The world today is such a mess and there are such messers running it! In fact, in all the 6,000 years that man has been trying, he has never been able to save himself. Man's plans have never succeeded and never will!
Any System, whether it be Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, Democracy or Dictatorship, whatever it is, is going to be a flat failure without God!--And although man's final one-World government which is soon to arise under the Antichrist will purportedly be the greatest, most powerful, most ideal government he's ever had, man's ultimate creation, it will turn out to be the most horrible, hellish, heinous government of Satan himself, Hell on Earth, the worst government the World has ever known!
Man's most ideal government is going to fall flat on its face!--But then God is going to step in and really straighten things out! For only the direct and forceful intervention of God Himself through the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to mete out His violent Wrath upon the wrong-doers, to save His Own children from His enemies, and to set up His Own Kingdom of totally righteous and authoritarian rule here on Earth, will ever bring a reign of true perfection, with peace and justice for all!
As you recall from our last chapter, immediately after Jesus' return and our Rapture and Resurrection to be with Him, the Church, His born-again children, will join the Lord in that wonderful Wedding Supper of the Lamb in Heaven, while the wicked will be suffering the Wrath of God on Earth, where they will finally gather together under their Satanic, Devil-possessed, Antichrist leader to actually attempt to war against Jesus Christ Himself and His resurrected Heavenly forces in the horrific Battle of Armageddon!
In this final great battle of Armageddon, the forces of God gain a glorious victory over the forces of Satan and destroy him, or at least defeat him, and his Antichrist Devil-man and his False Prophet and his whole kingdom! Then we, the Saints of God, along with our King Jesus Christ, will take over this World as it now is--this present World--and we will organise it and rule it and run it the way it should have been run if man had yielded to God!
The Bible says that this amazing period will last for one thousand years and therefore it is known to Bible Prophecy students as the Millennium, which is Latin for a thousand years. The Scriptures are just full of descriptions of this beautiful Millennial period, and in fact, more is said about it than about the First Coming of Christ!--It says more about the Second Coming of Christ and His rule and reign on the Earth as its King, its Messiah, than it does even about the First Coming!
--Because this is the purpose of it all! This is the marvellous Happy Ending of it all! Therefore God's Word gives us a very literal, exact description of what it's going to be like under the marvellous rule and personal visible reign of Christ here on Earth, and, as you'll see, it's going to be absolutely wonderful!
We learned in our last chapter that when Jesus returns to earth for the Battle of Armageddon, there's going to be a great slaughter and a great destruction, according to God's Word.--Nevertheless some are going to live through it!--There will be survivors! And during the Millennium, it is these survivors whom we are going to rule and reign over and teach and train, to show how the World should have been run and to be an example to the Universe of what kind of government man could have had if he had only obeyed the Lord.
His Word says, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection (The Rapture): On such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." (Rev.20:6) Jesus also promised to His faithful ones, "He that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the End, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron." (Rev.2:26,27)
So who are these people that His Word says will form whole nations during the Millennium, over whom we, the saved born-again Saints of God, are going to rule with a rod of iron?--Well, it's obvious that many of the unsaved are going to survive the Wrath of God and the Battle of Armageddon and live on into the Millennium! Granted, either they must be pretty tough or they must live a pretty charmed life or the Lord must be extra merciful to them to allow them to live through all that!
Perhaps at Armageddon the Lord and we are going to slaughter the very worst ones, the absolutely irreparable ones, the reprobates, the totally unchangeable ones, the worst ones of all, those who really worshipped the Devil and the Antichrist and did all those horrible things!--Perhaps they'll all be slaughtered during that horrible warfare!
Then we're going to give the rest of them, those who deserve it and are worthy, another chance. The Lord will set up His Kingdom here on Earth for a thousand years to try to salvage what He can and who He can and give them another chance, or perhaps their first chance, to see the actual Kingdom of God and hear His voice and His laws and His rules and His Words and repent!--To believe and receive and repent and accept Him as their King!
It was in Revelation, chapter 19, that we read John's magnificent, marvellous description of Jesus Christ's coming with the hosts of heaven to defeat and destroy the Antichrist and his fiendish forces at the awesome Battle of Armageddon. So following the chronological order of events, in Revelation 20 we're given an amazing glimpse into the Millennium period:
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the Bottomless Pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season." (Rev.20:1-3)
The Devil will be bound and cast as a prisoner into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, with nobody left to run his business! We'll be rid of him, thank God! For a thousand years he will no longer bother us and no longer lead his legions and his demons across the face of the Earth to plague the World and its citizens! And it is during this thousand years, while the Devil is in prison in the heart of the Earth, in the Bottomless Pit, that the Saints, including all the new arrivals who resisted the Antichrist and rejected the Mark of the Beast, choosing rather to give their lives than to deny Christ, will live and reign with Christ for a thousand years:
"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the Beast, neither his Image, neither had received his Mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. But the rest of the dead (the unsaved) lived not again until the thousand years were finished." (Rev.20:4-6)
During the Millennium, Jesus is going to reign and rule in person using us as his instruments! So our work--and I hope you won't be too disappointed--will not be over with the resurrection and the Rapture! We're still going to be busy, ruling and reigning with Jesus!--It's all very literal!
But many people get all theoretical and they get hazy ideas, dreamy ideas about all of this, that after Jesus returns we're all going to be way off somewhere in some place called Heaven or something. Well, Heaven is not going to be way off somewhere, it's going to be right here on Earth, a Heaven-on-Earth during the Millennium! We're going to rule and reign with Christ right here on Earth over the unsaved nations and the unsaved people who are left, who were not destroyed by the judgements God heaps upon the Antichrist kingdom.
Everyday, millions of Christians all over the world pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven!" But I'm sure most of them don't really appreciate the tremendousness of that statement in the Lord's Prayer and how literally it is going to come true and be fulfilled! It's actually going to be like Heaven, Heaven on Earth, with God's Will being done and His Kingdom come--on Earth as it is in Heaven! And we will be His officers, enforcing His Will as we rule and reign over the Earth with Him!
But most of the church people don't seem to realise how real the Millennium is going to be! They've got that imaginary picture of just floating around aimlessly on a cloud playing a harp or something! They don't realise how real and practical and down-to-Earth it will all be!
The prophet Daniel described the takeover of this world's governments by Christ's Millennial kingdom in his famous vision in Daniel, Chapter 2. He saw a great image, which represented History's various great World Empires, being destroyed by "a Stone which smote the image upon his feet", smashing it to pieces which are blown away like the chaff!--"And the Stone that smote the image became a Great Mountain (Kingdom), and filled the whole Earth!" (Dan.2:34,35)
"For in the days of these kings"--the ten toes of the image, the ten final government leaders who fully cooperate with and yield to the Antichrist (See Rev.17:12-14)--"shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever!" (Dan.2:44)
One of these days very soon, the King is going to come back to claim His Kingdom!--The Kingdom of the Most High shall come and shall destroy all the anti-Christ kingdoms of the World! Jesus is going to come and destroy'm all! And He's going to restore the World under us and we're going to rule and reign over it with Him!
God will then sweep away all this world's kingdoms, but not all the people!--Many of them will still be here, but we'll be ruling over them.--"And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. But the saints of the Most High shall take the Kingdom, and possess the Kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever!" (Dan.7:14,18)
Whether man likes it or not, God is going to be supreme and Jesus will reign from shore to shore and we will rule and reign with Him with that rod of iron! Then wicked man will be forced to do what's right and forced to obey for a thousand years!--"And judgement was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the Kingdom. And the Kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him!" (Dan.7:22,27)
Right now the ungodly and Antichrist powers of this world treat us as aliens, and banish us and exile us and even drive some of us from our own countries, forcing us to be refugees and fugitives from their injustice. But then, under the supreme reign of Christ Himself, the pitiful little bands of persecuted Christians and believers and children of God are going to inherit the Earth and the Kingdom of God on Earth and run and govern it by love and the power of God!
We will no longer be the poor, persecuted, hounded few of the poor little bedeviled sects or cults or whatever they want to call us!--We will then number in the millions and the billions, and we are going to rule the Earth with Jesus Christ over our God-damned enemies who have tormented us and persecuted us and hounded us from country to country throughout the Earth, until the very end of the Great Tribulation when they virtually drive us clear off the Earth and we're all Raptured up to be with Jesus!
So don't worry, we're going to have a country to call our own one of these days, thank the Lord! In fact, it'll all be our country then!--Because our country will be a World-wide, Earth-wide, Kingdom of God on Earth! All the countries are going to be ours in that day when Jesus comes!--And our former enemies and persecutors will be our guests! They will be the men without a country, because it will be our country!--And they'd better behave, too, or they'll not only be without a country, but without an Earth!
No longer will reign the cruel, selfish, dog-eat-dog philosophy which gives the world to the strongest and the mightiest, in which might is right, as it is run today by rebellious, disobedient and perverted man!--But it will be given to those who really have the right to govern because of what today's reprobate man considers weaknesses: Love and meekness and forgiveness and faith in God and His Word!
These weakest and meekest will become the most powerful influences on earth, the most powerful people, who will rule the World with both love and a "rod of iron" of loving force to compel the nations to submit to the laws of God and to recognise His authority and to obey His rules of life, love, health and happiness for a reign of "peace on Earth toward men of good will".
Then and only then, under the supreme and powerful rule and reign of Christ and God's children, will all wars finally cease and the World at last be governed fairly and well with true justice, liberty, peace, plenty and happiness for all! Hallelujah!
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain (kingdom) of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem!" (Is.2:2,3)
Jesus christ is going to set up His throne in Jerusalem and make it His Millennial capital!--Not the Prime Minister of Israel's, not the Antichrist's, not the Devil's--but God's! And from there He will rule and reign over the Earth, and we shall rule and reign with Him!
"And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more!" (Is.2:4)--Complete disarmament at last! That will be the World's first real genuine disarmament, beating their weapons into instruments of peace!--Hallelujah!
At last there will be peace on earth which shall never end under the reign of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Prince of Peace Himself! Today's wicked and vengeful men of war will be stopped at last as God "destroys them that destroy the Earth"! (Rev.11:18)--Those who brought war and conflict to the Earth! Only then shall the men of peace and the God of peace and the Prince of Peace rule and reign and bring final "peace on Earth"! (Lk.2:14)
Then "all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For the Kingdom is the Lord's: and He is the Governor among the nations. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the Earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire!" (Ps.22:27,28 ; 46:9) He's going to stop all this war business, He's going to break the arrows and the swords and the shields and the bows, etc. All those chariots and planes and tanks and missiles and bombs and all that are going to be burned up, thank God!
Jesus told his disciples, "The kingdom of God is within you" (Lk.17:21 ), and this is true for all of us who know and love the Lord--we already have Heaven on Earth in our hearts! But the problem is, there is still Hell all around us! But in that day He's going to wipe away all this Hell on Earth, and He's going to set up His Kingdom of peace and righteousness and fairness and justice and goodness and mercy and love! And that's going to literally be Heaven on Earth!--His Kingdom won't only be within us, it will be all around us!
"The Lord most high is a great king over all the earth."--In the Millennium!--"He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet! For God is the King of all the Earth: sing ye praises with understanding! God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon the throne of His Holiness." (Ps.47:2,3,7,8)
"The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor." (Ps.72:3,4)--The World is going to see a righteous Judge at last, a righteous King, a righteous Ruler, Who will have a righteous government!--No more corruption, vice, crime, payola, bribery or crooked judges and crooked politicians, but a righteous government and righteous, just justice for all!
"He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the Earth." (Ps.72:6,8)--The Kingdom of Christ on Earth is going to completely cover the whole World! "For the Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. The whole Earth is at rest, and is quiet; they break forth into singing"! (Is.14:5,7)
There'll be no more big powers and oppressed poor!--Only the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, Heaven on Earth, fairness and justice for all and eternal happiness forever!--"Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him. And blessed be His glorious Name for ever: and let the whole Earth be filled with His glory; Amen, and Amen!" (Ps.72:11,19) (Continued in part 2)