What Does the Second Coming Entail?

hi all - long-time lurker, first-time caller.I was prompted to post this by message 18 by iano in the 'Gods and Demons' thread which skirts some of the issues I would like this thread to cover.Some of the posts i've read on this board seem to put forward a biblical view of the history of the world that goes something like this:1. God creates the world2. Man is created, and man and God have a much closer, more direct relationship than today. Everything is 'perfect' (or possibly 'very good').3. Man exercises free will and turns away from God. things go downhill from here.4. Jesus arrives and things kind of get better, but generally the world is still going downhill.5. At some point in the future Jesus / God will return and everything will be 'perfect' / 'very good' again.I know not everyone reads it this way, and it's more than possible that I've misunderstood people's positions from the get-go, in which case I apologise.Assuming this gross over-simplification is not a complete misrepresentation of a certain view of the bible, my questions would be:1. What do people think step 5 might be like and how it might work?2. Why didn't God skip steps 1-4 and go straight to 5 in the first place?I've been thinking about this for a while, and haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory answer myself.If accepted, I'm happy for this thread to go in any of the forums. Oh, and I couldn't think up a good title either, so any suggestions are more than welcome.thanks

thanks to everyone for your replies and welcomes - i hope you don't mind me posting a general reply rather than individual ones, i promise i read and considered the posts and i'm getting a better idea of what the various positions are.the verses from matthew suggested by Legend did help a bit, so i understand there will be some kind of judging (i guess of everyone who happens to be alive at the time - people who are already dead come judgement day have already been judged, right?).having said that, i'm afraid i still have a few questions.then does the world as we know it stop existing? is everyone either in heaven (having been 'for' God) or hell (if you were 'against' God) for ever? will any more 'people' be born / created after this judgement? do we still have physical bodies and 'free will'?and i was going to ask but i guess Legend is right that that should be separate thread...