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Our Mission: Revelation 14:6-12
The Moment of Truth - Lesson 25
The
1000 Years of Revelation
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Let's ask God to grant us His assistance during this lesson:
O Lord, our God,
You have guided us in our previous explorations of Your Word.
We want to continue to study Your Holy Book, and this is why we implore Your presence once
again, so that we may understand the prophecies You have given us, which will soon be
fulfilled.
This is our prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
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A special blessing is granted to the students of the book of
Revelation: so much the better, since we will now study the 1000 years described in the
twentieth chapter of this prophetic book.
Let us investigate this period of 1000 years (also commonly called the «millennium», a
Latin word meaning «1000 years»), and discover the events which will take place:
- before the millennium;
- during the millennium;
- after the millennium.
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Before the millennium: Matthew 24:29,30
The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the
earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with
power and great glory.
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First, let's look at the events which will precede the
millennium.
Jesus must first return and gather His people before the beginning of the millennium.
Let's remember that the signs of the times, which we can see nowadays, foretell the
imminence of Christ's return.
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Before the millennium: Revelation 20:4
And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their
witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image,
and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
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The next event to take place before the millennium begins: the
resurrection of the righteous believers, who died in Jesus Christ.
Now, let's carefully read the verses following this passage in Revelation...
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Before the millennium: Revelation 20:5,6
But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand
years were finished.
This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection.
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As we have studied in our lesson «After Death», there will be two resurrections:
- first, that of the righteous in Christ, which will take place at His return and mark the
beginning of the millennium;
- next, that of the wicked who rejected Jesus, which will take place at the end of the
millennium.
The following two verses show that the Bible truly teaches that there will be two
resurrections.
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John 5:29
Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
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Daniel 12:2
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.
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So there will be two resurrections.
Note that Daniel, Jesus, and John placed them in the same order:
- first that of the just;
- then that of the wicked.
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Before the millennium: 1 Corinthians 15:51-53
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed - in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
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The third event to take place just before the millennium begins: the transformation of the just who are still alive at the return of Christ, giving them incorruptibility and immortality.
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Before the millennium: 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.
And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air.
And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
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Once the dead in Christ are resurrected and the living are transformed, Jesus will gather them all to His side in the clouds, that they may live forever with Him.
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Before the millennium: Matthew 24:31
And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
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As we can see, the scenario remains the same wherever we look in
the Scriptures.
Maybe all this seems too beautiful to be true, but Jesus Himself confirms that these
events will take place very soon.
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Before the millennium: 2 Thessalonians 1:7,8; 2:8
(...) when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty
angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do
not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. (...)
And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of
His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
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The last event before the millennium begins: the unjust will be
destroyed, being unable to bear the brightness of Jesus Christ's coming.
They will then remain dead until the end of the thousand years.
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Before the millennium: Zephaniah 1:2,3
«I will utterly consume all things from the face of the land»,
says the Lord.
«I will consume man and beast; I will consume the birds of the heavens, the fish of the
sea, and the stumbling blocks along with the wicked. I will cut off man from the face of
the land», says the Lord.
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Before the millennium: Jeremiah 25:33
And at that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of
the earth even to the other end of the earth.
They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or buried; they shall become refuse on the
ground.
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There will be no man left alive on the earth during the millennium.
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During the millennium: Revelation 20:1-3
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to
the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him
for a thousand years.
And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that
he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.
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As the millennium begins, Satan is bound on the earth (we will
study the word «bound» in a moment).
The words «bottomless pit» («abussos» or «abyss» in Greek) mean «desolate land»,
as the next verses will show us.
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Genesis 1:2
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the
face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
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During the millennium: Jeremiah 4:23-25
I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void; and
the heavens, they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, and all
the hills moved back and forth.
I beheld, and indeed there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled.
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The deep («abussos» in Greek, «tehom» in Hebrew) refers to
the same thing as the bottomless pit: the earth before Creation.
During the millennium, the earth will return to a state of total desolation.
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During the millennium: Isaiah 13:9
Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it.
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Since all the wicked will die at Christ's return, Satan will no
longer be able to deceive people on earth during the millennium.
This is why the Bible says that he will be «bound a thousand years»: he will actually be
bound by circumstances, being able only to see the sad results of his rebellion against
God.
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During the millennium: 1 Thessalonians 4:17
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
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During the millennium: Revelation 20:6
Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection.
Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ,
and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
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During the millennium, Jesus Christ will reign in heaven with His
people.
And what will they be doing all that time?
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During the millennium: Revelation 20:4,12
And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was
committed to them. (...)
And books were opened. (...) And the dead were judged according to their works, by the
things which were written in the books.
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During the millennium: 1 Corinthians 6:2,3
Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? (...)
Do you not know that we shall judge angels?
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Jesus' people will assist Him in judging the wicked and the
fallen angels.
They will then understand the reasons for their condemnation.
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After the millennium: Revelation 20:3,5
He cast [Satan] into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set
a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were
finished.
But after these things he must be released for a little while. (...)
But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished.
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As we have just seen, Satan will be «bound» during the
millennium, being unable to deceive people anymore.
But, after the thousand years, the wicked will be resurrected, and Satan will be
«released», being able, once again, to deceive them and encourage them to persist in
their rebellion.
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After the millennium: Revelation 20:8,9
And [Satan] will go out to deceive the nations which are in the
four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number
is as the sand of the sea.
They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the
beloved city.
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After the millennium: Zechariah 14:3,5
Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as
He fights in the day of battle. (...)
Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with You.
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Satan's goal will be to invade New Jerusalem coming down out of
heaven.
But why does the prophecy speak of «Gog and Magog»?
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After the millennium: Ezekiel 38:2,3,7,8 (NIV)
Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog;
(...) prophesy against him and say: (...)
«Get ready; be prepared, you and all the hordes gathered about you, and take command of
them.
After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that
has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of
Israel, which had long been desolate.
They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety.»
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The names Gog and Magog refer to this prophecy, describing how Satan will lead the nations to besiege New Jerusalem.
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After the millennium: Ezekiel 38:10,11,15,16
On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in
your mind, and you will make an evil plan: You will say,
«I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who
dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates.»
(...)
Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you,
all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.
You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land.
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Seeing the Heavenly City coming down from heaven, Satan will decide to besiege it, and to do so he will gather all the nations and deceive them.
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After the millennium: Ezekiel 38:18,22,23
«And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes
against the land of Israel», says the Lord God, «that My fury will show in My face.
(...)
I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding
rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.
Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many
nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.»
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And this is how the tragedy will end: Satan, his angels and the wicked will receive their judgement, and will then be destroyed by a rain of fire and brimstone.
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After the millennium: Isaiah 24:21,22
It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will punish on
high the host of exalted ones, and on the earth the kings of the earth.
They will be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and will be shut up
in the prison; after many days they will be punished.
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The prophet Isaiah also summarizes the course of these events:
- the wicked, killed by the brightness of Christ's coming, will remain captive in death
for «many days», that is 1000 years;
- after that, they will be resurrected for their judgment and «will be punished».
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After the millennium: Revelation 20:12,15; 21:8
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and
books were opened.
And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. (...)
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (...)
[They] shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the
second death.
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Before being destroyed, the wicked will receive their judgment.
Having rejected God's call during their life, their name will not appear in the Book of
Life.
They alone will be responsible for their bad decision.
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After the millennium: Malachi 4:1,3
«For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all
the proud, yes, all who do wickedly, will be stubble.
And the day which is coming shall burn them up,» says the Lord of hosts, «that will
leave them neither root nor branch. (...)
You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.»
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After the millennium: Revelation 20:9
And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
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As we have seen in the lesson «Is There Really a Hell?», the destruction of Satan, his angels, and the wicked will be total and complete.
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After the millennium: Revelation 21:1-3,5
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.
Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying,
«Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall
be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. (...) These words are
true and faithful.»
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Finally, New Jerusalem will come down onto the new earth, and
will become its capital city. This will be the subject of a future lesson.
Now, let's draw up a summary of this lesson.
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What will happen before, during, and after the millennium?
Before the millennium | During
the millennium | After the millennium
=======================|=======================|=========================
-Jesus Christ returns. | -Jesus reigns in hea- | -The wicked are awakened
-All the dead in Jesus | ven with His people. | thus releasing Satan.
Christ resurrect. | -The case of each un- | -New Jerusalem
comes
-The righteous still | repentant person is | down out of
heaven.
alive are transformed.| reviewed.
| -Satan, his angels, and
-The Church is caught | -Satan is bound on | the wicked all
receive
up in heaven for the | the earth, being the | their judgment, and
are
marriage supper. | only one alive there.|
then destroyed.
-The glory of Jesus | -The earth remains in | -God makes a new Crea-
kills the wicked. | total
desolation. | tion for His people.
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Let's thanks God for His blessings:
Lord,
How can we thank You for the loving call You send us patiently, day after day, so that we
may take a stand for You?
We want to invite You to dwell in our hearts, to transform us and make us worthy, in Jesus
Christ, to have part in the first resurrection, at Your Son's return.
In His precious name we pray.
Amen.
The test of Lesson 25 is waiting for you!