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December 03, 2024
Peace Publishers LLC. Resources in fifteen categories for self-instruction, classes, sermons, and conferences. An original 21st Century Commentary on Revelation is being added. Site administrator and publisher in English and Spanish: Homer Dewayne Shappley, evangelist and author of 2,500-plus documents in both languages. Oversight: Cairo, Tennesse Church of Christ.
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Do people on earth during the Millennium continue to sin?
What organizations are on earth during the Millennium?
Chapter Ten of the Commentary
Revelation: Its Ongoing Relevancy and Fulfillment
The "thousand years" of Revelation
Popularly known as the...
MILLENNIUM
Part 3
The outline format of previous Scenes is followed in this document.
VII. Do people on earth during the Millennium continue to sin?
Is ENGLISH your second language? Reading and rereading texts like this study may well increase your proficiency and vocabulary. With Spiritual and World View Benefits also. 16 to 18 minutes to read it.
A. Well now, dear reader, Satan is tied up and sealed in the bottomless pit during a “thousand years,” but all his “agents” are not! Multitudes of them continue on earth during the Millennium. They are those human beings alive on earth during the “thousand years” who, while siding with Satan to one degree or another, enjoy the liberties and personal rights granted by enlightened secular authorities and administrators freed from the terrible deceptions and lies of Satan.
However, though so blessed, they choose to be materialistic, carnally minded, hedonistic, and mostly irreligious. Others pursue different kinds of idolatry, new age religions, Darwinian evolution, and humanistic philosophies, while still others love darkness so much that they practice the vilest vices and crimes.
Street party. London.
Yes, all this during the Millennium of religious liberty, other personal liberties, and varied personal rights. Indeed, there is not a time in the history of humankind from the fall of Adan and Eve to the end of the material universe and time that the “Seeds of Evil” are not abundant on planet Earth. What the children of that bad seed cannot do during the Millennium when Satan is bound in the bottomless pit is persecute, torture, and kill true Christians, and that is because during the Millennium secular authorities and administrators are free of the tyrannical deceits of Satan to the degree that they do not permit him to use them for such horrendous, criminal inhuman actions.
B. Also, wherever the apostate mother church, her direct offspring, Christian sects, and other religions not founded or authorized by God exist, there abound, by necessary inference, religious error, deceit, idolatry of different kinds, religious competition and division, financial exploitation of believers through tithes (which were abolished when the New Testament of Christ replaced the Old Testament of Moises. 2 Corinthians 3:6-17; Galatians 5:1-15), and the merchandising of religious articles, ministries, offices (simony), worship, and services offered. 2 Peter 2:1-3. Plus, the multiple evils of obligatory celibacy and the prolific sexual sins of a really alarming number of priests, pastors, preachers, elders, deacons, reverends, and self-styled apostles, prophets, and prophetesses throughout the world. In addition, the rampant religious hypocrisy of both clergy and lay, perhaps the number one cause of so many teenagers and young adults of more recent generations leaving religion altogether.
These male and female practitioners of obligatory celibacy required by the vows they willingly take, and large numbers of them just about as willingly violate historically and to this date, bear the divine sign of certain apostasy. For the Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, “expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. They forbid
marriage and demand abstinence from foods…” 1 Timothy 4:1-4. Indeed, they do “forbid marriage” in the very face of the Spirit´s emphatic teaching that a bishop must be “the husband of one wife, having children that believe…” Titus 1:3-10; 1 Timothy 3:1-7
All these entities and people continue right on through the Millennium of religious freedom, abusing this freedom in many ways with their excesses, militant fanaticism, materialistic schemes, and open, aggressive involvement in politics. See Section VIII below.
Therefore, it is evident that error, deceit, and sin are abundantly present on planet Earth during the entire Millennial period, with this exception repeated for emphasis: During the Millennium of religious freedom and tolerance, the persecution, torture, and murder of true Christians is not permitted by enlightened secular leaders who also forbid tyrannical religious leaders from committing the same atrocity. “True Christians” do not include, let it be clear, “Christians allied with, or entangled with political-social-cultural-lifestyle organizations or movements.” For “Authentic, biblically documented Christians” are loyal citizens of a “kingdom… not of this world… not from here” that does not, cannot, because of its very spiritual origin and nature, ally itself, involve itself, with earthly, worldly, secular entities of human origin. John 18:36
C. Do people who are born and live during the Millennium have the attribute of free will as do human beings in times previous to the Millennium? Of course, they most assuredly do! So then, they do not makeup generations of people incapable of sinning, perfectly holy and saved eternally, simply in virtue of having been born during the Millennium.
“There is no respect of persons” with the “Master” God “in heaven.” Ephesians 6:9. Therefore, human beings who are born during the Millennium must be tested and tried just like all humans of other ages. They, too, confront the imperious, universal necessity of choosing between Good and Evil. However, they would be unable to do that if Evil did not exist on earth during the Millennium. Hence, logically, Evil is present all during the Millennium.
Nevertheless, there is a horrible evil that does not show its ugly face and twisted, devilish form in the nations freed from Satanic deceits during the Millennium and it is that which manifests itself in the persecution, torture, and murder of true Christians. Glory to God for such a huge, precious blessing!
Two dry, devilishly-looking cocklebur seeds, with multiple sharp thorns and containing toxins, are included here to represent a little, in a material way, the "SEED of EVIL."
D. Since sin continues on the earth during the Millennium, even in this blessed time of religious freedom in most countries, the SEED of EVIL is always there in the hearts of the impious. Once favorable conditions open up, that bad, poisonous seed sprouts quickly and grows vigorously, eventually leading to the beginning of the, spiritually and morally, very troubled,
dangerous “little while.” For the correct understanding of this whole matter, it is well for us to keep in mind the following:
1. It seems improbable that the Millennium would come to an end all of a sudden, for example, in the lapse of a few moments, as when the curtain comes down in a theater.
2. And that the “little while” would begin in almost the same instant, as when the curtain is lifted again and “Behold, a totally new theatrical presentation for the whole world, completely different from the one we just saw!”
3. On the contrary, that many changes of a political-cultural-moral-spiritual kind, prejudicial to the health and sanity of humanity, though masses of people might perceive them as otherwise, are projected for the time of transition from the Millennium to the “little while,” perhaps solidifying little by little, maybe interrupted by sudden spurts, but eventually putting an end to the Millennium of religious liberty and tolerance. Such subtle, undermining, even splintering, painful changes can take place precisely because evil and sin in their multitudinous forms, with the exception already stated, continue on planet Earth during the Millennium. Let us underscore it as a key factor to the correct understanding to the Millennium.
E. Now then, once Satan is loosed after “the thousand years,” he proceeds immediately to deceive those in authority, on all levels of power and instruction, throughout the world, greatly enabled in his ink-black, evil agenda, and vengeful purpose by all the sin and corruption that has remained on earth during the Millennium. He definitely does not begin his new work after the Millennium in a world completely free of evil, morally sterilized, where no kind of corruption exists, and that is inhabited only by perfectly saintly people. Far from it, hearts in tune with him, his mindset, lifestyle, and actions await his coming into full power. Let us keep this in mind as we continue carefully scrutinizing all the parameters of “the thousand years” set forth in Revelation.
VIII. What organizations are found on earth during the Millennium?
A. The apostate church with its two horns and its offspring. We identify her unerringly and undisputedly in Chapter Eight of this Commentary. However hard and painful it may be for Catholics and Orthodox to accept it, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church have the dogmas, organizations, attributes, types of worship, other activities, affiliations, and history that prove them to be the religious entities symbolized by the second “beast” of Revelation 13 “that rose out of the earth,” having “two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.” Revelation 13:11. Symbolized also by the shocking metaphors: “The great whore… Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations… great city…” Revelation 17:1, 5, and 18.
The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, with its governing center in Vatican City, Rome, and, on the right, the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, head the hierarchies of the two-horned second beast of Revelation 13.
Decidedly, these two powerful religious entities are on the world stage during the Millennium, taking advantage of the precious religious liberty of “the thousand years” to recover somewhat from the tremendous losses they suffered when the “ten horns” despoiled them, in previous centuries, of a
great part of their enormous material wealth and political-economic-social-religious powers. Revelation 17:16-17
Still deceived and deceiving on a massive scale great masses of biblically ignorant souls through the hundreds of thousands of clergies at their service, they continue to promote during “the thousand years” their old “Christianized” paganism of the Middle Ages with even greater astuteness under the deceptive mantra of “Non-persecuting Catholic Orthodox Christianity, benevolent, submissive, nonviolent, and humble.” Even giving up, in the case of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the ceremonial use of the Pope´s Triple Crown, the Pope’s Portable Throne, plus other artifacts and ceremonies which signify the Papal claim, yet unrevoked, to sovereignty over all earth’s secular rulers and citizens in all affairs material, political, and spiritual.
Their existence on the earth during the Millennium is also evidenced by the fact that they are not destroyed until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ! And we already understand, do we not, that the Millennium precedes, it is reaffirmed, the return of Jesus Christ “a second time, not to deal with sin.” Hebrews 9:28
In this artistic rendition, the Second Beast of Revelation 13 comes up out of the earth. It has two horns like those of a Lamb but speaks like a dragon.
They are represented in the New Testament not only as the “two horns” of the Second Beast (Revelation 13:11) and “the great whore-Babylon the great-great city” (Revelation 17 and 18) but also as the “false prophet” (Revelation 19:20) and as “the lawless one” (RSVA) or “man of sin,” also called “the son of perdition.” (ASV) 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
But look out! “…the Lord Jesus will DESTROY with the breath of his mouth” the “lawless one” who represents apostate Christianity, “ANNIHILATING HIM by the manifestation of his coming.” 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10. Therefore, unquestionably, perverted Christianity will exist on the earth during the Millennium.
B. The “Christian sects,” in their character as “children” of “the great whore,” (Revelation 17:5), classified as such because they retain key dogmas and practices peculiar to her, exist on the earth during the Millennium, taking advantage of the-so-precious religious freedom and tolerance to multiply into more than 40,000 different types of churches, movements, communions, fellowships, etc. under the general umbrella of “Christian.” Some of the outstanding among them are:
1. “Community churches.” Established initially, just as the adjective “community” indicates, according to the criteria and desires of “communities or neighborhoods of human beings.” Not, therefore, primarily in accordance with the “plan” (Ephesians 3:9-13) conceived by the Supreme “Architect” and “Builder” who is “God” himself (Hebrews 11:10), which “plan” includes “the church” (Ephesians 3:10), that “church” being
the “one body” (Ephesians 4:4; 1:22-23), by which it pleases the Supreme “Architect and Builder” to make “known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places,” and to all human beings everywhere, even on the Moon, Mars, or out there in space, what is the “rich variety” of his “wisdom.” Ephesians 3:10
2. The churches that promote and practice the perverted “gospel of prosperity and personal triumph” on a spectacular scale. Also, the “gospel of dominionism” and the “gospel of physical healing and health.” They shamelessly make merchandise of multitudes of souls stunned, awestricken by their fantastic, bombastic promises and pronouncements, powerful theatrical shows, and emotionally charged, very loud
“praise services.” 2 Peter 2:1-3; 1 Timothy 6:3-10. “Dominionism,” in religious terminology, identifies the mostly Pentecostal type of movement that urges Christians to purposely strive to occupy important positions in political, social, industrial, and commercial organizations, taking advantage of their positions and authority to impose in any way possible their religious, moral, worldview beliefs and practices.
3. The “all-inclusive, worldlyized, secularized, politized, acculturated, wokeized, spiritually and doctrinally desensitized churches” that open their membership and ministries to alphabet human beings who proudly bear the rainbow banner, aligning their congregations with lifestyles and social causes so patently contrary to very plain directives and norms clearly expressed in the “New Covenant” of Jesus Christ. These kinds of churches also sprout and proliferate during the Millennium, invoking “religious freedom, personal rights, including the authority and power of the individual” as empowering them to do what they please and choose, irrespective of “any, old, stultified, chauvinistic, misogynist Bible dictum.”
C. The spiritual “Kingdom of Christ and of God,” (Ephesians 5:5) which “is not from this world… not from here” (John 18:36), present on earth as the church Christ built (“I will be my church.” Matthew 16:18), also continues on earth during the Millennium. Its biblically qualified leadership and members loyal to Christ and his doctrine (1 Timothy 3; Titus 13-10; 2:1; Acts 20:17-28; Hebrews 6:1) rejoice in the religious freedom legislated by enlightened secular, political authorities liberated from Satanic deceits which, during the Medieval Age and on into the late Renaissance, called for the physical punishment and/or death of any male or female identified as “heretic” by the apostate religious hierarchies and their supporters. Thanks to this precious, invaluable religious freedom and protection, this faithful, spiritual Kingdom-Church can evangelize freely, proclaiming the pure Gospel of Christ without fear of physical-material reprisals.
D. The secular, political “nations” continue on planet Earth during the Millennium.
1. It is obvious that they continue on earth during the Millennium for the simple reason that Satan cannot deceive them. If he is not allowed to deceive them as he did during the Dark Ages and through much of the Renaissance, it is rightly inferred that at least some of those deceived secular, political nations come out of the Darkness of Satanic Deception and into the blessed Light of Millennial Freedom. History plainly shows that this is exactly what happened when the “ten horns,” that is, ten nations emerging during the early Renaissance, coming to hate the “great whore,” refused to serve her anymore, legislating Freedom of Religion. Revelation 17:15-18
2. What kinds of “nations” are found on earth during the Millennium? The secular, political, including the “ten horns” (kingdoms, nations) conquered by Christ in the initial stages of the Millennium. Revelation 17:15-18. Conquered, not physically and materially with material arms and physical armies but by means of his Word that brave souls, many of them Roman Catholic priests such as John Hus (of Bohemia), John Wycliffe (of England), and Martin Luther (of Germany), began to preach openly in the vernaculars of the populaces. Also, by his providential influences on the thinking, reasoning, and understanding of political leaders and other people in positions to bring about positive changes in societies, educational institutions, commerce, etc. Just as “the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia” in such a way that he became the instrument for the restoration of Israel to the Promised Land after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Ezra 1
a) Some nations that continue on earth during the Millennium are among those that were deceived by Satan before the Millennium, also probably being among those who will allow themselves to be deceived again after the Millennium. For example, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and England.
“Secular” was the essential nature of the deceived nations before the Millennium. They do not suddenly lose that basic attribute when they are conquered by Christ for his purposes and “the thousand years” of religious freedom and tolerance begin. They continue to be essentially secular-political-worldly but not bound in Satanic union to the totally deceived apostate, politicized, morally corrupt, persecuting, murderous, secularized religion of the “great whore-Babylon the great-false prophet-man of sin.”
b) The projection by modern-day Pentecostals, many Evangelicals, some Protestants, and some unaffiliated religious teachers, preachers, commentators, etc., of a “Holy Theocracy” on earth during the Millennium is without biblical support. No prophecy or teaching of the Bible proclaims the unification of secular nations existing on earth during the Millennium in an earthly, global “Holy Theocracy” with its capital in Jerusalem where Jesus Christ would, as it is speculated, occupy an earthly throne.
That Christ would come down out of heaven to sit on a material throne in Jerusalem from which he would reign over the secular, political nations and all their citizens during the Millennium must be classified as the eschatological fabrication of minds that do not yet comprehend truths as elemental as that which teaches the total destruction of the material universe when Christ appears “a second time, not to deal with sin,” “in the day of the Lord” that “will come like a thief in the night.”
This is an artistical representation of a supposed “Throne of Christ in Jerusalem” from which he would supposedly govern the nations of the world during an “Earthly Millennial Kingdom.” Beliefs bereft entirely of biblical support.
No fully informed, intelligent student of the Sacred Scriptures commits the serious error of mixing prophetical texts of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of which was limited to the
earthly people of Israel before the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, with the prophecies of the New Testament on the Millennium.
Sadly, and shamefully, in modern times, masses of religious people, and even some who are not particularly religious, throng after self-proclaimed “prophets, prophetesses, apostles (women included), reverends, bishops, pastors, evangelists, and commentators who fill the Internet, YouTube, television, Facebook, WhatsApp, and all other media within their reach, with their sensationalist prophetical interpretations. Exploiting the ingenious biblically ignorant,
sensation seekers, “better-felt-than-told” believers, eschatological fanatics, religious sentimentalists, and enthusiasts, not a few of them get sensationally rich, living in mansions and owning private jets. Accumulating all those “filthy riches” through the sale of hundreds of millions, even billions of videos, compact disks, books, and assorted paraphernalia, plus the incessant solicitation of contributions and tithes. Not troubling themselves with preaching even so much as “the doctrine of the first principles of Christ.” ASV. Hebrews 6:1-4; Acts 2:36-47; 2 John 9-11; Titus 2:1; 1 Timothy 3:16; 2 Timothy 4:1-5. No doubt, that would cause them to lose a lot of sheep and wool, and they know it!
In spite of their notable lack of “spiritual wisdom and intelligence,” (Colossians 1:9) the electrifying aura about many of this category is that of an obsessive, consuming fascination with “prophecies, end-time signs, miracles, God’s mysteries; personal, divine revelations and dreams, plagues and catastrophes, the imminent return of Christ, judgment, hellfire and damnation,” etc.
They do not even reach the point of understanding, preaching, and practicing such a simple command of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit as “…be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of sins.” Acts 2:38; 22:16; Mark 16:15-16; 1 Peter 3:21 ASV. Nonetheless, they are the ones, the only ones, who know all there is to know about “the secret rapture,” “the great tribulation,” “the day of the Second Coming of Christ,” “the Millennial kingdom of God and Christ on earth after the Second Coming, “end-time signs,” “the Third Coming of Christ,” “the end of the world,” and all related subjects. So do they believe, or pretend to believe, with a driving enthusiasm that overpowers the simple, gullible masses.
The whole scene is truly a curious, and spiritually dangerous anomaly in this present “Age of Sentimentalism” (first half of the 21st century). Times when masses of believers in God do not “endure sound doctrine, but, having itching ears… heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts, and… turn their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.” Being “ignorant and unsteadfast,” they “wrest… the scriptures unto their own destruction,” as well as to that of the multitudes who keep them in power. In perfect and alarming accordance with the prophetical warnings and orientations of the first-century apostles of Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:15-16; 2 Timothy 4:1-5
Text and Document Composition by the author Homer Dewayne Shappley. All rights reserved. The only restrictions on the use of this document are the sale of it in any format and proper identification of its origin.
CATEGORY Revelation: Its Ongoing Relevancy and Fulfillment. 21st Century Commentary.
Este tema, El Milenio, Parte 3, en ESPAÑOL.
Parts 4, 5, 6, and 7 to be added.