THE MILLENNIUM | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1900

THE MILLENNIUM.

We have found by the word of the Lord that the Millennium begins at the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the righteous; that at that time all the righteous are taken away from the earth, and all the wicked are slain upon the earth, and that thus the earth is left desolate; and that, as the righteous reign as kings and priests with Christ a thousand years before returning to the earth, and the wicked “lived not again until the thousand years were finished,” the earth is left desolate during the Millennium.

This is abundantly confirmed by other scriptures and other considerations.

1. The Millennium is in “the day of the Lord.” And the day of the Lord begins in connection with the second coming of the Lord; for the prophet Joel, in proclaiming and describing the coming of the Lord, the same coming that is described in Rev. 19:11–21, says: “The Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” Joel 2:11.

And in this “day of the Lord” the earth is to be laid desolate, and left without an inhabitant. For Isaiah says: “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.” Isa. 13:9.

And, again, after declaring that the Lord of Hosts would rise up against Babylon and “cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew,” “make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water,” and “sweep it with the besom of destruction,” he says: “This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” Isa. 14:22–27.

And Jeremiah says: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. The whole city shall flee from the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.” Jer. 4:23–29.

Accordingly, Joel proclaims the coming of this “day of the Lord,” and describes it thus: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains.” Joel 2:1, 2.

This clause, “as the morning spread upon the mountains,” is very expressive. It is descriptive of a dark and gloomy morning, in which fogs and mists rest upon the earth, in dismal weirdness, as if there were no atmosphere. And this is precisely the condition of things in the Millennium; for when the Lord comes, the atmospheric heaven departs “as a scroll when it is rolled together” (Rev. 6:14); it passes away “with a great noise.” 2 Peter 3:10. And when the atmosphere shall have thus passed away, there is nothing left to cause the mists and fogs to float; and so they settle upon the earth, in dismal darkness and gloom, just as it was when first the world was spoken into existence. Before the atmosphere was created, “the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;” even as described by Jeremiah in the day of the Lord: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.”

2. This desolation of the earth is further confirmed by the teaching concerning the sabbatic year

of the old dispensation. It is stated in 2 Chron. 36:21 that, by the people’s being carried captive to Babylon, the land was left desolate, that she might enjoy her sabbaths. And the land lay desolate for seventy years, “until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil three-score and ten years.” That is, Israel for four hundred and ninety years had failed to observe the sabbatic year in giving the whole land the rest that God had provided for it in that year, and now they have to go into captivity, and the land must lie desolate, until all the sabbaths of which they had robbed the land in those four hundred and ninety years, which made seventy years, should be made up.

And in this all men are taught definitely by the word of the Lord that since the whole earth has been obliged to pass along for six thousand years without any rest at all, it having been robbed of all the sabbatical years in this whole time,—until the curse has “devoured the earth,” and it is “utterly broken down” (see Isa. 24:4–6, 19, 20),—the whole earth—must lie desolate one thousand years, to make up the sabbaths of which the earth has been robbed in these six thousand years under the weight of the curse that has been heaped upon it by the sins of men.

Accordingly Isaiah says: “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.” Isa. 24:3. And Zephaniah says: “I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. . . . Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests [Rev. 19:17, 18]. . . . The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness: . . . the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.” Zeph. 1:2–18.

And that is the Millennium, though there is even yet more to say upon it.