The Feast of Tabernacles 2018 will soon start. This is a seven day festival to teach us and remind us of the coming one thousand year reign of Christ and the saints over the earth, a period pictured in many psalms and scriptures as a period of great joy, peace, justice, and happiness over all the earth.
"And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then 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. 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. 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" (Revelation 20:4-6).
"For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this"
(Isaiah 9:6-7).
"There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
His delight is in the fear of the Lord,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,
And faithfulness the belt of His waist.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them
The cow and the bear shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,
And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea"
(Isaiah 11:1-9).
"Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow to it.
Many people shall come and say,
'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.'
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
And rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore"
(Isaiah 2:2-4).
"And in this mountain
The Lord of hosts will make for all people
A feast of choice pieces,
A feast of wines on the lees,
Of fat things full of marrow,
Of well-refined wines on the lees.
And He will destroy on this mountain
The surface of the covering cast over all people,
And the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken"
(Isaiah 25:6-8).
"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
"Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth;
Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.
Sing to the Lord with the harp,
With the harp and the sound of a psalm,
With trumpets and the sound of a horn;
Shout joyfully before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness,
The world and those who dwell in it;
Let the rivers clap their hands;
Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord,
For He is coming to judge the earth.
With righteousness He shall judge the world,
And the peoples with equity"
(Psalm 98:4-9).
People will be taught the give way of life. They will learn to live that way of life, as we do, both by instruction and by practice. They will learn the way of love by living that way - they will learn by doing.
One way they will learn is by working and sacrificing to prepare for the general resurrection - the white throne judgment period - as pictured by the Last Great Day. This will be a time when billions of people will be brought back to life and given an opportunity to learn and believe the true gospel, repent of their sins, be converted, and be saved.
But those people will need to be housed, clothed, and fed. They will need to be provided for, and a great project will be needed during the millennium to prepare for them. This is a way the people living in the millennium can practice the give way of life by contributing to the preparation for the billions in the general resurrection to be provided for.
In like manner, we in the Church of God also learn the give way of life by doing. We love our neighbors as ourselves by putting our love into action, and one way we do this is by supporting the preaching of the gospel and warning of the coming tribulation to the general public which needs this message to prepare them for what is to come.
Just as the people in the millennium will prepare for the general resurrection, so we in the Church need to be preaching a message that will prepare the world for the events soon to occur. This will help the world to realize that God was fair to tell them, through us, ahead of time what is about to happen, and that will help their repentance and make it easier for them to trust God. This will also help prepare them to have a humble, trusting, and teachable attitude at the beginning of the millennium, which is so vital for their conversion and the happiness of that time.
Those in the first generation of the millennium will have lived in two worlds - this present evil world and the happy world tomorrow under the reign of Christ. But those who are born in the millennium will not know this present evil world, except as they are taught.
I imagine that they will find it amazing how evil this present world is. It may even be that some will find it difficult to believe. They may need to exercise faith to know they are being told the truth.
Some may be spiritually lazy. But they will need to develop zeal and take the truth of God seriously. Not all will necessarily be converted and saved in the end, for at the end of the millennium Satan will be released and some will be deceived.
"Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and 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. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them" (Revelation 20:7-9).
Likewise, we in the Church must not become spiritually lazy, but we must be zealous and on fire for God's truth, for God's law, and for God's work.
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