davidbowerkingwood

The Millennium

During the 1,000-year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, the world population will increase prodigiously; perfect environment and long life will encourage the expansion of humanity. Although all who enter the Millennium will be saved, many who are born during those 1,000 years will not accept the Lord as Savior.

For reasons known only to God, Satan will be released from the abyss at the end of the 1,000 years. This event is described in Revelation 20:7-10 where it is written:

⁷ Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison ⁸ and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. ⁹ They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. ¹⁰ The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

God’s history with mankind begins and ends with perfect environment and in both cases, ends with a serious judgment. In the Garden of Eden, Adam choose to disobey the one command he had been given which resulted in his spiritual death and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. During the Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, many will choose to reject Christ as Savior and when Satan is released from his prison, will follow Satan who leads them to certain death.

Environmental perfection is not now and has never been the answer to man’s problems; the only answer is the new birth by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior!

The Mystery of the Nations

While we see a reference to “the nations” in Revelation 20:7, these nations are deceived, follow Satan and are destroyed by God. In Revelation 21:24-26 we are told of other nations who will inhabit the “new heaven and the new earth.”

²² But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³ The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. ²⁴ And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. ²⁵ Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). ²⁶ And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

These are nations who have collectively received Christ as Savior, been brought into the eternal new heaven and earth, and bring their glory and honor into the New Jerusalem. It would seem that some nations and their kings will have been preserved through all of the judgments at the end of the Millennium and placed on the new earth.

I’m of the opinion that these mortal believers will be the ones to populate the new heavens and earth. In Revelation 22:1-2 it is written:

“22 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. ² In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

The nature of the healing required is not revealed here, we may refer to an earlier reference to the “tree of life” in Genesis 3:22-24 we read:

^“22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

In Genesis man was driven out of the Garden lest he, in his fallen state, should eat of the tree of life and live forever; in Revelation the tree of life is available to the nations and would provide eternal life to mortals living in the new heaven and earth. Those resurrected into heavenly bodies do not appear to need anything else, like the tree of life, to live forever.

In 2 Corinthians 5:1 we are told:

“5 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

I am completely convinced the wonders and glories of the eternal state shall completely surpass our abilities to even imagine. As a science fiction fan, I have read of incredible universes with populations spreading out to the stars above; if the mind of man can imagine such wonders; how much greater then the reality planned by God for the new heaven and earth!

There is only one step to be taken to prepare for the new heaven and the new earth; believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!