennial view predominates in fundamentalism. It certainly suits a negative, defensive worldview. Engagement with the world either become pointless, because everything is getting worse so why bother, or takes on something closer to a batten down the hatches approach, assuming the world is getting worse but we might as well do our best to stymy its worst effects.

Amillennialism should avoid the utter negativity of the Premillennialist. The gospel age is here and so, minimally as the church grows, some things will get better. Not just spiritually as the church has an impact on individuals as the gospel makes inroads and creates new disciples, but also culturally as those disciples then have a positive and beneficial impact on the culture just as they live out their Christian lives under the gospel. At the same time, prior to the Lord’s return, evil continues in the world too and will continue to grow in its own way. Sometimes the church will be in the ascendancy, sometimes it will not. Sometimes the beneficial impact of believers on the culture will tell, sometimes it is the ungodly impact of unbelievers that will hold sway. Sometimes God’s common grace will mean unbelievers serve the good, sometimes God’s restraining hand will be removed and all manner of evil will run rampant. These things are not steady upward or downward trajectories, but – whilst not exactly cyclical – sometime on a uptick or a downturn.

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