Hi all,
Last week I explained that upon His return, Jesus will set up the internal framework of His government, using those of us from Pentecost through His return as ’employees’ of His world-wide Kingdom. I assume it would include Old Testament believers as well, though they may remain in heaven, but we only know in part for now…
Enforced righteousness
Revelation 19:15 says at His return He will ‘strike down the nations’ and ‘will rule them with a rod of iron’. The word ‘rule’ here is actually ‘poimanei’ which means ‘shepherd’. He will shepherd them with a rod of iron.
This reveals His rule will be enforced righteousness, which means you and I will be making decisions and settling issues between people much like Solomon did in his wisdom. We may think ‘I can barely run my life now and am looking for answers, who am I to tell someone what is right or wrong?’
But Hebrews 6: 5 calls the gifts of the Spirit ‘the powers of the age to come’, which means when we are in our glorified bodies, full of the Spirit, we will administrate by words of knowledge, words of wisdom, the discerning of spirits and more. We will have the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to know what is righteous judgment and what is not.
For example, what if someone comes to you claiming a carpenter has over charged his time for a job they had him do. The contractor claims they changed what they wanted several times and are owed for his time – time he wouldn’t have had to spend except that they kept changing their mind. You would have words of knowledge and wisdom from the Lord on who is right and would make an equitable decision.
That doesn’t mean each person will necessarily be happy with what you decide, but it will be a righteous decision whether they like it or not. Enforced righteousness.
There are unsaved people and unsaved nations in the Millennium
One of the things the Lord establishes is the celebration the whole earth will have of God living with man. This is the literal fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles, when they celebrated God living with man by commemorating Israel’s walk in the wilderness with God.
Zechariah 14: 16-19 tells us: “Whoever is left from the battle where all the nations came against Israel (the 2nd coming/Armageddon), will go up to Jerusalem year by year to worship the King, the Lord of the armies, to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. And it will be that whosoever does not come up to worship the King, for example if Egypt won’t come up to worship the King, then upon them will be no rain…this is the plague they will be hit with if they don’t come up to worship the King.”
Enforced righteousness. Jesus is King and He demands the people do the right thing and honor Him, or there will be consequences. It should not surprise us that even with those who survive Armageddon, there will be some who refuse to turn to the Lord, for human nature has not changed.
Curse lifted, longer lives – play with that lion!
Isaiah 11: 6-11: “And the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; and the calf and the young lion and the young calf together, and a little child will lead them. And the cow and the bear will feed together, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the toddler will play on the hole of an asp (poisonous snake), and the just weaned child will put his hand on the adder’s den (poisonous snake). They will not hurt nor destroy in all my kingdom; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Isaiah 65: 20-25 tells of people building houses and planting vineyards and orchards, and ends with similar statements about wild and domesticated animals. But the English translation of v20 may leave the reader wondering about the apparent contradiction:
“There will no more be an infant who lives but a few days, nor an old man that has not fulfilled his days; For a child will die at 100 years old, but the sinner being 100 years old will be accursed.”
The English saying ‘a child will die at 100 years old’ just after saying no infant will die, would seem to contradict, but it is due to poor translation from Hebrew into English. In Hebrew it reads:
“…youth will die at 100 years old…” In other words, childhood will cease at age 100. If we figure today that a child moves to becoming a ‘tween’ at age 10, that would seem to indicate a roughly 10 to 1 ratio to what Adam and Eve lived.
If we consider Adam lived 930 years and use a 10 to 1 ratio, it means Adam was roughly our 93 years old when he died. Isaiah establishes that childhood ends at age 100 – and because death is suspended and a child born just after Jesus’ return, by the end of 1000 years they may be 1000 years old! (like our 100) But because life is drawn out, they had 100 years of childhood. Amazing.
Next week I’ll close it out with the geographical changes around Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and how that 1000 years ends. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
