The Strait and Narrow

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The kingdom of God has possessed the kingdom

Daniel 7

 

¹¹I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame

 

¹³I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

 ¹⁴And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed

 

Daniel 2

⁴⁴And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

The judgment was upon the Beast and his kingdom. We know that Christ was given dominion and authority over all heaven and earth in Matthew 28:

¹⁸And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

 ¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

 ²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

 

Thus Christ was given full authority as King over all heaven and earth upon his ascension into heaven. However, the Kingdom was not yet built. That is why the Apostles were given the “Great Commission” to make disciples of all nations……teaching them to obey all of His commands. This parallels with the building of the Kingdom, some with wood, hay, or straw, while others with bricks and stones….taken figuratively of course.

That is why the former Jerusalem, which had become filled with demonic spirits, was destroyed. The former wife was set aside, and the new wife (His Kingdom). Subsequently, this led to Christ taking His Kingdom and sending her out against the nations.

The Judgment (books were opened as the seals) was poured out upon Jerusalem and Daniel’s vision of “the end” had been fulfilled. But the Beast which devoured Jerusalem would also be over-taken by the Kingdom of Christ. And this Kingdom was the Church. It was the Church that over-took Rome, and that without lifting ONE SINGLE WEAPON.

Isaiah 2:4

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.

 

When he says, “Nation shall not lift up sword against the nation, neither shall they learn war anymore….” he’s not saying that wars and fighting would end. He’s saying that they would not be “Taught” to defend the kingdom, as was the case with Joshua, David, and Solomon. The former Jerusalem had to maintain a military of swords, spears, and shields. But the Israel of God does not war with swords fashioned with human hands. No, the Israel of God learns to war against nations with the love and faith of Jesus, using simple farm tools (Figurative) to plant seeds, sow good works of love, and tend to the field. Jesus used this analogy when He and His disciples were in Samaria after speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well.

So needless to say I see the kingdom of God possessing the beast kingdom or should we say the kingdoms of the earth as having the climax with the destruction of the whore as in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD and with that death blow to the Apostate woman [Israel] alone with her destruction the kingdom of God then was allowed to posses the beast kingdom.  Daniel would show us that when Jesus the Son of God ascended to heaven he was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom which shall not be destroyed. But the Beast would come against the saints and prevail but would not destroy until the Ancient of days came. Than that kingdom would be given to the saints.

Daniel 7:

 ¹⁴And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

      ²¹I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

 ²²Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most        High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

 ²⁶But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

 ²⁷And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

The two, the Beast of the sea and the (Whore the great city Babylon, False Prophet, the Beast of the land) are broken by the kingdom of God which is seen in Rev. 18:1-24, 19:11-21. Are seen to Daniel as the ten toes which were Iron partly mixed with miry Clay each of these are seen as Iron of Rome and Clay of Israel, but notice it’s not just Clay but miry Clay who would mingle themselves with the seed of men. Apostate Israel would join themselves with Rome.

Therefore these two become broken by the kingdom of God.  God would use the Beast to destroy the Whore [apostate Israel] by making her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. Notice here the description of her destruction, it would be fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem which was laid desolate and sat on fire in 70AD.

Revelation 17:17-18 would tell us that through God’s plan that the ten horns would give their power unto the beast [Rome] until the words of God be fulfilled. So then we have by God’s power through a nation [Rome] to lay judgment upon the wicked Whore which deceived and killed many of the saints. Rev.17:4-6. This act of God’s judgment upon the wicked of Israel is the end of the Whore in which they in heaven cried for her judgment and for their vengeance.

Rev.19:

  ¹And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:

 ²For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

 ³And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

⁴And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia

At this time the beast and false prophet are taken and cast into the lake of fire alive. This being the same picture described by the destruction of the whore, where by her destruction the kingdom of God would how possesses the kingdoms of the earth. As shown in my above post the beast kingdom shall not be taken over by might and power of swords, but our war fair is by the power of faith.

In conclusion, the kingdom that we are in now, is the kingdom that which the Disciples prayed for “Our Father which are in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven…”

We are now in Christ’s thousand years of reign on earth and await his return, and the rest of the death in Christ shall live again.

This concerns the understanding of the Thousand years of Revelation. Hopefully this will give some insight to how that should be understood.

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 20:4

Certain common numbers are frequently used in Scripture as valuable symbols to represent particular divine truths or ideas; a thousand and ten thousand are two such numbers. They are employed as familiar figures to impress deep spiritual principles in a distinctly comprehendible and identifiable way. It is not necessarily the exact numerical size of the figure outlined that is important but the spiritual idea that it represents. In fact, English dictionaries recognise the indefinite nature of a thousand defining it variously as a very large number or a great number or amount. This use is very common in our daily language. In fact, the phrase “a thousand” comes up a lot in every day conversation. For example: “a picture is worth a thousand words” is a familiar saying. This simply tells us that much can be gleaned from a still print. An image can be more revealling and more influential than a substantial amount of text. Another well-known phrase that some use is: “A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.” This suggests that the greatest of endeavours starts with the first move – a great undertaking must start somewhere.

 We may in passing say: “I have a thousand things to do today.” However, the expression is no way intended to delineate an exact number, but rather a notion. It is simply a figure of speech. People also use ‘a thousand’ as a round figure or as a phrase to describe a general amount. If they had $1053 (literally pronounced one thousand and fifty three dollars) it wouldn’t be uncommon or unusual to say I had a thousand dollars. They would simply round it off to a familiar even number. This is where 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 are often used. These are not wooden numbers.

This figure is also used to describe a long indeterminate period of power and government. Hitler boasted that the Third Reich would last a thousand years. The Nazi Party used the terms Drittes Reich and Tausendjähriges Reich (Thousand-Year Reich) to describe the rule, power and vision of the Fascist kingdom. It wasn’t that Hitler limited his wicked dream to that period, but that it symbolically represented a long period of unparalleled supremacy. Churchill also infamously said of the victory of the war, “if we fail, the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, ‘This was their finest hour’” (Churchill in his speech on June 18, 1940). 

 

Thousand years

The figure a “thousand years” is employed ten times in Scripture – twice in the Old Testament and eight times in the New Testament. Significantly, of the eight mentions in the New, six are found in the same book of the Bible – Revelation. And of even greater note, all are disproportionately found together within the same chapter – the one currently under examination – Revelation 20. The two other New Testament references are found in the book of 2 Peter. In all the references, they indicate a large unspecific indefinite time period.

 

 The two Old Testament passages are found in Psalm 90 and Ecclesiastes 6. And in both references the figure ‘a thousand years’ is used in a symbolic or figurative sense to denote an indefinite time-span. The first mention is in Psalm 90:3-5, where we read, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.” It is worth reminding ourselves again that the expression a ‘thousand years’ comes up six times in the book of Revelation, which is two more time than the whole of Scripture put together. Of the four other references in Scripture that we have previously examined, two are in the Old and two are in the New Testament. Significantly, in ALL the other four previous occasions, the term is figuratively used to denote ‘a long time period’. This finding, as we have discovered, is in complete accord with the consistent use of the general expression ‘a thousand’ in Scripture. Such is repeatedly employed to denote ‘a large number’ or ‘an untold amount.’ Also, of the four previous mentions of a ‘thousand years,’ we have found none to explicitly or implicitly teach that there is going to be a literal ‘thousand years’ reign of Christ on earth nor a coinciding literal ‘thousand years’ binding of the devil. Neither is there any other passage in Scripture that indicates such a teaching.

 Interestingly, the only place outside of Revelation 20 that the term a thousand years is mentioned in the New Testament is in 2 Peter 3. There, it is significantly used in an entirely figurative sense. In this chapter, Peter is specifically addressing the cynics who live in the last days that doubt the appearing of the Lord at His Second Advent and indeed harbour the foolish notion that He will not come at all. It is in this context that he addresses these misguided doubters, saying, “there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

 This passage is often advanced by Premillennialists as proof of a literal physical future earthly millennium. Such people confidently advance it in such a way, as if it states, ‘For a thousand years in thy sight are but as tomorrow which is yet to come’. However, a careful reading of this inspired narrative reveals that it rather in stark contrast declares, “For a thousand years

in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past.” This passage therefore does not in the slightest allude to the future, never mind to some supposed impending earthly post Second Advent temporal period, but clearly to the past. This passage simply reveals profound truth about God and His infinite view of time rather than any misconceived earthly idea about a future millennium The thousand years are notably “as yesterday” rather than ‘as tomorrow’ or ‘as a future period after Christ’s Coming’. 

 A ‘thousand years’ is here used to describe God’s eternal view of time, which is in stark contrast to man’s limited understanding. This text teaches us that time is nothing with the Lord. God lives in eternity and His perspective of time far exceeds the finite mind of man. A ‘thousand years’ in this life is but a flash in the light of eternity. This reading goes on then to describe the solemn reality of the fleetingness of time and the brevity of life, saying, “we spend our years as a tale that is told” (v 9).

No wonder the Psalmist humbly prays to God, “teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).In Ecclesiastes 6:3,6-7 we find the second Old Testament reference to a thousand years                

 Here the term is simply used to represent an idea rather than outlining a specific measurable period of time. It reads, “If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he…Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place? All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.” 

 

 

 Peter, however, says in response, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (vv 5-9).   

This text is not remotely suggesting that a person could actually live to be a thousand years multiplied by two (or 2,000 years), such is, and has always been since the fall, a naturally impossibility. Rather, the text expresses a deep spiritual truth that even if someone lives to an incomprehensible age outside of Christ and hope, this life is completely meaningless. The term a 1000 multiplied by 2 therefore represents a hypothetically number, which spiritually impresses the important reality of the brevity and futility of carnal life. No man in Scripture, or since, has ever lived to the age of 2,000 years old.

  The six remaining mention of “a thousand years” in Scripture are all concurrently found together in Revelation 20:1-8, which says, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him thousand years, 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. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast (the anti-Christ system of this world - intra-Advent), neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him thousand years. 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 together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”


The six remaining mention of “a thousand years” in Scripture are all concurrently found together in Revelation 20:1-8, which says, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him thousand years, 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. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast (the anti-Christ system of this world - intra-Advent), neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him thousand years. 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 together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”

This familiar passage closely parallels the reading that we have just analysed in Psalm 90, indicating the same spiritual truth – that God is not limited to time. Again, notably, the contrast between the number one and a thousand is employed to simply represent an important divine truth Some theologians mistakenly attempt to use this passage to argue that one of God’s eternal days represents a literal thousand earthly yearsand that the commencement occurs at the time of Second Advent. However, they do err in their assumption, in that, this text simply indicates the briefness of time with God. 2 Peter 3 does not in anyway indicate a future earthly millennium kingdom anywhere in this reading. Peter is simply reminding such people that time is absolutely nothing to the King of glory. He ultimately sits outside of time in the realm of eternity. Time is but a blink to His infinite mind and to the eternal state.