The Death of Man's Hope: God's Hope for Man - The True Millennium - Part 3

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The Death of Man's Hope

God's Hope for Man - The True Millennium - Part 3

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Millennial political movements? Yes. The concept in modern times began during the communist revolution in Russia with the societal application of the theory of evolution: Social Darwinism. Originated by Karl Marx, communism was viewed as a historical movement in which the fully communist world would evolve into a millennial-type utopia.

Social Darwinism laced with millennial references from the Bible was applied to the NAZI party in Germany leading up to World War 2. Adolph Hitler spoke of the party ushering in the German Third Reich as a revival of the Holy Roman Empire. He referred to it as “das thousande jahre reich” (the thousand-year kingdom), a millennial golden age.

Even Great Britain echoed their own version of millennial thinking of its historical destiny in the words of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (at the beginning of the Battle of Britain in June of 1940), “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” 

Millennial thinking is woven deeply into humanity’s secular and religious longing for the ultimate age of peace. It reflects how when God made mankind, He “…put eternity in their hearts…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Humanity seeks—however imperfectly—an age of peace as either spiritual salvation or at least a physical counterpart.

The religious Millennium

Parts one and two of this series showed how prevailing, mainstream Protestant, millennial thinking at the turn of the 20th century died at the beginning of the First World War. That branch of Christianity believed that through advancement of human thinking coupled with the preaching of the gospel, would create the prophesied 1000 years of man-made peace on earth—and afterward, Jesus would return to earth. Unfortunately for them, beginning in August 1914, the Great War obliterated their hoped for a millennium. That doctrine is called “post-millennialism” and has since been largely abandoned.

Human nature rationalizes disappointment and seeks a new idea or belief to replace the old. Consequently, most of Protestantism began to adopt what had been the Roman Catholic thinking about the millennium since Bishop Augustine of Hippo articulated it in about 400 A.D. His conclusion was that there is no literal Millennium taught in the Bible. His rather hopeless doctrine is called “amillennialism.”

However, Augustine was wrong because Jesus Christ did inspire the apostle John to write a very specific prophecy in the book of Revelation about the time in the future when the resurrected saints “…lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4). In a nutshell, neither social-Darwinism, post-millennialism nor amillennialism is the teaching of Scripture.

The true doctrine of the biblical Millennium has been labelled “pre-millennialism” because Christ’s second coming will occur before (pre) the Millennium begins. It will not be man’s hope that prevails; rather it will be God’s hope for mankind. Mankind does not know the way to peace (Isaiah 59:8). True world peace will only happen when Jesus Christ returns and personally establishes the rule of the Kingdom of God on earth for 1000 years. He is in fact, the King of Kings of that divine Kingdom (see Revelation 19:11-16)!

God’s plan for all of mankind

God has always had a plan for humanity. He created us in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). We are therefore identifiable as His children, and human life is thus more valuable and precious than that of any other creature on earth. The humanly created theory of evolution has no such premise and has thus truly befuddled the “educated” thinking of modern mankind. Bottom line: the true record of mankind is the Bible, and it alone is the source of our knowledge of God’s plan of spiritual salvation for all people who will accept it. The true Millennium is a vital part of that plan.

Before He created humans, God created the angels, the heavens and the earth. The angels had to choose good and reject evil, and at a certain point long ago, they did. One great angel named Lucifer rebelled against God and convinced a third of the other angels, now called demons, to follow him (see Revelation 12: 4, 9). His name was changed to Satan (meaning: adversary) and Devil (meaning: accuser or slanderer). Satan was and is against all that God is doing and tries to thwart and destroy God’s plan for mankind.

Although humans were the highest physical life form on earth, God made man “…a little lower than the angels…” (Hebrews 2:7). However, His plan was for us to choose right and reject wrong—that is, choose God’s way and live it—and then God would have humankind “…crowned with glory and honor…” Jesus Christ as God came to earth to live a human life, die a holy death to pay for the sins of all mankind, and then be crowned with that eternal glory (Hebrews 2:9).

The incredible human potential and destiny is to live forever with God the Father and Jesus Christ in the divine family known as the Kingdom of God. That means we must first be resurrected to eternal life. This physical life that all people have lived, are living or will live is a testing time designed to complete our creation by God. In bodily form and shape we were physically made in His image, but our spiritual creation requires our active involvement through repentance and conversion to God through Christ during our human lives (see Acts 2:37-38).

The Millennium and the Sabbath

God’s historical plan for man unfolds from the time of the Garden of Eden. Before that, however, Satan attempted to destroy the earth as it existed from its original creation (Genesis 1:1-2). In six days, as recorded in Genesis 1, God re-created the earth as He desired it for human habitation (there were no humans before Adam). Then on the seventh day of that creation week, God created the Sabbath as a day of rest for all people (Genesis 2:1-3). Seventh-day Sabbath keeping is an integral part of God’s law as the fourth of the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11).

Sad news came from the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve rejected God’s rule over them, choosing instead to be directly influenced by the Serpent (see Genesis 3). It was the same song, second verse, “…that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world…” (Revelation 12:9) who is presently the “…god [or, ruler] of this age…” (1 Corinthians 11:4).

The creation week by clear implication serves as an outline for human history leading to the Kingdom of God. Based on the principle that “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years…” (1 Peter 3:8), man has had six millennium-long “days” to create a society according to his choices. Then for the final thousand years, the Millennium, Jesus Christ returns to rule the nations and shape society according to God’s law and purpose. Thankfully, immediately after Christ’s return, Satan will be “bound,” that is, restrained from access to mankind for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-3).

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9). Here, the word “rest” literally means “Sabbath-rest” and is understood by the context to be the age of God’s intervention in human history to bring, in contrast to man’s war-torn millennia, an age of Sabbath-like rest. In other words, the true Millennium will be a time of peace and truth because Christ will with His resurrected saints rule over the then severely reduced population who survive a world war of unprecedented violence and destruction that is prophetically called the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:21-22).

The resurrected saints will have the wonderful mission under Christ to guide the rebuilding of the nations to live in peace and truth for the thousand years of the true Millennium. The Old Testament prophets were inspired to eloquently visualize the beauty of that world tomorrow where all mankind worships the true God, enjoys His blessings and doesn’t even study war! Perhaps the most vivid millennial prophecy is from Isaiah:

“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; he will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall 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 2:2-4).

Mountains and hills are biblical symbols for governments or nations. God’s supreme government will be administered from Jerusalem. God’s law will be the law for all nations and peoples. Jesus Christ working through His resurrected saints will judge or govern all the nations—and they will live in profound and wonderful peace in spirit and in truth. Everything societally wrong in our age will be replaced by the right ways during the incredible, true Millennium! One of God’s annual festivals, the Feast of Tabernacles, pictures this phenomenal time in history (Leviticus 23:33-44).

God’s hope for man

God offers a great hope or potential for every human being who ever lived or will ever live—to be raised to eternal life in the God family of the Kingdom of God. The 1000 year rule of Christ will begin here on earth in the not-too-distant future. Many prophecies of trouble like never before must first come to pass because of mankind’s rejection and violation of God’s law and way. Then, in man’s darkest hour, Jesus Christ will dramatically return to the earth (see Matthew 24:29-31), vanquish the human forces of evil, restrain the devil and his demons (Revelation 20:1-3), and begin His rule over mankind for 1000 years of peace and truth.

Amillennialism and post-millennialism are not sound doctrines. Number one, there will be a true, biblical Millennium of Jesus Christ’s rule on earth—and it will be for a thousand years. Number two, He must come before the Millennium because man does not know the way to peace. It is the time, not merely of man’s limited hope, but a time of God’s great and wonderful hope for man in His great Kingdom.