“Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the Lord speaks, ‘Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me.'” (Isaiah 1:2 NASB) This is the prophecy Isaiah heard about the future of the heavens and the earth.
“Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with fury and burning anger,
To make the land a desolation;
And He will exterminate its sinners from it.
For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash forth their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light.
Thus I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their iniquity;
I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud
And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.
I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold
And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the fury of the Lord of hosts
In the day of His burning anger.” (Isaiah 13:9-13 NASB)
Isaiah was blessed with the testimony of Jesus, the Spirit of prophecy. He was describing the day of the Lord’s coming in judgement, not the new heavens and new earth described by John and Peter. The full testimony of Jesus came later.
“But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31 NASB)
God’s, still living, children will be refined and as scarce as Gold. His angleswill gather them together. “Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17 NASB) Those who remain will meet Jesus as He is coming down to judge and reign in God’s promised kingdom. A time when Satan will be bound, and not able to deceive man.
“When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Revelation 20:7-10 NASB)
In the mean time Jesus is preparing His Father’s children to rule and reign with Him during His Millennial Kingdom. “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” (Revelation 2:26-28 NASB)
We can now turn our attention away from ascertaining that there are two different events. Now the testimony of Jesus, the spirit of prophecy, will enable believers to discover a little of what these periods will be like. First things first, our Lord’s Millennial Kingdom.
to be continued
His Family Table 