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THE MILLENNIUM!--What Will It Be Like? DFO 1428 7/12/80
1. IT'S A WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL WORLD THE LORD'S MADE, everything is so organised & perfect! The Lord said that, "Day & night shall not cease, Summer & Winter, seedtime & harvest, as long as the Earth shall exist." (Gen.8:22.--And that's why we'll still have Summer & Winter as long as the Earth goes around the sun & continues outside the City even in the New Heavens & the New Earth!
2. OF COURSE, WE DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE LORD'S GOING TO DO ABOUT THE NEW HEAVENS & NEW EARTH, but maybe He'll straighten up the Earth's axis, & since it's a New Earth maybe He doesn't have to abide by that rule any loner & days & nights will all be equal & the Summer & Winter will all be the same. It'll be Eternal Springtime all the time!--Or maybe Eternal Summertime, I'd like that even better!--But there's still Gen.8.22!
3. DURING THE MILLENNIUM IS THERE GOING TO BE A NEW HEAVEN & A NEW EARTH? (Family: No.) It hasn't arrived yet. Space City doesn't come down till when? (Family: Till after the Battle of Gog & Magog.) Yes, & that's at the end of what? (Fam: End of the Millennium.) That's a thousand years after Jesus comes back.--One thousand years after Jesus comes back before we get the New Heaven, Space City, & He remakes the Earth.
4. SO WHAT'S GOING TO BE GOING ON ALL THE TIME DURING HE MILLENNIUM? (Fam: There'll be seasons just like now.) Seasons just like there are now. The Earth will be virtually the same, Springtime & harvest, seedtime & Summer & Winter, & the people living outside around the World in the normal Earth plane will be going through the same type of Winter & Summer & seasons, etc.
5. THE EARTH WILL BE MUCH THE SAME AS IT IS TODAY ONLY THERE'LL BE ONE BIG DIFFERENCE, & what's that? (Fam: We'll be with Jesus.) It'll all have an entirely different government, Jesus, right! He'll be the Head of it, & who'll be His officers? (Fam: We will.) Right! We & who else? (Fam: All of the saints.) All of the saints & who else? (Fam: And the angels.) Yes, of course. There will still be angels & there'll still be saints, all of us saints, & the Lord'll be the Head of the Government.
6. BUT THE EARTH WILL BE MUCH THE SAME AS IT IS TODAY. We'll still have Winter & Summer, seedtime & harvest, Spring & Fall & the rest & doing all that sort of thing, except the one biggest exception is that the Lord will be running the World.
7. THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION, WHAT OTHER MAJOR DIFFERENCES WILL THERE BE IN THE WORLD? Well, He said for one thing, "Nothing shall hurt nor destroy in all My Holy Kingdom." (Isa.11:9.) That is except of course the force He uses for government.
8. WHAT WILL THE MILLENNIUM BE LIKE? Now that's a very interesting point. Not only will the Lord have taken over the reins of government on Earth, established His Kingdom, He will have removed whose Kingdom? (Family: The Antichrist.) (David: Satan.) The Antichrist. And, David, you said the right name too: Satan's kingdom! He's merely ruling through the Antichrist with the False Prophet.
9. THEIR GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE BEEN REMOVED COMPLETELY INCLUDING SATAN, THINK OF THAT, & he will be bound a thousand years. Including who else? It doesn't say so in the Bible but it's obvious that if God is going to bind Satan & the Antichrist & going to throw them into the Lake of Fire, etc., & the False Prophet & all the people who followed the Beast & took the Mark of the Beast, then all the evil spirits, demons, will be bound also & not allowed to influence people against the Lord & his Kingdom & His angels & His saints then.
10. WELL, WE'VE GOT HALF THE BATTLE LICKED JUST BY THE LORD BEING HERE, & the other half licked by the Devil not being here! Right? (Family: Yes!) Which ought to make it pretty easy for us to run the World without his bad evil influences, with nothing but good spiritual influences. Think of that! Just good spiritual influences!
11. WHAT IS THE ONLY THING WE'LL HAVE TO BATTLE WITH AT ALL IN THAT GOVERNMENT? (Fam:" The rebellious nature of some people.) Exactly! The unregenerate, unsaved, rebellious, wilful heart of men who will still have free choice to do good or evil. They won't be any longer influenced by Satanic or demonic spiritual influences, but they will still have their own wicked hearts if unsaved.
12. AND MANY PEOPLE WHO DO NOT HAVE JESUS IN THEIR HEARTS--the Devil will be bound & his enemies & you cant say he had the Devil in his heart-but they themselves will be like little devils themselves. Anybody that's unsaved can be a little devil. If they've already got an evil spirit, they are an evil spirit.--A living human flesh-&-blood evil spirit! Do you get it?
13. SO THERE ARE GOING TO BE A LOT OF THOSE PEOPLE AROUND THAT WE WILL HAVE TO GOVERN, & we will rule them how? What kind of a government is it going to be? A soft putty clay type of government? (Family: No!) We shall rule & reign with Him & He shall rule the nations with what? (Family: A rod of iron!) A rod of iron! What does that mean? Does that mean Jesus is going to actually go around with a big long iron rod in His hand? Well, He could, if you want to take it literally, but it really means what? (Fam: A dictatorship?)--A forceful powerful rule!
14. IT'LL BE A TOUGH, HARD, STRONG, FORCEFUL GOVERNMENT! And why does it have to be that way?--We're going to still have all these little devils running around, human devils on two legs who still have not received Jesus. And how do we know that? It doesn't exactly say that, you have to draw that conclusion from something that happens later. (Fam: At the end of a thousand years Satan's going to be released & he's still going to be able to raise up followers.) He comes out & he deceives the nations again!--The still unsaved!
15. SO OBVIOUSLY IN SPITE OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST ON EARTH THERE ARE GOING TO BE ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL NOT GOING TO RECEIVE JESUS as their Saviour & who are going to be deceived & misled to follow the Devil when the Devil comes back again. That'll be sort of like the end of the Millennium. The Battle of God & Magog is sort of like the Devil's second coming when he comes back to lead his people again, & obviously they'll be his people if they didn't receive Jesus!
16. WHY ELSE WOULD JESUS HAVE TO RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON! He doesn't have to rule us, with a rod of iron. How does He rule us? (Fam: With love.) With love! Once in awhile He may have to give us a whack with a rod, but not an iron rod. In fact, it's more or less not much better than a little whip, something like a fly swatter even now. But then He wont' be ruling us with a rod of iron, how does He rule us? (Family: With love.) Why does he have to rule them with a rod of iron? (David: 'Cause they're bad!) Because they're bad & wicked & still have their own evil hearts if they don't have Jesus. Even if they no longer have the Devil & demons! Think of that!
17. DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE POSSIBLE FOR ANY OF THEM TO RECEIVE THE LORD DURING THE MILLENNIUM? It seems reasonable & logical & to believe that there would be some perhaps who might receive Him. But of course, in a way, they may not be saved like us, because only the saved are going to walk in the Holy City. And all of us saved have already been resurrected, right? (Family: Yes.)
18. WELL, IT'S A CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE ON WHICH SOME PEOPLE ARGUE, when there's no need for argument because the simplest answer in the World is we don't really know! But I'll give you some pretty sad signs. Obviously, if anybody's saved during the Millennium it doesn't sound like there are going to be very many of them if the Devil's able to come back & deceive the whole World once again, which is obviously most of them, into following him again.
19. NOW DURING THOSE DAYS ANOTHER THING IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT. Since the Devil is removed & his demons, much of what else is going to be removed? You might say a general easy word to use is the Curse or curses. The worst part of the Curse was what? When was man first cursed? (David: In the Garden of Eden.) And what was the first curse that God threatened'm would happen to them if they disobeyed? (Fam: they would die.) Death!
20. DEATH WAS THE WORST PART OF THE CURSE! Death to whom? (David: Death to them.) Death to them, death to Adam & Eve, & who else? (David: To the Devil.) Well, in a way, yes. (Fam: to the human race.) To everybody. Every human being that has ever lived has had to do what? (Family: Die.) Die!
21. LET ME TELL YOU, BY THE WAY, YOU'LL FIND VERY LITTLE ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION. It only devotes a few verses to the whole Millennium! that's in the 20th chapter, as I recall: "They shall rule & reign with Him a thousand years" while the Devil is bound. (Rev.20:4.) And from what some of the prophets said, the curse will be at least partially removed. You'll find less about the Millennium or the Kingdom of Christ on Earth in Revelation than almost any prophetic book.
22. WHAT'S THE HEBREW WORD FOR CHRIST? (FAM: MESSIAH?) And He was the Messiah of whom, first of all? (Family: The Jews.) And if He was the Messiah He was to become their what? (Fam: King.) So they were particularly interested in His Kingdom, & in the old Jewish prophets & their writings you'll find more about the Millennium than you will in the whole new Testament, believe it or not! And in particularly the writings of what prophet? (Family: Isaiah.)
23. THERE'S MORE ABOUT THE MESSIANIC KINGDOM OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM ON EARTH IN ISAIAH THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE BIBLE, but you'll also find quite a bit in the Psalms & other Prophets too. But particularly in Isaiah, he describes the Kingdom, the days when the lion shall lie down with the lamb & the lamb won't be inside the lion! If a lion laid down with a lamb nowadays, you know where the lamb would be!--Inside the lion, right?
24. EVIDENTLY, A GREAT DEAL IF NOT ALL OF THE CURSE IS GOING TO BE REMOVED. Man is going to be at peace with the animals. The lion will lie down with the lamb & it says a little child shall lead them, be able to lead the lions around & play with the lions & the tigers & leopards & elephants & things like that. Think of that!
25. THEY'LL BE YOUR PETS, YOU COULD PLAY WITH THEM--GOOD FRIENDS! They won't try to bite you any more. You can go over & pet this dog even next door & he won't growl & bark & bite any more! Think of that! All be friends. Even the snakes won't bite any more. A child shall play on the hole of an asp & not be bitten! (Isa.11:8,9.)
26. IT SAYS ONE PLACE THERE AS I RECALL THAT THE BEAR SHALL EAT GRASS LIKE AN OX. Isn't that right? (Fam: "The cow & the bear shall feed & the lion shall eat straw like the ox.") In other words, the animals are going to go back to being herbivorous again & not eating each other, much less us! Isn't that beautiful? (Family: Yes!) This is a part of the description of the wonderful way things will be in the Millennium.
27. WHAT ABOUT WAR? (Family: They shall learn war no more!) "They shall beat their swords into plowshares & their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they study war any more!" (Isa.2:4.)
28. ABOUT HALF THE WORLD OR MOST OF THE WORLD IS STUDYING WAR ALL THE TIME NOWADAYS & studying how they're going to make war & now even planning the atomic war & studying how they're going to do that. But they won't study war any more, & they will no longer be building armaments. Think how much money that's going to save!
29. WE HAVE THE MOVIE ON VIDEO CALLED "THE MOUSE THAT ROARED." It's a very funny story with Peter Sellers about this poor little country in Europe or somewhere, sounds more like something in the Balkans or some little tiny country that is very very poor. But he learns from history what some people don't seem to learn from history, he finds out that every country that ever lost a war to the United States became very prosperous afterward. It's the truth!
30. DID YOU KNOW THAT THE U.S.' FORMER FRIENDS ARE NOW HER ENEMIES, & her former enemies are now her best friends? And her worst enemies in the wars are now what kind of nations economically?--The richest countries in the World! Germany & Japan have become the richest.
31. AND DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S THE MAIN REASON that they've had such a phenomenal recovery & grown so rich? What kind of an army did they allow Germany to have today? Or in fact many years after the war? Virtually none except sort of a national police force.
32. WHAT ABOUT JAPAN? Are they allowed to have an army & a navy & an airforce? No! Are they allowed to manufacture all kinds of armaments & things? Well, Germany does manufacture armaments but is not allowed to use them, they have to sell'm to other people.
33. SO THESE COUNTRIES WHO NO LONGER HAVE TO SPEND ONE-THIRD OF THEIR ENTIRE INCOME & INDUSTRY ON WAR ANY LONGER CAN'T HELP BUT WIN! Can't help but get prosperous! They no longer have to spend all that money on war, war-machines, armies, navies, air forces, so they have boomed! What's another one of the richest countries in Europe? Switzerland. What was it in the wars? (Family: Neutral.) Neutral. The World doesn't expect her to be able to really fight any big wars.
34. SWEDEN, ANOTHER ONE OF THE RICHEST COUNTRIES IN EUROPE, DIDN'T GET INTO EITHER WAR, neither did Switzerland. They stayed out of the wars. They don't have huge colossal armies & air forces & navies & all that sort of thing. They have small armies enough for civilian peace, etc., but they don't have the kind of armies they expect to really do any fighting with any big powers! They don't spend all that money on all those armaments, etc., for conquest.
35. SO THE RICHEST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD TODAY who were once either neutrals or enemies of the United States & now either don't or never did or are not allowed to have big armies & navies, etc., don't have to spend all that money, have become wealthy! They have become the richest countries in the World who have the highest per capita incomes in the World! It used to be the U.S. had the highest per capita income in the World. You know where it is now? I think the last we read in the papers, what was it, 20th? Something like that? The U.S. is getting poor!
36. SO THAT'S ONE BIG DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD TO COME, in God's World when Jesus is running it pretty soon, there won't be any more war. And there won't even be any more armaments. There won't even be any more armies, navies, air forces, missiles & all that junk. In fact, the World is going to be pretty much in a mess when the Lord takes it over & it'll probably take us a thousand years to get it cleaned up!
37. IN FACT, AS A RESULT OF THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON IN ISRAEL, how long is it going to take them to bury the dead? I think it says seven months to bury the dead & seven years to destroy all the armaments, all the wreckage!
38. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE JUNK PILE THAT SOME OF THESE PLACES ARE GOING TO BE THAT HAVE THE BIGGEST WAR? I think it says it's going to take'm seven months to bury the dead & seven years to clean up the mess of all the wreckage! Think of that! Isn't that in Zechariah the 14th Chapter? See if you can find it. Or can you remember any place else it's mentioned? It could be in Ezekiel 39. (Ez.39:9.12.)
39. IF BY THE WAY, YOU WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT IT'S GONNA BE LIKE IN THE MILLENNIUM, Zechariah has a lot to say about it in the 14th Chapter. Let's see, it must be in Ezekiel, is it 39 or 40? Ah, here we are! Ezekiel 39:11,12. How come I'm the first one to find it? It's gonna take the Jews, who are obviously there, seven months just to bury the dead. Can you imagine what carnage that means? It says it will stop the noses of the people passing by, the horrible smell!
40. ISRAEL IS GOING TO SMELL LIKE A GARBAGE CAN, OR WORSE, LIKE AN OPEN SEPULCHRE! Every time you walk down this road out here, not all the smells you smell are the nice, clean piggy smell which smells clean by comparison. If you walk down the road a little further that way you'll run into another smell.
41. THEY SAID THAT ONE OF THESE HUNTERS SHOT ONE OF THE FARMER'S DOGS & apparently he's buried in that pile out there somewhere. Or not buried, they just threw him in the ditch, & every time you walk down that road it just almost overcomes you & that smell is the smell of what? (Fam: Death!) Death! The smell of dead decaying flesh.
42. DID YOU EVER SMELL A DEAD RAT? Did you ever have a rat die in the wall of a house & stink up the whole house? Did you ever pass by a dead dog or dead cat? It's one of the awfulest smells in the World, the smell of death, decaying flesh! I think it says something about it will even stop the noses. (Fam: Yes, in verse 11, "It shall stop the noses of the passengers.")
43. HAVE YOU NOTICED IN THESE BIG DISASTERS WHERE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE KILLED that the rescuers go around with a face mask or nose mask on to filter out the horrible smell & the germs & all the rest? They had to use that when they were cleaning up the camp at Jonestown. By the time they got there it was stinking so bad. Did you notice the rescue workers had to wear facemasks? Imagine! That was just for a few days!
44. I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THAT STINK'S GOING TO BE OUT THERE because nobody's burying it, but could you imagine having to live in a country where the whole place smells like that dead dog out there? And for seven months? There will be so many thousands & thousands, in fact, millions killed, that the whole place will smell like an open sepulchre, like an open grave! That's what Israel is going to be like. Israel is going to get her just desserts!
45. THAT'S ONE OF THE HORRORS THAT'S GOING TO FOLLOW THE WAR!: It's going to take seven months to bury all the dead! There has never been a disaster that great, there's never been a war with that many dead that it took them, after everything was all over, seven months just to bury all the dead, never! There's never been that great a war or that great a disaster!
46. WELL, I STARTED TO TALK ABOUT DEATH. Death will not be entirely eliminated, but since so much of the Curse will have been eliminated, probably a lot of those germs & viruses that we saw on the videos will be gone. Wait till you see this new video we got about the "Invasion of the Virions". It starts off very shockingly how true it is, we are being invaded, but the invaders are so small you can't even see'm! And they have plans of attack & methods of attack & everything & their object is to destroy you!
47. THE "INVASION OF THE VIRIONS"! David, you must be sure & see that: Like a sci-fi, only it's not fiction, it's a sci-true movie on a video all about these little creatures that are invading us & our bodies, so small we can't even see them. But they can make us sick & even kill us!
48. BUT THANK THE LORD, YOU & I ARE PROTECTED BY THE LORD & apparently by His angels & undoubtedly have the good white forces as well white corpuscles that help to destroy them & protect us, & we're not nearly as affected by them as other people of the World, thank the Lord! Isn't that wonderful? (Family: Amen!) So apparently a lot of the curse of disease & things like that are going to be destroyed.
49. THERE WILL PROBABLY BE MUCH LESS DISEASE, MUCH LESS SICKNESS, ETC., because I think it's in Isaiah one place he says that, "a child shall die at 100 years." (Isa.65:20.) If you die when merely 100 years old you'll just be considered a child! Now we don't know that means that growth is going to be retarded that much & it'll take that long for children to mature, but that's another possibility, who knows?
50. THINK HOW SMART DAVID WOULD BE IF HE DIDN'T GROW UP FOR 100 YEARS? By the time you grew up you'd be pretty smart. I mean, he'd be a pretty smart little boy if at his size right now he was about 50 years old! Today you'd be a midget if you'd already lived 50 years at your present size! Think of that! That's possibility. But the idea is, anyhow, that anybody that dies at 100 years of age will just be considered a child then. Before the flood we know that people lived nearly a thousand years!
51. WHAT OTHER PARTS OF THE CURSE WERE THERE? Well, not necessarily curse. In a way, all the curses which followed the Fall of Man were actually blessings. They seemed like curses in some ways, but they were to become a blessing to man.--Even the hard work.
52. YOU WOMEN SURELY SHOULD REMEMBER. (Fam: Childbirth.) Multiple childbirth, very rapid multiple conception, possible to have a child every year. What if the Lord stops that & the women would not have conception as often & as rapid & you grew up very slowly & you lived to be a thousand years old?
53. IN FACT, SOME PEOPLE THEORISE THAT THE PEOPLE WHO MANAGE TO LIVE THROUGH THE WAR & THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON & THE WRATH OF GOD after the Coming of Christ & survive into the Millennium--the survivors of whom there will be millions--that it's possible that perhaps these millions will under this new Millennial condition, possibly live a thousand years! So that those with whom the Millennium began may still be alive at the end of it! There will not be an enormous population explosion & a continued enormous rate of conception & birth & population because it won't be necessary.
54. NOTICE HOW LATE THEY GOT MARRIED WHEN THEY LIVED A THOUSAND YEARS? The longer their life was, the later they seemed to get married & have children. A lot of them didn't even start having children till they were in their 60s & 70s. Look in the Bible!--Until after the Flood. Before the Flood they were usually way up in years before they started having children, & they lived a long long time.
55. IN FACT, YOU'LL FIND THAT THE OLDEST LIVING MAMMALS HAVE THE LONGEST GESTATION PERIOD. What is gestation period? You know what I'm talking about? The pregnancy term. The longer that is, the longer the life of the animal. And what animal has the longest gestation period? (Fam: The elephant?) Elephants! I think it's something like 14 months, over a year, as I recall. And of course elephants live to be well over 100 years old regularly & they think perhaps some of them live to be 150, even possibly 200 years old!
56. WELL, IF THOSE PARTS OF THE CURSE ARE LIFTED & that situation is changed, there will not be as much pregnancy, as many births, one reason for it being that it won't be necessary because people will live longer. You don't have to keep replenishing the population. Under those ideal, beautiful, Heaven-on-Earth conditions, people will live great long lives, & perhaps many, if not most of the people who survive into the Millennium, will live to see the end of it!
57. NOW THESE, YOU MAY SAY ARE JUST THEORIES, BUT THEY'RE BASED ON SCRIPTURES! I don't have time to go into all those with you or I'd take a longer lesson than I have tonight, but there're certain things that will change & some things that will not. The seasons will not change, but maybe the weather.
58. IT'S POSSIBLE THAT THE WEATHER WILL EVEN IMPROVE, because who now controls the weather? You say, "Well, God controls everything!" (Fam: Wow! The Prince of the Power of the air!) Yes, where do we get all these horrible storms & disasters & earthquakes & volcanic eruptions & all these horrors of Hell that occur on Earth? Well, they say, it's an act of God. I'm more inclined to think it's an act of the Devil, but allowed by God. After all, He is in control & He could prevent it.
59. APPARENTLY WHEN HE FEELS THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THE DEVIL DESERVE THE DEVIL'S JUDGEMENTS, then He lets the Devil go & the Devil let's them have it! Like the earthquakes in Italy & Algeria & the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in the United States & things like that. There won't be many more of these horrors of disasters & horrible weather, except for the rebellious.
60. THE CLIMATES MAY BE VERY MUCH THE SAME. You know the difference between weather & climate, don't you? The climate is the usual normal temperature & normal type of weather that you usually have as a result of what part of the Earth you live on. Like if you live in a Tropical area in the Tropic Zone, you'll have a Tropical climate. If you live in the Temperate Zone above the Tropics you'll have a temperate climate, right? If you live in the Arctic you'll have an Arctic climate.
61. AS FAR AS WE NOW KNOW IT LOOKS LIKE PROBABLY THE CLIMATES, THAT'S THE GENERAL WEATHER, WILL BE APPROXIMATELY THE SAME, but a lot of these horrible storms & things like that which are pretty much run by the Devil will no longer be. These are interesting things which you should know.
62. ONE POINT I WAS GOING TO BRING OUT IS THAT THERE ARE SOME SCIENTISTS who are Christians who believe that the tilt of the Earth's axis will be corrected in the New-Heaven-New-Earth situation, so that there will no longer be Summer, Winter, etc., that it won't be necessary. It'll be a little more ideal condition for the World.
63. IN OTHER WORDS, IF THEY LIVE PRETTY MUCH IN EITHER THE TROPIC OR TEMPERATE ZONES where most of the World's continents & peoples are located, the seasons will be virtually the same all year long, the weather will be virtually the same, pleasant. The days will all be the same length & there'll be no more differences in seasons or lengths of days & nights & hot & cold & all that sort of thing.
64. IN WHICH CASE SOME BELIEVE THAT THE POLAR ICECAPS ARE GOING TO MELT & also cause an improvement in the climate of the Earth, that if this occurs that it will be better. This would have to be, however, during the Millennium. Why? (Fam: Because after the Millennium it says there's not going to be any sun, Jesus will be the Light.) No--no more sea!
65. IT DOESN'T SAY THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE ANY SUN! Ah, some people really get tripped up by that! It says that those who are in the City have no need of the sun! Those outside will still need it. But those in the City will have no need of the sun because Jesus will be the Light.
66. THE CITY IS LIGHTED WITH LIKE ALMOST A DIFFUSED LIGHT, as though light is there in itself, it's beautiful! I think I described it in "Space City" a little bit, didn't I? (See No.75A.) I mean, it's as though you don't really see the source of the light but it's just light. Light is there.--Everywhere!
67. WHAT'S ANOTHER VAST DIFFERENCE THAT'S GOING TO OCCUR? Well, this is after the Millennium now, in the New Heaven & the New Earth, there's going to be one very great vast difference. In the City, of course, there's no night, it's daytime all the time because you no longer need any rest & the Lord is the Light.
68. WE COULD GO OVER IT VERSE BY VERSE & you'd get all these details, but I'm just kind of summing it up for you helping you to see briefly. It's in Revelation, the very first part, first verse. What's one of the biggest differences? (Family: No more sea!) How about that? No more sea! Why?
69. WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE THE LORD DIDN'T COVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH WITH CONTINENTS TO BEGIN WITH? Why do you suppose He didn't make it all land? How much of the World's surface is covered by water today? (Fam: 70-75%?) Only about 1/5 of the World's surface is land, as I recall. You'll have to look that up, I won't swear to that exactly.
70. WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE HE DIDN'T MAKE IT ALL LAND, ALL CONNECTIVE? Why do you suppose he made the seas at all? What are the seas & what job do they perform? (Fam: They divide.) (Fam: They separate.) The sea divides the land, yes, & the continents, etc., otherwise probably man would've exterminated man long ago in his horrible wars & everything else.
71. BUT THERE IS ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT FUNCTION THAT THE SEAS PERFORM. (Fam: The rain?) Yes. Rain. However, the world got along very well without rain for how many years before it rained? (Fam: 1,500.) About 1,500 years or 1,600 years they got along without rain. When did it first start to rain? (Fam: Noah, the Flood.) The Flood. It had never rained before! Think of that!
72. SOME PEOPLE CAN'T BELIEVE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE! Didn't men till the land & grow things & build & all that sort of thing even in those days before the rain? (Fam: Yes.) Well, how'd they get along without rain? (Fam: Well, there was the rain of humidity around the Earth.) First of all it says right there in the Bible that a mist arose from the face of the Earth & watered the surface of the Earth. But it never rained before. Did you know that, David? (Ge.2:5,6.)
73. FOR 1,600 YEARS BEFORE THE FLOOD & BEFORE NOAH IT NEVER RAINED! The Flood was the first rain they ever had! Somewhere in Genesis it says it never rained. It says how the Earth was watered by a mist that arose from the face of the Earth, where is that verse? Maybe it's in the Creation Chapter, huh? (Fam: Oh, I found it, Genesis 2:6.) Ah! 2:6 Very good! "But there went up a mist from the Earth & watered the whole face of the ground." (Maria: In verse five it says "For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the Earth.") There you are!--No rain!
74. IT SAYS IT NEVER HAD RAINED BEFORE, THE WHOLE FACE OF THE EARTH WAS WATERED BY A MIST LIKE A MORNING DEW! You know how the dew is so heavy sometimes? That's all the water they needed, think of that! Needed no rain! Besides the fact that there were probably no cosmic rays at that time because we were sheltered by this big layer of water or moisture or whatever it was, "the waters above the firmament" which fell during the Flood. (Gen.1:7.)
75. HE OPENED THE GATES OF HEAVEN, HE SAYS, & THEY POURED OUT WATER, & the fountains of the deep were broken up & poured up. Water was coming from every direction! it was falling out of the sky, it was coming up out of the ground, it just was one big mess!
76. SO THE RAIN, BACK TO THE POINT, WAS NOT ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR THE EARTH'S WELL-BEING, even in an Earth where they would till the ground & still be planting, etc. So the Earth could have been all land except for one thing. What is the most important function of the seas? (Family: Travel? Tides?) No, not travel, not even tides. Tides are caused by the moon & tides are more of an effect than a cause. (Family: Food?) You're getting close. (Family: Taking care of the garbage.) Yes!
77. THE SEAS ARE THE EARTH'S CESSPOOL! The seas are the one grand septic tank to catch all the Earth's garbage & wastes & filth! All of the waste products of man & the animals & the plants & everything are all eventually carried down to the sea, either absorbed by the ground & even washed through the ground, purified, & the rest all carried down to the sea!
78. NOW YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHY THE SEAS HAVE TO BE WHAT? (Family: Salty! So big!) Salty & so big! If they weren't salty, they'd probably stink! Although there are some large lakes in the World today, freshwater lakes, that's true. But most everything eventually goes to the sea & it's one great garbage dump!
79. IN FACT, MOST OF THE FISH & CREATURES OF EVERY KIND WHO LIVE IN THE SEA ARE UNCLEAN. Why? (Fam: They're garbagemen.) they're God's garbagemen, as I used to tell David, God's garbagemen. All those strange peculiar monsters, horror-looking animals! No wonder God made'm so ugly, He was trying to scare you half to death so you'd stay away from'm & not touch'm, much less eat'm!
80. EVEN THE CLAMS & THE MOLLUSKS & THE MUSSELS & ALL OF THOSE, they are all garbage, they all eat man's waste, dung & the dead & carrion of the sea. The quickest & probably the biggest & the fastest of all the garbagemen of the sea are what? You hear a lot about'm, they've even made movies about'm. (Fam: Sharks?)--Sharks!
81. SHARKS ARE INTENDED TO PUT A VERY QUICK END TO ANY KIND OF LIFE IN THE SEA which is already dying or wounded or mutilated or injured & bleeding. The Lord doesn't allow that wounded dying & such agony to go on very long. He has these policemen of the sea, garbagemen of the sea, sharks, who can smell blood it seems a mile away & will be there in a flash just to finish that fish off or that man too, or whatever it is, real quick.
82. THEY DON'T HAVE TO LIVE LONG IN THAT STATE OF DYING AGONY with which fish & creatures in the sea could last perhaps for days or weeks or maybe months that they'd only be half sick & half alive a dying & injured & wounded, etc. God has it so that they're quickly put out of their misery & very quickly gobbled up.
83. AND WHAT LITTLE SCRAPS & GARBAGE IS LEFT AFTER THE SHARKS GET DONE WITH THEM is devoured by all kinds of other creatures in the sea & other fish, & finally the end waste products of all, even their dung & their offal & everything else is absorbed by the mussels & the clams & the crayfish, crawfish.
84. THAT VERY GREAT "SEAFOOD DELICACY" LOBSTER is one of the filthiest creatures in the sea! They gobble up all kinds of garbage & dung & everything & then people consider that a great delicacy to eat lobster! I'll never forget when we had that Christian Endeavour Youth Rally in Key West & they had this great delicacy at this hotel for dinner that last night, it was lobster, & we all got deathly sick from eating that lobster, food poisoning, because it's an unclean fish! They ought to have known better!
85. SO IF THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE AS MUCH CURSE & not as much filth & not as much death, there won't have to be as many garbagemen, & in the New Earth & New World, the completely New World, there won't even be any sea any more!
86. EVEN IN THE NEW EARTH THERE'RE STILL GOING TO BE PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE CITY, but they will be people who have gone through a transformation of some kind into immortal bodies similar to ours which will live forever, living outside the City, but there will still be some who need help & healing, etc. But we who live in supernatural bodies, we can eat if we want to, but we don't have to eat, we don't even have to sleep! We don't have to have sex, but we can have if we want to.
87. JESUS DIDN'T HAVE TO EAT BUT HE DID & it says in here that the Lord said, "This is the last time I'll drink wine with you until I drink it again with you in the Kingdom of God. I will not drink wine again until I see you again in His Kingdom, when the Kingdom has come." (Mt.26:29.)
88. DID YOU NOTICE WHAT JESUS DID WHEN HE APPEARED TO THEM AFTER HIS RESURRECTION? (Ric: He ate fish with them.) Yes!* And didn't He drink some wine too? (Family: Yes, He did, Wow!) So when Jesus died & was resurrected, the Kingdom had already begun! That's why He & the Apostles were preaching right during His life just before His death "The Kingdom of God is at hand! It's about to begin! You had better repent!--It began with Jesus' resurrection! *(Lk.24:39-43.)
89. THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH BEGAN WITH THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST! And where is it today? You say, "Well, I don't see much Kingdom of God, doesn't look like the Kingdom of God to me!" Well, I do, I see it right here! I see it in you! "For the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation." (Lk.17:20) Why? Because the Kingdom of God, Jesus said, is what? (Fam: Within you!) Within you!
90. THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS IN YOU! (Lk.17:21.) You are the Kingdom of God! And in every little happy Heavenly Home of ours it's a little bit of the Kingdom of God! This that you have here tonight & on our days of fellowship is a part of the Kingdom of God already!
91. "IT COMETH NOT WITH OBSERVATION," we didn't see Jesus go into your heart, we didn't see the Holy Spirit come into your spirit & life. But boy, you can sure see the difference afterwards! (Family: Amen!) I can observe it now! It doesn't come with observation, but boy, you can sure see it after it has come! Amen? (Family: Amen!) People talk about the way they see it in us, in our faces, in our eyes, our smiles, they say they just see something different! It's Jesus, the Kingdom of God!
92. SO JESUS SAT DOWN & ATE WITH THEM & DRANK WITH THEM AFTER HIS RESURRECTION BECAUSE THE KINGDOM HAD ARRIVED! PTL! And you are it! Hallelujah! And it's spreading all the time, growing all the time, more & more around the World! Well, our Family is anyhow! Some denominations, including the Catholics & the Methodists, the largest Protestant denominations, are shrinking! They're losing ground, they're losing members, they're losing priests, they're not growing any more. We are, thank the Lord, because we're alive!
93. THEY'RE NOT GROWING BECAUSE THEY'RE DYING, they've lost so much of the Spirit & so much of the Lord & so much of His will & have so little life left in them that they're dying & they're shrinking. You know, the older you get, nearer to death you get, the more you shrink, did you know that?
94. I'M SHORTER NOW THAN I WAS WHEN I WAS IN MY PRIME. I'm still fairly tall compared to most of the men around here, I notice, but I used to be almost six feet tall. I only lacked half-an-inch, about two centimeters of being six feet tall, which is considered fairly tall. But they say you kind shrink & shrivel as you grow old.
95. I KNOW MY MOTHER WHEN SHE WAS 83 WAS A WHOLE LOT SHORTER than she was when she was in her prime. I can remember being able to embrace & kiss her almost eye-to-eye, but by the time she got to be 83 & was nearly dead, I could see clear over the top of her head! In fact the top of her head only came up about to my chin, she'd gotten so much shorter, shrinking!
96. WELL, YOU DO THAT EVERYBODY, IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW IT! You grow taller at night during your sleep & then you shrink during the day. I think about half-an-inch, isn't it? Something like that, they say. From the compression of the discs between your vertebrae & the bones & all that, that you shorten, you grow about half-an-inch shorter everyday. But of course you'd be really shrivelled down to a midget if you grew half-an-inch shorter everyday if it weren't for the fact that you grow half-an-inch taller every night! Ha!
97. WELL, YOU LEARN A LOT ABOUT SCIENCE IN MY CLASSES AS WELL AS THE BIBLE & THE FUTURE. We can't go on any longer tonight, it's too late, but you be thinking about that & we'll go into that maybe in more detail later. What things are going to be different in the Millennium & what things are going to be the same? And then in the New World, that's after the Millennium, what things are going to be different & what things are going to be the same?
98. VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING IN THE NEW WORLD WILL HAVE BEEN CHANGED. "Old things are passed away, all things are become new," a New Heaven, New Earth, new everything, we're even new people! There'll still be an Earth, but a new one, a regenerated Earth, restored, reclaimed Earth, & it'll be once again the way the Lord intended for it to be, like it was in the days of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, beautiful!
99. WE WILL LIVE IN THE HEAVENLY CITY, Spacemen in Space City with the Space King, but outside there'll still be Earth people in various conditions & grades & degrees & various situations according to the lives that they have lived & according to how much they have repented. See, I take the doctrine of purgatory & stretch it a whole lot further than the Catholics do!
100. I NOT ONLY BELIEVE IN PURGATORY, I BELIEVE THAT IT'S A CONTINUING PROCESS which will run not only through the Millennium, but even into the New Heaven & the New Earth, according to what the Bible says! You read it! Read those last three chapters & see. It's very plain, very plain. 'Cause some people are still going to need healing & there are going to be kings, so there are going to be still some kind of nations outside.
101. BUT COMPARED TO THIS OLD WORLD, I MEAN, EVEN COMPARED TO THE MILLENNIUM IT'S GOING TO BE LIKE HEAVEN ON EARTH! That is really going to be Heaven on Earth then! The Millennium is going to be heavenly, but the New Earth is going to be Heaven on Earth, Heaven itself! Well, we who already know the Lord & His Word & have Jesus, we already have a real good sample of it right now, don't we! (Family: Amen!)
102. I WANT YOU TO BE THINKING ABOUT THAT NOW, THAT'S YOUR HOMEWORK. I want you to list all the things you can think of & remember from the Bible--& if you've got Scriptures for it, why, jot them down--things that will be the same in the Millennium & things that will be different. Some things will be the same & some things will be different. Of course in the New World, everything will be changed, TTL, for the better!
103. NO MORE SEA, THINK OF THAT! WOW! Gonna be an awful lot of land. What's the good of all that land unless it's going to have people? I told you the reason for the seas but I forgot to ask you, well, why are we going to need so much land? (Fam: Everybody's going to want to live around the Equator.) Ha! But what about the population?
104. NOW, HERE COMES IN ANOTHER SUBSTANTIATION FOR MY THEORY! you may call it theory but I believe in it. Dr. Pridgeon & quite a few others, they're called the Restitutionists, the people who believe in eventual, eternal complete restoration. They've got a theological name for it, Universal Reconciliation, Restoration & Restitution, something like that. Ah, these theologians love big words! Ha! Well, they say a lot! They do explain a lot that you don't have to stop & write a whole paragraph to explain what you're talking about, if you know the words & what they mean & don't have to look them up the dictionary!
105. WELL, WE PUT IT IN THIS SENSE, they won't all be saved in the same sense we're saved, but if the Lord is eventually going to save everybody, even though some will have had to go through periods of purgatory & punishment & perhaps even some in the Lake of Fire for awhile, if all this punishment is to come eventually to an end & they are going to be saved, they're going to be immortal & eternal, that's going to be a lot of people!
106. YOU'D HAVE TO FIGURE UP HOW MANY BILLIONS OF PEOPLE HAVE LIVED ON THE EARTH DURING THE PAST 6,000 YEARS. There are right now how many billion people on Earth? (Maria: Three billion?) Supposed to be about three billion, I think, yes. They discovered the World was not increasing as fast as they thought, it hasn't gotten to four billion yet. It's still about three billion.
107. JUST THINK, WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN I can remember my grandfather lecturing & it's still on one of these slides, there were only a billion people in the World! Well, that's two generations ago. There's three billion now! This generation's gonna die, that's three billion people. The last generation, maybe two billion of'm, generation before that, maybe one billion & on down the line. If you'd figure out about how many people have lived on the Earth since the beginning of time, it's gonna be quite a few people!
108. OF COURSE AS YOU GO BACK IT GETS SMALLER & SMALLER VERY RAPIDLY & fewer & fewer people all the time to where, I think in the days of Rome, isn't the estimate set at about 200 million people on the face of the Earth? Only about 200 million at that time. That's the population of the United States today. As the ball got to rollin' it snowballed & got really exploding!
109. IF YOU ASK ME, THE POPULATION EXPLOSION IS NOT COMING, IT'S ALREADY ARRIVED! It's already happened, since you & I know this is the last generation! So we don't have to worry like some of these poor scientists about population explosion & the World starving to death & the sun growing cold & all that junk! It ain't gonna happen! Ha! It just isn't going to happen.
110. THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE A POPULATION EXPLOSION, IT'S ALREADY EXPLODED! This is as far as it's going to get! We've only got maybe another ten years to go. Well, 13, something like that. So how much more can it grow in the next ten or 12 years, huh? Very little!
111. SO IF THREE BILLION PEOPLE CAN NOW LIVE ON ONLY ONE-FIFTH OF THE WORLD'S SURFACE, I'm sure that five times that would be how many? That'd be 15 billion people, wouldn't it? I don't doubt that'll very easily cover the World's total population throughout all history, probably moreso. Because it's going to be, I think, roomy.
112. IF THAT SONG THAT THAT DEAR OLD CHINESE MISSIONARY USED TO SING IS RIGHT, there's going to be a lot of room! He was the funniest thing! He was about seven feet tall & skinny as a pole & he had these big elbows he used to flap like flying while he was playing his guitar & singing: "50 miles of elbow room! There's going to be 50 miles of elbow room when I get to Heaven! There's going to be 50 miles of elbow room!" I don't know why he wanted to be so far from everybody, I think he came from New York or somewhere!
113. ANYHOW, THERE'S GOING TO BE LOTS OF ROOM FOR ALL THE PEOPLE THAT EVER LIVED with five times as much land. So things are going to really be different in the Heaven on Earth! There won't be so much difference in the Heavenly Earth, but they will be different in the Heaven on Earth. You know the difference? Which is the Heavenly Earth? (Family: The Millennium.) The Heaven on Earth? (Family: The New Earth.) The New Earth & New Heaven! PTL! Hallelujah!
114. ISN'T THE BIBLE A WONDERFUL BOOK? (Family: Amen!) I didn't read a lot out of it tonight but I quoted you a lot of it & I told you a lot about it & one of these days maybe we'll have time to read it. But you can do a lot of reading on your own, that's what this day's supposed to be for, to catch up on your Bible study. You're supposed to have some everyday, of course, & I hope you are. I understand you're listening to Letters & tapes & things too, so PTL! GBY!
115. HAVE A GOOD TIME RIGHT NOW IN GOD'S KINGDOM RIGHT HERE IN OUR HEAVENLY HOMES, A BIT OF HEAVEN ON EARTH RIGHT NOW! PTL!--While you're waitin' for Jesus to turn the whole World into His Kingdom come!--IJN, amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
