Are People on Earth
During the Millennium?
I was searching the
Internet for information on the 1,000
years mentioned in Revelation 20 when
I came across your website. I read
your article. “The Seventh
Millennium,” and I have a some
questions. You claim that Jesus will
not touch the Earth at the Second
Coming. My church teaches that Jesus
will touch the Earth and bind up the
devil in the abyss and rule over the
nations with “a rod of
iron.” With the devil locked up,
there will be a thousand years of
peace and happiness on Earth! During
that time, many people will learn
about Jesus and receive salvation.
Then, at the end of the thousand
years, the devil will be released to
deceive the nations once again. In
fact, the devil will lead Gog and
Magog against the Holy City! If,
as you claim, Jesus takes the saints
to Heaven at the Second Coming, how
can Jesus rule with an iron scepter?
What would be the point of putting
the devil in the abyss if Earth is
going to be left desolate? How does
Gog and Magog fit into your scenario?
Hello my friend:
Thank you for your
e-mail. I am delighted that you found
our website and I hope you will visit
it often to examine the 175+ articles
available there for study. Before I
respond to your questions, you should
be aware that a proper understanding
of “the end” of sin’s
drama requires a proper understanding
of several prerequisites. For
example, everyone knows that Algebra
is a prerequisite for Calculus, but
few people realize that the final
chapters in Revelation are life
Calculus! In other words, several
crucial themes dovetail into
the final millennium* and each theme
could fill a book. Since your
questions are somewhat involved, and
this response has to be short, I hope
you will find my response helpful.
* Note:
The Latin word for one thousand
is “milli,” as in
millimeter. Sometimes, I call the
thousand years in Revelation 20 the
“millennium,” even though
the word “millennium” is
not in the Bible. This is no
difference than calling the days of
the week by their Roman names. For
example, the word “Sunday”
is not in the Bible, but we
understand that Sunday and the first
day of the week are the same day.
1.
The saints will leave Earth and all
the wicked will be slain at the
Second Coming.
For reasons beyond the
scope of this article, the Bible
teaches that death is really soul
sleep. In other words, when a person
dies, he or she is not conscious.
There is not conscious awareness
after death until a resurrection
occurs. This means the dead are
neither in Heaven or Hell. They are
“asleep” in their graves. Please
see article in our website under: http://www.danielrevelationbiblestudies.com/EternityInHell.htm
Soul sleep is a very
important topic because the
“sleeping souls” of the
righteous will be awakened at the
Second Coming. The Bible indicates
there are two corporate resurrections
– one for the righteous and one
for the wicked.
The righteous dead are
resurrected at the beginning
of the millennium (1 Thessalonians
4:13-18, 1 Corinthian 15:51-55;
Revelation 20:6) and the wicked dead
will be resurrected at the end of the
millennium. (John 5:28,29; Revelation
20:5) Jesus said, “And
this is the will of him who sent me,
that I shall lose none of all that he
has given me, but raise them up at the
last day. For my
Father’s will is that everyone
who looks to the Son and believes in
him shall have eternal life, and I
will raise him up
at the last day.”
(John 6:39,40 underlines mine)
An angel told
Daniel, “Multitudes who
sleep in the
dust of the earth will awake [at
the Second Coming]: some
[the dead in Christ] to
everlasting life, others to shame and
everlasting contempt [those
who crucified Jesus – Revelation
1:7; Matthew 26:64]. Blessed
is the one who waits for and reaches
the end of the 1,335 days. ‘As
for you [Daniel], go
you way till the end [of
your life]. You will rest [die],
and then at
the end of the [1,335] days
you will rise to
receive your allotted
inheritance.’”
(Daniel 12:2, 12,13, underlines and
insertions mine)
Paul wrote, “Brothers,
we do not want you to be ignorant
about those who fall asleep,
or grieve like the rest of men, who
have no hope [of the
resurrection]. We believe
that Jesus died and rose again and so
we believe that God will bring [people
to life just as He did] with
Jesus [there is no need to
endlessly grieve for] those
who have fallen asleep
in him. According to the Lord’s
own word, we tell you that we who
are still alive,
who are left [on Earth] till
the coming of the Lord, will
certainly not precede those who have fallen
asleep [that is, the living will
not go to Heaven before the
dead are resurrected]. For
the Lord Himself will come down from
heaven, with a loud command, with the
voice of the archangel and with the
trumpet call of God, and the
dead in Christ
will rise first. After
that, we who are
still alive and are left [on
Earth] will be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air.
And so we will be with the Lord
forever.” (1
Thessalonians 4:12-17, underlines and
insertions mine)
These texts indicate
there will be a resurrection of the
righteous dead at the Second Coming.
The “dead in Christ” are
not spirits floating around on clouds
waiting to get their previous bodies.
When Jesus appears at the Second
Coming, He will speak the command and
“the dead in Christ” will
come to life again! They will be
given flawless bodies – no
longer subject to the curse of sin.
As they ascend to Heaven, Jesus will
call the righteous living, “Come
up here!” Paul says together,
the dead and the living will meet the
Lord in the air. They
will be meeting the Lord in the air?
If you will remember, a few days
before ascending to Heaven, Jesus
said, “In my
Father’s house are many rooms;
if were not so, I would have told
you. I am going there
to prepare a place for you. And If I
go [there – to the New
Jerusalem] and prepare a
place for you, I will come back
[to Earth] and take you to be
with me that you also may be
[in my Father’s house] where
I am.” (John 14:2,3,
underline and insertions mine)
After Jesus
lifts the saints from Earth, He will
destroy the wicked in two
ways. First, Lucifer’s
government and Lucifer’s
persona* will be thrown alive into a
lake of burning sulphur. “…
The two of them were thrown alive
into the fiery lake of burning
sulfur.” (Revelation
19:20)
* Note: For
reasons beyond the scope of this
article, the coming Antichrist is
Lucifer. He and his angels will be
allowed to come out of the spirit
realm (the abyss) in the fifth
trumpet (Revelation 9:1-11) and they
will assume physical bodies that we
can see and they will physical
appear before mankind. At the Second
Coming, Jesus will destroy the
“physical” bodies that
Lucifer and his angels
“used.” Jesus removes their
physical bodies and returns Lucifer
and his angels back into the spirit
realm (the abyss) from where they
came.
The wicked who are
alive at the Second Coming will be
destroyed by a command that comes out
of Jesus’ mouth: “The
rest of them [the wicked] were
killed with the sword that came out
of the mouth of the rider on the
horse [Jesus speaks the
wicked to death with a command that
is described as a ‘sword’
that comes out of His mouth], and
all the birds gorged themselves on
their flesh.” (Revelation
19:21, explanation and insertion
mine)
2.
Why does Jesus destroy the wicked at
the Second Coming?
During the Great
Tribulation, God’s servants, the
144,000, will preach the gospel of
Jesus Christ throughout the world.
The 144,000 will present “the
testimony of Jesus” to every
person. (Matthew 24:14, Revelation
12:17) This means that everyone who
is alive on Earth will be confronted
and tested with the truth
about Jesus Christ. Jesus does this
to determine who will obey and follow
Him. Babylon will persecute everyone
who chooses to obey Jesus. This means
that all middle ground will be
eliminated.
There will be some
people who receive the gospel of
Jesus and be saved, but the rest of
mankind will commit the unpardonable
sin to avoid persecution. The
unpardonable sin is rebellion against
the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 12:31,32)
In other words, wicked people will
reject the gospel of Jesus (as they
did in Noah’s day) and they will
be destroyed (as they did in
Noah’s day). Once a person
commits the unpardonable sin, he
cannot repent – even if he had a
thousand years to repent! When the
unpardonable sin is committed, the
Holy Spirit abandons a person when it
becomes clear that person will not
surrender to the authority of the
Spirit. Once the Spirit leaves, a
person cannot repent of his or her
sins. He or she may lament the
penalty or consequences that follow
9like the hand caught in the cookie
jar), but honest repentance and the
prerequisite reformation) is
impossible without the indwelling
power of the Holy Spirit.
The critical point so
many people is this: When Jesus
appears at the Second Coming,
everyone will have been tested and
Jesus will have passed eternal
judgment on every person.
Jesus said, “Behold, I
am coming soon! My reward is with me,
and I will give to everyone according
to what he has
done.”
(Revelation 22:12, underline mine)
This means that at the Second Coming,
Jesus will grant the faithful eternal
life and He will destroy the wicked.
There is no second chance for
salvation once the judgment process
of Christ ends. (2 Corinthians 5:10;
Ecclesiastes 12:13,14) The bottom
line is this: There is no salvation
after the Second Coming because every
living person will have heard the
gospel and all decisions will have
been made.
3.
After calling the righteous from
Earth and killing the wicked, Jesus
puts Lucifer and his angels back in
the abyss so that Earth can rest
during its Sabbath millennium.
At this time, the
world will be left desolate and the
devil is returned to the abyss and
“chained” to this Earth for
1,000 years so that he cannot bother
anyone in the universe. Jesus gives
the devil and his angles 1,000 years
to ‘thoughtfully” consider
their actions and upcoming
destruction. Meanwhile, a very
important process will be transpiring
in Heaven. As the saints reign
with Jesus, they will also
reign as judges with Jesus.
The saints will judge the wicked (in
many cases, the saints will judge the
very people who tortured and killed
them). This particular process of
judging the wicked is not for the
purpose of determining eternal life
(that issue was decided by Jesus
Himself before the Second Coming),
but for the purpose of restitution.
God’s justice demands that
restitution be extracted from each
wicked person who refused to make
restitution for the wrongs committed
in life. The golden rule is
god’s eternal rule: Do unto
others, as you would have them do
unto you – because God will see
to it that you suffer as you caused
others to suffer. (Romans 12:19,
Hebrews 10:30, Revelation 2:23, 18:6)
In other words, during the 1,000
years, the saints will determine the
amount of pain each wicked person and
each wicked angel must suffer in the
lake of fire. (1 Corinthians 6:2,3)
Some will burn for a long time and
some will burn for a short time.
4.
When the thousand years are over, the
Holy City, New Jerusalem, will
descend from Heaven with the saints
safe inside.
When we add up
everything in the Bible about time,
the 1,000 years in Revelation 20 will
be a Sabbath rest for Earth, the
seventh millennium. The land itself
will “rest” from the works
of sin for one thousand years. At the
end of the thousand years, the Holy
City, with all the saints inside,
will descend to Earth. The wicked
dead (who have remained in their
graves) will then be resurrected to
stand before the Great White Throne
of Jesus. Jesus resurrects the wicked
for two reasons. First, He wants all
the wicked to understand why He could
not save them. Jesus will give them
an unvarnished review of their
lives’ actions and decisions. At
the end of the presentation, everyone
will admit that His judgment is
righteous and true. Even though every
knee will bow before Jesus, this does
not mean the wicked are
repentant for their sins –
remember, they have committed the
unpardonable sin. After they realize
their impending doom, the devil is
released from the abyss (the spirit
realm). The devil will organize the
wicked from all nations, encouraging
them to attack the Holy City –
he deceives the wicked into thinking
that they can save themselves by
destroying God. At this time, fire
will fall from Heaven and the
extraction of restitution (which the
wicked had been unwilling to pay
during their lifetime) will begin.
Ultimately, after restitution has
been paid in full, God annihilates
the wicked and they become ashes. Sin
is no more. Jesus will create a new
Heaven and a new Earth. (Revelation
21:1-4)
5.
Who is Gog and Magog?
To analyze this topic,
we need to back up to the time when
the 1,000 years have ended. “When
the thousand years are over, Satan
will be released from his prison [the
abyss] and will go out to deceive the
[wicked from all] nations in
the four corners of the earth – Gog
and Magog –
to gather them for battle. In number
they are like the sand on the
seashore. They marched across the
breadth of the earth and surrounded
the camp of God’s people, the
city he loves [New
Jerusalem]. But fire came
down from heaven and devoured
them.” (Revelation
20:7-9, underline and insertions
mine)
The identity of Gog
who lives in the land of Magog is a
mystery to many people. However,
“Gog” is nothing more than
another title given to Lucifer in
Ezekiel 28 and Magog is his territory
in “the far north.”
In a nutshell, this is the story.
Lucifer is called “the king of
Babylon” in Isaiah 14 and
“the king of Tyre” in
Ezekiel 28 because the devil is
“the prince of this world.”
In other words, the Bible gives
Lucifer different names to help us
understand this invisible foe.
Actually, Lucifer was the real
king of Tyre and the real king
of Babylon. It is Lucifer who brings
civilizations to their end. He
understands God’s full cup
principle very well and this is why
he incites sin and rebellion to reach
such a degree of decadence that God
has no choice but to destroy nations
that go past the point of no return.
Under the Old Covenant
(“Plan A”), Lucifer (as the
Antichrist) would have been visibly
“exposed” in a prophetic
sequence of events that is something
like his visible exposure under the
New Covenant (“Plan B”).
The physical appearing of the devil
is a very serious topic and it
deserves careful study. Under the Old
Covenant (“Plan A”),
Lucifer (Gog) would have come against
the city of Jerusalem with a horde of
nations for the purpose of destroying
God and His people. John’s
reference to “Gog and
Magog” in Revelation 20
indicates that Lucifer’s hatred
for God remains – even after a
thousand years of living in the
abyss! In other words, Lucifer and
his angels cannot repent because they
have committed the unpardonable sin.
Therefore, the level of hatred for
God and His people has not changed.
At the end of the
1,000 years, the devil (the
Anti-Christ) will rally the wicked
from all nations through deceit,
causing them to think that they can
kill Christ and take His city.
However, Jesus rules the nations with
an iron scepter and His sovereign
ruler ship cannot be broken. As
billions of wicked people rush upon
the New Jerusalem to destroy Jesus
and His kingdom, fireballs from
Heaven and the nations of Earth are
destroyed. Warring against
Christ’s authority is always the
destiny of the carnal nature –
the carnal nature is always hostile
toward God’s authority. (Romans
8:5-7) Lucifer became a carnal being
when he allowed jealousy toward
Christ to consume him. His hatred for
Jesus led him to deceive one-third of
the angels of heaven with clever
lies. His hatred for Jesus will never
change, because he has committed the
unpardonable sin. Isn’t it
ironic that Lucifer meets his end
doing the same thing he did in the
beginning – but this time, his
target will be wicked human beings
who like him, have committed the
unpardonable sin?
I hope this helps
my friend!
