It would seem only logical that with Christ ruling and reigning on the earth following His defeat of the Antichrist all would then be well with the earth. Satan is confined to the bottomless pit, the carnage of Armageddon will be passed, and the utopia longed for by humanity since the time it was lost in Genesis 3 has finally arrived. Poverty and disease will be no more. Righteousness will cover the earth. Men will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks. Unemployment and social unrest will be a thing of the past. The planet will be better off than it has ever been. The kingdom of heaven will have come to earth, as has been so often prayer for. The will of God will be done on earth on an ongoing basis right here on earth, and everybody lived happily ever after.
No, not quite. Why not? Because while many who will have entered this millennial reign as believers will have a glorified body no longer capable of sin, others, who have been believers, having known such during the Great Tribulation, will still possess their ordinary physical bodies, like ours are now. They will be reproducing during the millennial reign of Christ, and their children will be born just as our children are today, endowed with personal volition. Each will, then, exercise his will to believe on Christ for himself. Many will do so. It’s also apparent that many will not.
Imagine, if you will, how many new people will have been added to the population after reproducing for a period of a thousand years. It will constitute a huge number of newer believers, as well as unbelievers. The unbelieving, because of their unbelief, will also be spiritually obtuse, or spiritually blinded, just as unbelievers suffer from spiritual blindness today. Satan, referred to as the “god of this world” who so successfully blinds men’s minds today, will be released from his thousand-year incarceration, according to Revelation 20. He will not have been rehabilitated one whit, but will be reenergized by revenge and the same old profound hatred of the very God who gave him his existence. He again assumes his role of seducer, deceiver, and rebel. He will succeed in recruiting many of those unregenerates born during the thousand-year reign of Christ. They will naively follow Satan, aligning themselves with him in believing his lying promises. This time, this rebellion will not engender another Armageddon. No protracted carnage of a lengthy campaign, as we needed a thousand years earlier. This time, as recorded in Revelation 20, verse 9, God simply dispatches them with a fire from heaven that speedily devours the entire rebel band. The summary execution of the last vestige of unbelief and rebellion has occurred with great finality. From this point onward into the eternal state, Christ will reign unhindered and unchallenged. And He shall reign forever and ever.
CC-06-21
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