THE CLOSE OF THE MILLENNIUM.
By M. C. W.
OUR last article carried us to the close of the sabbath of the earth. The millennium will then have ended, the time of Satan's confinement will have passed, the "many days," during which the wicked have been shut up in the prison house of the grave, will have terminated, and the time will have come when God will visit them again to call them back to life. Isa. 24:22; Rev. 20:5. The latter text reads: "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years are finished." "The rest of the dead" are the wicked dead. The "blessed and holy" were raised at the beginning of the thousand years. "This is the first resurrection." The wicked are again given life, in order that they may know what they have rejected, that they may see the wisdom and promises of God in his gospel vindicated and fulfilled to those who have believed and obeyed, and that they may receive the sentence—the due reward of their deeds—meted out to them during the thousand years in the Supreme Court of Equity, the sittings of which are forever ended, and from the decisions of which there is no appeal. The wicked come up from their graves animated and actuated by the same selfish, sinful thoughts and motives which dominated their lives when they died. They are just as determined to accomplish their ends now as they were then. As they are raised from the dead, the city of God appears. This is mentioned in Zech. 14. A mighty plain will, by the power of God, be prepared in the very place where the Son of God shed his blood for guilty man. Here the New Jerusalem will descend. Christ came at the beginning of the thousand years503to gather his saints and to take them to mansions on high; but now the Lord our God shall come and all the saints with him. Zech. 14:5. The same facts are shown in Rev. 20 and 21. In verse 9 we have "the camp of the saints" and "the beloved city" referred to as showing the place where the wicked nations of earth will be gathered. In order to not break the connection, no mention is made in Rev. 20 of the descent of the city; that subject is reserved for the next chapter, in which is given a description of the New Jerusalem and its descent from Heaven. God's Spirit being withdrawn from the earth as a reprover of men, the wicked fall again an easy prey to the prince of evil:— "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." Rev. 20:7, 8. How long this period of deceiving the nations, marshalling and training their armies, and gathering them to Jerusalem over the plague-desolated and earthquake-broken world to fight against God, may be, we know not. But it will necessarily take some time. The wicked are still mortal and selfish. The first will compel more or less time, and the second would delay union. But the master mind among them—he who once was Lucifer—reduces to something like order the vast host under the mightiest generals of the world, and prepares to attack the city of God. This object and its result is shown in the next verse. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them." Actuated by the same selfishness that first inspired Satan, urged on by his mighty power and consummate artifices, they attempt with rebellious hearts to storm the city. But all the combined powers of the universe are naught against Him or the city of the jasper wall. The fire of God devours the wicked. They are "burned up" "root [Satan] and branch [the wicked]." Mal. 4. Then will be fulfilled the words of the prophet regarding the New Jerusalem:— "Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me; whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake." "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." Isa. 54:15, 17. The tenth verse of Rev. 20 presents the fate of Satan. He is cast into the lake of fire "where are also the beast and the false prophet." Revised Version. Just as the presence of Christ at the beginning of the thousand years caused the consumption of the wicked, so at the close of the thousand years God's presence and the fire which falls from heaven converts the earth into one vast liquid lake of fire in which the wicked will be overwhelmed, and into which Satan, the prince of the power of the air, who has heretofore had the privilege of navigating aerial regions, will be cast to be burned with them. It is thus that Peter speaks of this lake of fire:— "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be destroyed." 2 Peter 3:10. This fire is universal; that is, it includes the whole earth. It does not occur in the beginning of the millennium or all animal life would be extinct. The unjust are destroyed at that time, but the fowls of the air survive to feast upon the flesh of the men slain in the battle of Armageddon. But at the close of the thousand years, the elements of the earth are melted by the fierce heat, and the whole forms one vast lake of fire. This great burning comes in the day of the Lord, but after the thousand years. "In the which," that is, in the day of the Lord, says Peter, quoted above. Then will be fulfilled such expressions as, Zeph. 1:2, 3:— "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord." The glory and power of the presence of God as he passes sentence upon the wicked just previous to their destruction, is thus presented:— "And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them." Rev. 20:11. The wicked then see what they have lost. They see in transfigured glory and immortality those whom they had in the day of probation scoffed at, ridiculed, persecuted. Those who crucified Christ, now see the Man of Calvary in his glory. Satan and all others are revealed in their iniquity and moral deformity as recipients of God's wrath, while to the righteous are fulfilled the promises of God. In the twelfth verse John is carried back to the thousand years when the wicked dead were judged from the records. It was the investigative judgment of the ungodly. Verse 13 relates to the executive judgment of the unrighteous; and in its execution, the wicked are cast in the lake of fire to be utterly burned up. This is the second death. The first death was in sin; the second death is for sin unrepented of and cherished. Eze. 18:26. A part of the work of Christ is here completed, for Satan is destroyed forever. Christ died "that through death he might destroy him who had power over death, that is, the devil." Heb. 2:14. Of the same great enemy, the Lord through the prophet says: "I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee; thou shalt be a terror [literally a worn out or wasted thing—Young], and never shalt thou be any more." Eze. 28:18, 19. Here we leave the subject for this time with sin and Satan swept from the face of the earth, the earth itself burning under its purifying fires, and the saints safe from harm in the city of God. Our next article will close this series.