See the series here
Having covered some basic questions and issues related to the anti-Christ, I remain curious as to why his short governing rule on Earth is necessary? Why does it factor so prominently in The Lord’s multi-millennial strategic plan for humanity?
I perceive a pattern across The Lord’s multi-millennial strategy for humans and Earth. Broad though His timelines may be, this six-point conceptual pattern is both clear and easy to understand:
1. From all of humanity, The Lord intends to 'harvest’ a tested, proven, righteous remnant to whom He will show everlasting Grace and Mercy as ‘like-angel’, immortal beings (not angels, but likely non-sexual) who will reside with Him on a brand new Earth, with a new moon in a brand new heavens alt-universe). The Bible attests the ‘heavens’ as we currently know them are temporary, just like all currently physical things. They all shall be replaced. Imagine that! That’s easy for Him Who created and upholds everything by His Word, per Genesis 1, Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1. (See also: Isaiah 65, 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21)
The Bible reveals seven ‘ages’ of and for humanity:
(a) pre-flood, (b) post-flood/pre-cross, (c) post-cross (now), (d) tribulation period,
(e) Millennial Reign, (f) post-Millennial Reign, and (g) eternity.
With such a GRAND, multi-millennial strategic plan, The Lord harvests ‘saints fruits’ from five of the first six ages for our seventh age. During the current third age of humanity, the term ‘born-again’ is applied to His saints. It could only be applied after Christ’s crucifixion, having fully paid the price for our sins, opening ‘the gates of Heaven’ for our access as full citizens. Following His death, He reportedly preached His Gospel to the imprisoned, immortal twins souls/spirits of dead saints (people who had died in faith re. Him, the unseen God), from the first two ages of history, and then ‘led captivity captive’ (i.e., resurrected these saints in their immortal bodies, and led them to Heaven, possibly on the new, eternal Earth). Thus, He fulfilled an ancient prophecy in Psalm 68:18. As proof of this, I intuit He allowed ALL of these Old Testament (first and second ages) saints to be physically resurrected and raptured, worldwide, with some being seen in and around Jerusalem! (Matthew 27:52-53); then He gave unique gifts to His newly born Church. (Ephesians 4:8).
NB. Clearly, saints from these two ages were not only buried in and around Jerusalem, but across a much wider area. Moreover, the global flood at the end of the 1st age of history, likely disturbed every grave on Earth! I imagine this vast group included Adam, Eve, and first age patriarchs. But we only have a three-verse recorded reference to this broader, historical event. There apparently is no other record of this magnificent event! It seems to me The Lord intends His 'thinking, believers' to interpret and understand these three verses in light and context of His confirmed GRAND strategy. Rather, some believers prefer to nit-pick, and myopically focus on the transcribed words and verses of the only record of these events, even to the point of imagining verse 52 signifies those saints hung around in their graves for a few days, waiting for Jesus to be resurrected! How absolutely ludicrous. To these folks I say, link the first part of verse 52 to verse 51, and the second part of verse 52 to verse 53. Then read the passage ...strategically, with The Mind of Christ.
2. I've pondered whether His intent might possibly correlate in some mysterious manner (directly or indirectly) with the 1/3 of His holy angels who became devils and demons during Lucifer’s attempted coup d’etat in Heaven, possibly long before the creation of man, since satan was represented in The Garden of Eden. (See: Lost Angels Now for Like-Angels)
We know angels were created to serve The Holy Trinity and mankind, and mankind was created, not a little below angels (as is erroneously understood and written in several versions of The Bible), but a little lower than God/The Godhead. (Psalms 8:5, AMP and YLT versions) I believe this hierarchal relationship will likely continue throughout eternity. So clearly, we are not intended to replace fallen angels (devils). As far as we know, The Lord never invited angels to be seated with Him on His and The Father's Throne!!!!!!! But to us who are redeemed in Him, spiritually speaking, we are doing exactly that NOW! See: Ye Are gods (Series)
3. The Lord strategically allowed both the angels and mankind to have and express ‘free will’, and a major proportion of both groups expressed it in the form of rebellion against Him.
The rebellious angelic group is called demons and devils. The rebellious mankind group is called unrepentant sinners. In The Lord’s strategic plan, they both will share the exact same eternal judgment – in the lake of fire for eternity as immortal, tripartite (spirit, soul, body), non-sexual beings. See: The Lake of Fire: A Preview (Series)
4. Both of these rebellious groups serve a clear, necessary purpose in The Lord’s strategic plan, namely as resistance factors in saints’ testing and proving processes. A short poem conveys this point:
Fish in a tank, shipped coast to coast.
None were dead, but they were...almost.
Then, when shipped with some predator companions,
Most arrived alive, as fit as champions!
5. Since the majority of humans in each age of humanity has rebelled against The Lord, by the end of each age, their (unrepentant sinners) numbers and their sinfulness become overwhelming for Earth to bear.
Recall, Earth is a living entity, likely having ‘spirit’, not just some inanimate object for humans to exploit to the max. Yet that is exactly what we have done. Any study of The Bible reveals what The Lord thinks of Earth in the manner He speaks to/about ‘her’. It’s interesting to see how some versions of The Bible are inconsistent in how He refers to Earth as her vs. it. See: Genesis 4:11-12, Leviticus 26, Numbers 16:30, Deuteronomy 32:22, 2 Chronicles 36, Job 9:6 and Isaiah 13:13 in the KJV and several other versions.
6. At the crescendos of overwhelming sin burden, The Lord unleashes His harsh, global judgments, then restored Earth’s damages created by sinfulness. It appears such restorations will have occurred several times over the course of His multi-millennial strategy. [See the Gap Theory below.]
NB: These global judgments of various kinds are what He uses to trigger transition to the subsequent age! (See: Ages Transition Global Judgments (Poem))
First restoration: Many Bible students ponder, ‘If The Lord created all things in their perfect form, what likely happened between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 to make the originally perfect Earth to become empty, dark and without form? Does ‘empty’ infer emptied, and if so, of what or whom? The ‘Gap Theory’ posits, between Genesis 1:1-2, Earth may have experienced the full impactful force and fury of demons (sinful angels who rebelled against The Lord) who were reportedly cast down to Earth following their attempted coup in Heaven. (See: Revelation 12:12, Luke 10:18, Ezekiel 28:12-17 and Isaiah 14:12-17) Their lightning-like fall across the universe likely represented the first stains and impacts of sinfulness in The Lord’s perfect, physical creation. If so, might the rest of Genesis 1 and 2 be The Lord’s first restoration of Earth following an overwhelming burden of wickedness excommunicated from Heaven?? Perhaps so. At the end of the Genesis restoration, The Lord declared all things as ‘VERY GOOD!’ (Genesis 1:31) I read this to mean perfected, once again. Read it as you will.
Second restoration: By the end of mankind’s first millennium on Earth, the reported level of human sinfulness had reached an overwhelming level, likely augmented by some demons who ‘left their proper domain, became human, married women’, and thus corrupted our race. See: Humans’ DNA Hacked (Poem) In response, The Lord fingered only Noah as righteous, and sent a global flood to wipe out all except this righteous man and seven sinners, his family and the animal remnant with them in the ark. Recall: Noah’s family was not declared to be ‘righteous’. The Lord is always strategic in leaving a remnant of sinners to facilitate re-population of humans across the Earth! After the global flood, Earth was PRISTINE and sin-free, except for Noah’s family members.
Third restoration: By the end of this current age, the Church Age, the predicted level of human sinfulness will once again reach an overwhelming level, possibly triggered by:
- the sheer overpopulation of Earth by (mostly sinful) humans (are we there yet?);
- the sheer magnitude of our technological progress and prowess, providing inordinate ways and means to increase sinfulness (are we there yet??); and
- the predicted significant ‘falling away from the faith’ (apostasy) among both formerly authentic, as well as openly inauthentic (fake ‘CINOs’) Christians (are we there yet???) (See: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 and Revelation 3:14-22. See also: Laodicean Lackadaisicalness (Series), Christianesque (Poem), and Audacious Christians (Series), especially Part 2).
Within this dreadful context, the true Church of born-again, tested, proven saints will be raptured (our Goshen-type effect), then the anti-Christ will be revealed. He will come to power by intrigue, then quickly rise to power as ‘the spiritual son of satan’, with his personal prophet (prime minister?), plus 7-10 closely allied national leaders across the world. They will have access to every technological advancement available to mankind, including artificial intelligence, capable of knowing and learning from the FULL spectrum of human history! Scary?? In inordinate, evil ways, the anti-Christ will mimic Jesus as The Son of God, and will receive miracle-working powers from satan. But keep in mind, all that satan is, has and does is strategically allowed by Jesus, Lord of ALL creation, with the objective of testing, proving and demonstrating who will and will not become His saints, even those who will be martyred!
Repeating His pattern, The Lord will ‘harvest’ dead and alive saints who will have been tested and proven during the anti-Christ’s rule, including the great tribulation - the fourth age of humanity. (See: Fresh Troops, Incoming (Poem) and also Audacious Cristians (Poem, Part-2)) The Lord and His saints from the first four ages of history will return to Earth to end the 1st War of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38 and Zechariah 14:12), and the age-ending Armageddon War. (See: Revelation - Future Attacks in Israel), He will once again be strategic in leaving a remnant of sinners to facilitate re-population of humans across the Earth during His Millennial Reign. (See: Humans, Rare on the Earth (Series)) Too many Bible teachers and Christians confuse the mention of ‘saints’ and ‘the elect’ in Revelation and in Matthew 24. Their errant teachings and beliefs reflect a lack of strategic perception of The Lord’s multi-millennial, seven ages plan for humanity and the Earth. One pastor in Tucson emphatically told his Bible study class, ‘There will be NO millennial reign!!!’ See: Valleys Between the Peaks (Poem)) These teachers also seriously discount The Lord’s promised, protective ‘Goshen-type’ effect for His saints in this current age. See: Goshen Effect (Series) After having released His most harsh judgments ever on sinful, God-rejecting mankind, The Lord will once again RESTORE EARTH PHYSICALLY, then remain here with His glorified, immortal saints for a full millennium to ‘police’ and ensure/force righteousness across the planet! Isaiah predicts our combined GLORY LIGHT will outshine the light of the sun and the moon! Imagine that! See: Imminent Eminence (Poem). During The Millennial Reign, satan’s kingdom on and above Earth, will be locked away in a bottomless pit. (Revelation 20: 1-3)
Fourth restoration: At the end of The Millennial Reign of Christ with His accumulated saints (from the first, second, third and fourth ages of history), satan’s kingdom will be released again upon Earth, after having been locked away during Christ’s reign. Why? Per the well-established pattern, devils and demons will be needed to trigger ‘resistance’ (temptations, deceptions and trials, etc.) to the predicted LARGE population of long-living humans (as hinted in Isaiah 11 and 65) who will have been born during The Millennial Reign, folks who will not have known demons or devils. Imagine that! (See: Salvation in the Millennium? (Series)) From this post-Millennial Reign population - the sixth age of humanity (and final one on this current version of Earth), more people will become saints when they are successfully tested and proven for righteousness, just as saints from prior ages will have been.
NB: Recall, it is critically necessary to correlate the word, 'saints', across the pages of The Bible, to the respective age in which The Bible uses this term, otherwise, confusion will result! So, if indeed there will be no salvation (as we currently know it) during The Millennial Reign, then there will be no people becoming saints during that age. I surmise they will become saints during the post-Millennial Reign (6th) age, when satan’s kingdom is released. These are the saints who are noted in Revelation 20:7-10.
NB: It is interesting to note the saints from the first three ages of humanity are not mentioned in The Book of Revelation between chapters 3 and 20. We will clearly be included in Christ’s Millennial Reign, according to Zechariah 14:5, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, 4:14 and 2 Thessalonians 1:10, and will be an aspect of Christ’s GLORY noted in Matthew 24:30. Otherwise, we will be part of the saints mentioned in Revelation 22:1-5, and in the references to ‘nations’ in Revelation 21 and 22. Understanding this strategic point is absolutely critical!!!
>>Read The Bible, NoT as a religious book,but with your HIGHEST, STRATEGIC MIND,The Mind of Christ <<
Revelation 20 indicates saints from the post-Millennial Reign age will be harvested in The Great White Throne Judgment process! I always thought this process would be only for all sinners, yet The Lord must have a strategic reason for consulting His Book of [Eternal] Life at that time! (Revelation 20:12) I surmise He may then identify and sift out those people who will have become saints during the post-Millennial Reign (6th) age. Otherwise, the Great White Throne process will judge every human who will have ever been conceived, who will have reached The Lord’s 'age of accountability' (knowing right from wrong), and who were not previously ‘tested, proven and harvested’. They will be judged for their sinful rejection of The Lord’s salvation Grace, and then will be cast into the eternal lake of fire on the BRAND NEW EARTH (Heaven!), along with every devil and demon who recruited them for company therein, with hell, and with death. The Bible indicates, both groups will be forever alive and immortal in tripartite form (spirit, soul, body), likely asexual beings, not just in spirit form. (See: The Goshen Effect, Grand Finale (Poem, Part 5) See also: Hell, A Preview (Series) and Earth’s Next Versions (Series). What do you believe re. the embryos who were not born?
Revelation 21 and 22 paint the picture of an BRAND NEW EARTH, MOON AND HEAVENS, the principal point of which will be a BRAND NEW JERUSALEM wherein only righteousness dwells. (Question: If only righteousness is allowed in The New Jerusalem, what might be outside this city, somewhere on this new planet?? See: Earth’s Next Versions (Series) Search for the words, nations and outside, in Revelation 21 and 22. Also, see The Lord’s incredible prediction in Isaiah 66:24, exposited in Seeing Each Others’ Rewards (Poem).
Friends, in this series, I sincerely hope and trust you might perceive the purpose, patterns and perfection of The Lord’s declared multi-millennial strategic plan for humanity and the Earth, and especially why it includes satan and his son, the anti-Christ.
