The City of Peace - The Lord's Future Reign in the Millennial Kingdom

Isaiah 1.1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, [that] the mountain 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. 3 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. 4 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.

There is no more war in the millennial kingdom. This agrees with Rev. 20: "And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3 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" (v.2,3).

Amillennialists will tell you this passage means something else, but it is clear during the future reign of Christ when He returns to earth, the wars will end and no more wars for a 1000 years till Satan is loosed for a little season out of the pit at the end of the millennial kingdom.


The Day of the Lord - A Warning of Judgment!

Isaiah 2.5-22 Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD! 6 For the LORD has rejected his people, the descendants of Jacob, because they have filled their land with practices from the East and with sorcerers, as the Philistines do. They have made alliances with pagans. 7 Israel is full of silver and gold; there is no end to its treasures. Their land is full of warhorses; there is no end to its chariots. 8 Their land is full of idols; the people worship things they have made with their own hands. 9 So now they will be humbled, and all will be brought low--do not forgive them. 10 Crawl into caves in the rocks. Hide in the dust from the terror of the LORD and the glory of his majesty. 11 Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the LORD will be exalted on that day of judgment. 12 For the LORD of Heaven's Armies has a day of reckoning. He will punish the proud and mighty and bring down everything that is exalted. 13 He will cut down the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the mighty oaks of Bashan. 14 He will level all the high mountains and all the lofty hills. 15 He will break down every high tower and every fortified wall. 16 He will destroy all the great trading ships and every magnificent vessel. 17 Human pride will be humbled, and human arrogance will be brought down. Only the LORD will be exalted on that day of judgment. 18 Idols will completely disappear. 19 When the LORD rises to shake the earth, his enemies will crawl into holes in the ground. They will hide in caves in the rocks from the terror of the LORD and the glory of his majesty. 20 On that day of judgment they will abandon the gold and silver idols they made for themselves to worship. They will leave their gods to the rodents and bats, 21 while they crawl away into caverns and hide among the jagged rocks in the cliffs. They will try to escape the terror of the LORD and the glory of his majesty as he rises to shake the earth. 22 Don't put your trust in mere humans. They are as frail as breath. What good are they?

The hiding in caves occurs during the day of the Lord, that is, the Great Tribulation, but interestingly before the Tribulation starts there will already have been people hiding in caves in Rev. 6.15, "Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the military commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains."

This judgment as you can see is not on just the Gentile nations but on Israel as well for rejecting the Lord.

During the Tribulation of 7 years, in the middle for 1260 days, a remnant of Israel (Rev. 7.1-8) will be in hiding. Rev. 12.6, "The woman [remnant of Israel] fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, to be fed there for 1,260 days." "The dragon stood in front of the woman [eternal will of God] who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth he might devour her child" (v.4). Satan attempts to go after the overcomers in the Church in verse 4, but when He fails to get them because they are raptured alive ("caught up to God" v.5), He goes after Israel, and Israel is overrun during the Great Tribulation. Yet a remnant of the Jews finds protection likely in some caves. The woman initially presented is the eternal will of God who desires to rapture overcomers at the first rapture before the Tribulation starts, but when Satan fails to capture them, He goes after Israel, so the woman reverts to being a remnant of the Jews of Israel. She is clothed with the sun above her head representing God's grace and stands above the moon, representing God's laws. The 12 stars above her head are the 12 Patriarchs.

One who does the Lord’s work must speak accurately. He should not be careless in his words. Only thus can he become a mouthpiece of the Lord and avoid many difficulties. We are deeply distressed by the fact that many times God’s workman lacks restraint in speech, with the result that brothers and sisters relish his storytelling and his judgmental words but despise his preaching of God’s word. Do not think that it does not matter if we speak wittily with our brothers and sisters today. Indeed, our speech may be very amusing. But wait until we stand up to preach the word of God, and then shall we see how they take it to be as amusing as was our storytelling. People will fail to respect what we say anymore.

One brother may speak and people listen, while another may speak and nobody listens. Why this difference? Do they not speak the same words? The word is of God all right, but one of them has spoken differently from the other in ordinary days on other matters. Let us recognize the fact that if two of us speak differently concerning other matters, and even though we both may speak forth the same word of God, the power of God’s word will be different one from the other. For a person who speaks carelessly and without restraint in his daily speech will witness the same effect upon his hearers when he later preaches God’s word. It will be as loose and powerless as before.

Let us not easily forget what we have learned from Scripture that a fountain does not send forth from the same opening both sweet water and bitter. It cannot yield up sweet fluid on one occasion and bitter fluid on another. Bitter water is always bitter. Though its bitterness may be somewhat diluted, it still remains bitter nonetheless. Note, too, that in mixing together clean and dirty water, the latter does not turn clean; instead, the former becomes dirty. Many brethren find that their power has been sapped not because they have done wrong in preaching God’s word but because they have spoken wrongly in daily matters; so that no one will listen to them when they stand up to preach. Please be well advised that words uttered on the platform follow the words spoken off the platform. If you speak unwisely away from the podium, your speaking from the podium will be totally diluted, and the sweet water will have been turned bitter by you. We need not daily prepare the words which are to be delivered from the platform, but we ought to pay attention daily to the words used off the platform. How can we expect to manifest power in God’s service if in our daily life we are undisciplined by speaking with carelessness, inaccuracy, distortion and jest, and even with outright lies? But having bridled our tongue in ordinary times from the outset, we may preach the word of the Lord.

Then, too, there is a close relationship between our speaking exactly and our studying of the Bible. For the Bible is the most exact of books. There is but one set of words in the entire universe which is absolutely true, and that is what is found in the word of God. If we lack the habit of speaking accurately, we are not able to study the Bible nor to preach it. Judging by the way some brothers talk, we are forced to conclude that they have no possibility of studying God’s word. Just as it demands a certain character in a person in order for him to preach God’s word, so it requires a specific character in him who would study God’s word. A careless person can never handle the Bible rightly. For the latter is most precise, and a careless person would only allow the word of God to leak away and thus misunderstand it.

Let us illustrate what exactness and precision here mean. Matthew 22 relates how the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. They sought out the Lord Jesus and posed an apparently hard question to Him:


What they were suggesting was that resurrection was something unbelievable. It was best not to have resurrection, or else it would create great trouble and confusion. They came to reason with the Lord that if resurrection were true, the problem it created would be beyond solution.

But note how the Lord Jesus answered them:


The Sadducees were those who had studiously pored over the Scriptures, yet the Lord said they did not understand them. And why? Because they were people who spoke carelessly; they never dreamed that God spoke so exactly.

Now in order to prove to His questioners the truth of resurrection, our Lord did not quote any other Scripture but the one in Exodus 3: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Yet how in the world, the Sadducees must have thought, does this verse prove resurrection? "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," said the Lord. Abraham had died, Isaac had died, and Jacob too had died. All three were dead and buried. Would we not therefore have to assume that God is the God of the dead since Jehovah God had himself declared that He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Yet our Lord added that God is not the God of the dead but of the living! How can this apparent paradox be resolved? Well, since God is not the God of the dead, Abraham, though he is indeed a dead person today, shall one day become living. So shall Isaac and Jacob. But how can the dead become living? The answer: it must be through resurrection. Abraham will be resurrected, Isaac will be resurrected, and Jacob too will be resurrected simply because the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is not the God of the dead, but of the living. We see, then, how the Lord Jesus used these words to answer the question of the Sadducees. Note how very exact and precise was our Lord’s speech. He showed them how they had erred due to their ignorance—yea, even their inaccurate handling—of the Scriptures as well as their ignorance of the power of God.

If we talk loosely, we will not be able to perceive the exactness of God’s word. A careless disposition causes one to think inaccurately. He cannot be exact; therefore, he will allow to leak away the exact word of God. The Scriptures speak most truthfully. Every minute detail is exact. "One jot or one tittle," noted the Lord, "shall in no wise pass away from the law till all things be accomplished" (Matt. 5.18). The jots and tittles of each word which God uses are accentuated. They cannot be changed. And since God himself speaks with such exactitude, a servant of God must also speak in that manner.

Let us not fail to note that God’s speaking is always solid. Every word of His is substantial and immovable. If you study the Bible and come to know it, you will confess that His word cannot have even one letter added to or taken away from it. We need to underline this point: that whoever speaks carelessly cannot be the Lord’s servant. For he is not able to handle God’s word rightly nor will he have any power or impact with brothers and sisters when he preaches. How distressful it is to listen to a given brother preaching whom you know very well. As you listen to him, you well know that he is an undisciplined person who speaks carelessly. With the result that when he stands up to preach he treats God’s word lightly and loosely. Yet this should not surprise you, for how can he be careful on the platform when he has been so careless away from the platform? Let us realize that a careless undisciplined person can neither study the Bible well nor speak well for the Lord.

Let us ask God to show mercy towards us, causing us to speak accurately. We need to pray one prayer constantly, which is, to ask the Lord to give us the tongue of the instructed that we may not be a loose person who allows to be leaked away the testimony of God. A person who is unrestrained in speech can neither find out the facts of God’s word well nor understand them. Let us therefore learn to speak carefully that we may also discover the exactness of each word in the Scriptures. (The Character of God's Workman, CFP, pp. 112-117).

I don't feel like people are appreciating the magnitude of the Malachy Prophecy.

Very simply, before Pope Francis, the last pope (112th), dies a nuclear bomb will blow up the Vatican according the prophecy.

Revelation 17.16, "And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire" purple tassels and all.

I don't find any other interpretation viable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes

This makes me very sad to know this and scared, because the world will never the be same. It will be utterly frightening to live in such a world when this happens.

Think of the nuclear fallout in the revived Roman Empire -- the European Union. Political Rome will be pissed! People in Germany rallied around a dictator under severe austere conditions to bring about WWII somewhat similar to people in Europe today with such high unemployment. Neo Nazi parties are rising up TODAY that are considered more than insignificant, because Germany should have a strong currency and is weakened by many nations in Europe undergoing severe debt and deficit problems. Germany is having to foot the bill for their lack of competitiveness.

The European Union is the most powerful nation state on the planet today. After the nuclear explosion in Rome, the EU will rally around itself like never before to strengthen itself eventually attacking Israel that they will ultimately blame. But they will not harm the 3rd Temple that construction will begin on soon as per the Total Lunar Tetrad.

"But do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months" (Rev. 11.2).

The Temple is measured which means it is protected, but the court outside the 3rd Temple will suffer certain damage by all the fighting.

The reason I am a Christian is because I don’t know how to disprove the proof for God and who God is.

I see trillions of cause and effects in nature, and no hard evidence of something from nothing, so this evidence is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to know that the first event of the universe like all the events of the universe has a cause and can’t come from nothing (i.e. non-existence). Non-existence can't produce anything as it does not exist. Claiming non-existence caused existence belongs in the loony bin!

And there can’t be an infinite regress of cause and effects in nature either, because if there had been, you would have, by that very definition, an eternity to come into being before now, so you should have already happened. And you should never have existed because a past eternity of nature would go on forever never reaching this point of your existence. So a past eternity of nature is inherently contradictory and a man-made superstition.

Therefore, nature needs a cause outside of itself, outside of time and space, being uncreated whom we call God. But God can’t have morals below our own so He must have perfect morality. He can't be inaccessible (an absentee landlord, i.e. deistic) for that is beneath us, contrary to our own way of being, for we entreat our fellow man in need or at least we should. He is not impersonal for we are personal beings. He must have a mind because a mind is needed to create a mind: the lesser can't produce the greater: a mind can't originate from lesser non-consciousness. He has self-consciousness, because consciousness is needed to create consciousness in creatures. Life has a soul, that divine spark of life when spirit makes contact with the body, which can't be explained solely by the dust of the ground by itself.

There are only 3 religions or faiths on the planet that are accessible and pervasive enough worth taking a gander at for a personal God: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. We know Islam is false because you can’t come along six centuries later without anything to support your claim that Jesus never died on the cross or even went to the cross. Otherwise, you could spout off anything as being the truth. But we are evidentialists not suppositionalists.

Hinduism fails because its god is said to be amoral which is below our own morality. And reincarnation, coming back as a chicken if you are overly sinful, doesn’t tackle sin expediently in this life since you always get another chance as though you might change your mind later. But, really, would you? Surely, you have already made up your mind and don't need another life to decide let alone a billion years to decide. And who dare hold a chicken responsible for man's eternal well being? Silly nonsense! Who do you know over the age of 40 who ever gave their life to Christ? They have had more than enough time in this life alone.

That leaves only Christianity which, therefore, must be true. And it is proves itself to be true, because there is no naturalistic explanation to account for the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles in various group settings. Group hallucinations are impossible. The swoon theory wouldn’t make Jesus look like a risen Messiah to convince anyone He is God. The original eyewitness Apostles are human beings, and human beings don’t willingly die for what they know is a lie so they truly believed it. They were not liars. So their position must be accounted for and not blithely discounted. Since there is no mental problem and they did not lie, it must be true! Legends theory breaks down because there was not enough time to develop. Jesus had more sources written about Him within 150 years of His death than any 10 figures in antiquity combined. The highest standard of evidence is applied in the 66 books of the Bible! And the earliest still surviving papyri are closer to the events of Scripture than for any other person in antiquity. There are at least 15 papyri from the late first century and from the second century of the NT. If Jesus didn’t do what He did then nobody did anything in antiquity and human beings would not exist. Christ Jesus was a liar, lunatic or God. Since He was not a liar nor a lunatic, He has to be God. No other option avails itself.

This is how we know Jesus is God the Son and Jesus entered His creation to atone for the sins of the world to save people; ergo, whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but receive everlasting life. It is everyone's free choice to want to be eternally separated from the love of God and God Himself or to accept His saving grace. This is God's redemptive design. At the center of the New City will be Jesus (in person) with God the Father (in spirit) and no more need of the throne for they will be the center thereof. All those who reject His love and mercy go to Hell -- a perfectly designed domain or dwelling place for people that need to be locked up in jail forever.

A choice that is not for Jesus is a choice against Him. Shutting your mind down in God's eyes is not a valid excuse. He requires you active participation for He did not make you zombies.

But even following repentance the believer’s mind is not liberated totally from the touch of Satan. As the enemy worked through the mind in former days, so today will he work in the same manner. Paul, in writing to the Corinthian believers, confided that he was “afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11. 3). The Apostle well recognizes that as the god of this world blinds the mind of unbelievers so will he deceive the mind of the believers. Even though they are saved their life of thought is as yet unrenewed; consequently it remains the most strategic battleground. The mind suffers the onslaughts of the powers of darkness more than any other organ of the whole man. We should realize that satanic spirits are directing special attention to our minds and are attacking them unrelentingly—“as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning.” Satan did not assail Eve’s heart first but rather her head. Similarly today, the evil spirits first attack our head, not our heart, in order to have us corrupted from the simplicity and purity which is towards Christ. They fully understand how it is the weakest point in our entire being, for it had served as their fortress before we believed and even now is not yet entirely overthrown. Attacking the mind is the easiest avenue for them to accomplish their purpose. Eve’s heart was sinless and yet she received Satan’s suggested thoughts. She was thus beguiled through his deception into forfeiting her reasoning and tumbling into the snare of the enemy. Let a believer accordingly be careful in his boast of possessing an honest and sincere heart, for unless he learns how to repulse the evil spirits in his mind he will continue to be tempted and deceived into losing the sovereignty of his will.

Paul continues by telling us from whence this danger comes: “if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted” (v.4). The peril for the Christian is to have false teaching injected into his thought life so as to lead him astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. These are the works the “serpent” is perpetrating today. Satan has disguised himself as an angel of light to lead saints to worship with their intellect a Jesus other than the Lord, to receive a spirit other than the Holy Spirit, and by these to propagate a gospel other than the gospel of the grace of God. Paul pronounces these to be nothing else than the deeds of Satan in the Christian’s mind. The adversary translates these “doctrines” into thoughts and then imposes them upon the mind of the Christian. How tragic that few appreciate the reality of these activities! Few, indeed, who would ever think that the devil could give such good thoughts to men!

It is possible for a child of God to have a new life and a new heart but be without a new head. With too many saints, the mind, though their heart is new, is still quite old. Their heart is full of love whereas their head is totally lacking in perception. How often the intents of the heart are utterly pure and yet the thoughts in the head are confused. Having become saturated with a mishmash of everything, the mind lacks the most signal element of all, which is spiritual insight. Countless saints genuinely love all children of God, but unfortunately their brain is stuffed with a hodgepodge of theories, opinions and objectives. Quite a number of God’s best and most faithful children are the most narrow-minded and prejudice-filled. Already have they decided what is the truth and what truth they shall accept. They reject every other truth because these do not blend in with their preconceived notions. Their head is not as expansive as their heart. Moreover, there are other children of God whose mind can conceive no thought whatever. No matter how many truths have been heard they can neither remember nor practice nor communicate them to others. These have certainly heard a lot, yet they possess no ability to express any of it. For many years they have received truths, but not even a little can they supply for the needs of others. Perhaps they may even brag how full they are of the Holy Spirit! What creates such symptoms is an unrenewed mind.

Man’s head damages people more than man’s heart! Were believers to learn how to distinguish the renewal of heart from the renewal of head, they would not commit the mistake of believing in man. Christians ought to realize that even one who maintains a most intimate fellowship with God may nevertheless unknowingly have accepted Satan’s suggestions in his mind, which consequently precipitate errors in his conduct, words and viewpoints! Aside from the plain teaching of the Bible no man’s words are entirely trustworthy. We must not live by a man’s words just because we admire or respect that man. His utterance and conduct may be most holy but his thought may not be spiritual. What we therefore observe is not his speech and behavior but his mind. Were we to believe, because of one’s life conduct, that what a worker says is God’s truth, we would then be making man’s word and demeanor our standard of truth instead of the Bible. History is strewn with innumerable cases of sanctified saints who propagated heresies! The simple explanation is that their hearts were renewed but their minds remained old. We will undeniably acknowledge that life is more important than knowledge. Indeed, the former is a thousand times more consequential than the latter. Nonetheless, after some growth in life it is essential to seek the knowledge which proceeds from a renewed mind. We should see how urgent it is for both heart and head to be renewed.

If a Christian’s mind is not renewed his life is bound to be lopsided and narrow. Work becomes nigh to impossible for him. The popular teaching nowadays stresses that there should be love, patience, humility and so forth in the Christian life. These traits of the heart are highly significant, since nothing else can replace them. Even so, can we regard these as meeting all our needs? They are important but not inclusive. It is equally vital for a person’s mind to be renewed, enlarged and strengthened. Otherwise we shall witness an unbalanced life. Many hold that spiritual Christians should not be common sensical, as though the more foolish they are the better. Now except for the fact that such spiritual believers live a little better than the rest, they have no other usefulness and cannot be entrusted with any work. To be sure, we do not advocate worldly wisdom and knowledge, because God’s redemption does not call for employing our former sin-stained mind. But He does desire it to be renewed as is our spirit. God wishes to restore our thought life to the excellent state it had when He created it so that we may not only glorify God in our walk but may glorify Him in our thinking as well. Who can estimate the multipled number of God’s children who, due to neglecting their mind, grow narrow, stubborn and obstinate, and even sometimes defiled. They fall short of the glory of God. The Lord’s people need to know that if they want to live a full life their mind must be renewed. One of the reasons why the kingdom of God lacks workers today is because too many cannot undertake anything with their head. They neglect to seek its renewal after they are saved and hence permit their work to be obstructed. The Bible declares emphatically that we must “be transformed by the renewal of our mind” (Rom. 12.2).