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NEWS 70

The Second Millenium is Past Already
and the Prince is Soon to Return

There is so much talk of the 3rd millenium, of its not really starting next year, but of the 3rd thousand coming up, and what this may mean, and of new vision, new hope or new sickness, that it is really time to put the record straight. It is past already, the millenium which relates to its BEGINNING. THAT END is already here.

Let us elucidate this. The MILLENIUM has meaning when it starts, has it not ? A thousand years is a space of action availability, for process; but that is of no historical interest until we know when it BEGINS. The beginning is not equivocal. It relates to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Life and Lord.. the One this earth delivered to death, and on account of whom it drives, negatively geared, to death with a dynamic which is already quite impressive. It is  BECAUSE it rejected and still rejects HIM that it is in reverse to ruin. He only is the Prince of LIFE. This way is unsuitable for life; since HE is IT.

Thus the birth of Jesus Christ is the start of the millenium. In this, amazingly, the world agrees. It is AD and BC, in the year of our Lord, and before Christ. Now as to that, 4 BC as has been shown in SMR (pp. 886ff.) appears the birth date of Christ. Hence the 2nd millenium was finished somewhere in 1996. How is this significant ?

First, it matters because the actual series of one thousand years started unquestionably for our dating system, with His birth, however inaccurate some renderings were - though not grossly so. Second it is well to remember beginnings when you consider ends... Third, when you get excited in some mystic or idealistic sense about a NEW MILLENIUM, it is well to consider WHEN IT IS. It WAS somewhere in 1996, it seems quite certain. GOD is NOT on record that in a given millenium stage HE WILL ACT IN SOME NEW WAY. How then is it significant at all, apart from the geysers of popular sentiment, naturally excited in view of the way the world scene is lurching like the state room on the Titanic shortly after impact ?

It is not so really; except that it so HAPPENS that the SIGNS for HIS RETURN, FOR WHOM the dating system was put in place, are ALSO HAPPENING .... NOW.

The purist may now ask: HOW is this NEWS ? News ? There is no greater news than this: HOW the world is to live if it is not to die! There is none beyond this: HOW a man or woman or child is to have peace of heart, truth of mind and joy of soul, in the love of God. There is none above this: WHO is the one who gives the HOW! The answer - Jesus Christ; and the GOSPEL is from a Greek word meaning a good sending, or good news. It still is; but it won't be for those who reject it in this life of pilgrimage, of millenia, of developments, of temporary things. Why not ? Because, their preference known, it will be honoured; and there is small honour in divorce from your Maker, confusion without the only Saviour and a bed in alienation from Him, commonly known, and rightly, as hell.

Hell has a big mouth and a disagreeable stomach. You see preliminaries to it in the world systems which torture their prey and seek to play God with them, forcing their labour and seeking to squash their souls like oranges into some sort of juice, which however, is not fresh. Jesus spoke much of it and in particular, did so in Mark 9, making 3 double edged and acute references to it. You SIMPLY CANNOT have a lie and live in the truth, reject peace and yet find it, ignore God and yet be in the way of life. You see this clearly and decisively from the lips of Christ in John 3:17-21, followed by the undeviating pronouncement by the prophet, John the Baptist (3:36):

HE WHO BELIEVES IN THE SON HAS EVERLASTING LIFE; AND HE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE THE SON SHALL NOT SEE LIFE, BUT THE WRATH OF GOD ABIDES ON HIM.
 
 

THE END OF THE MILLENIUM, ALREADY PAST,
HAS A FEW WORDS TO SAY

First, let us look at the good side.

There is STILL the love of God. It is not revoked. If you can read this, and want the truth, there is still hope in that love. He DOES want to redeem, to save; He IS willing to act. He WILL NOT reject you if you come to Him in faith, in His covenant of blood, offered in His life-giving sacrifice for sin, and taking Him resurrected as your LORD without addition or subtraction, according to His word, follow Him (Romans 10:9, 3:23ff.).

That love is like a hill covered with violets, suffusing the air with delight, delicate, not for bulls, not for roaring, but for savour, for fragrance, for grace. But what is it like ? It is like a wall of roses, mounting high in profusion to the skies, covering it and abounding upon it, in hundreds and thousands, with arms here and there, buds, blooms, exquisite variety but all roses. It sends out its scent which arrests, never cloys, which refreshes and amazes but speaks with the face of many folds, many petals, arranged but free, lavish and little, grand and overwhelming.

There is STILL the mercy of God. What is it like ? It is like the ever pure water which comes from the far melting snows on vast mountain tops, exposed to the light in the radiance beyond pollution. To abandon this is folly without parallel. What does Jeremiah say on this (for the truth is not new, merely newly manifest with the payment for sin now complete at the start of the millenia now finished to the number of two) ? This (2:13):

For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns - broken cisterns that can hold not water.

But look at this:
 

Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon,
Which comes from the rock of the field ?
Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters ? (18:14).

These waters do not forsake the person who finds the Lord, but rather they come to be IN HIM, a fountain of water springing up into eternal life, as Christ told the woman at Samaria, by the well (John 4:14). Indeed, the one who drinks of this water WILL NEVER THIRST AGAIN (John 4:14a).

That is the fact.

There is STILL the peace of God. What is this like ? It is like the beauty of the massive ranges, as at Mt Buffalo Park in Victoria, Australia, which spread before you in a delicate scene of grandeur, exquisite, unending, without furlough, merging one on the other, profound and provided. Paul says this (Philippians 4:6): "the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" - and Isaiah, in 26:4 ? This:

The "YAH" is a poetic brevity relating to the tetragrammaton, the four letters of the term which is related in Exodus 3:14 to the Lord's name, "I AM", which Christ appropriated as seen in John 8:58.

There is STILL the truth of God. But what is it like ?

It reminds one of the heavens for depth, the oceans for life, the skies for intimacy and artistry, the mountain peaks soaring to the empyrean of profundity, above: stark yet sure, delightful yet majestic, personal but not manipulable, grand and enveloping, when one's heart is for it. "I am the way, the truth and the life," said Christ. What to this did He add ? This: "No man comes to the Father except by Me." THAT is why He was sent (see Matthew 11:27).

The marvellous majesty of God is STILL here, and His royal presidency of one's life is still to hand, for Christ and His Gospel still live, though the 2nd millenium is now past.

And with what signals it went. We have before (SMR Ch.8) often looked at the array of signals profoundly and surely indicating that the long predicted time for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ - like that for His first arrival, a notice given with 1000 years of detailed prophecy to prepare for it, just as for His return we have had 2000 years, and THAT, it is significant, not arithmetically, but in terms of His patience. Yes the PATIENCE of God is still here (see II Peter 3:9, where you see that a space of thousands of years was quite within the scriptural picture of the time to pass before Christ's return - cf. A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch.18.).
 
 

Now, let us look at the incessant
buzz and blitz of the folly.

There was

the rumble in the GULF, early  in the decade of the nineties. It held much drama, involved a shameless betrayal of the Kurds, a vicious power putsch from Saddam Hussein,

highlighted the fact that his land was till at war with Israel

(since 1948 when according to promise, God brought it back into existence as a Jewish entity - SMR pp. 755ff., 786ff., 510ff., 806ff.) , back where God put it according to promise (SMR Appendix A, Ch.9),
 


Other frenzies of the place called 'this world' ? other avenues of action as the 2nd millenium was passing, and 1996 came on scene ?

THAT, the culmination, the termination of this Age, the consummation to come,  is the chief news.

"THIS SAME JESUS, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).

It thunders down the tracks of prophetic stations as organised and set on the map of the Bible, with a speed which our current communications and knowledge greatly facilitate, the spirit of the Age sunbaking shamelessly at its stations, in the light of its contributions as it looks oh so knowingly, to the splendour of what it hopes.
 


But what does the word just quoted, Acts 1:11 tell us ? This:

His return will thus be PERSONAL,
with the SUPERNATURAL power which He used in such solicitude and love, displayed for His coming.
 

First, He has announced for so long His plans, just as for the ARRIVAL in Bethlehem,
so for RETURN, that there is no excuse. It is prepared as for a great parade, but this parade is all-powerful, when the Prince whose murder left the world in artless inability to govern itself, restores His own people to Himself, and prepares for that government of which there will be no end, first here, then hereafter. There is however a gulf between now and then, and much will occur in the exposure of the travesty of flesh, the bombast of lost theories, the aspirations of demi-gods in their giddiness.

This, in the midst of terminal developments, He will send His angels to collect His own, (Matthew 24:24-31) as the intensity of human folly reaches internationally to a new height of conspiracy (II Thessalonians 2:7-9), well past the current models. He will leave the rump, the remnant, the residue, like mud on filter paper when one filters the turgid liquor.

As to this, it will go to its own place, but not before it finds its own level, in the absence of the Christians thus removed, whose braking and light, from the Lord, has tempered the follies of the Age (cf. II Thessalonians 2:7).

The NEW ANTICHRIST, arising like a boil on the neck of humanity,  will then love himself to delusion (II Thessalonians 2:4), even parading about in the temple, to show himself that he is God - the paranoia reaching new heights and depths of depravity, self-congratulation, that a man should think himself god - but then, Mao came close and there are others whose deluded cries make mockery of their pretensions; for in religion as in all else, one must test, check, consider the logic of the case, one must where one may, apply scientific method, consider the verifications and continue till one sees clear, the truth in all its majesty and dominion, inimitable, unique, untouched by valid criticism, unmatched by any validity at all (cf. SMR Chs.3, 10).

It is true that one's eyes, before conversion, blinded by sin, need opening; but it is true no less, that fraudulent hypotheses are condemned for what they are. It is enough that God has done what was needed in the vast and deep universe tour and triumph of Jesus the Christ Colossians 1:19ff.), and would have all to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:1ff.), though not by violence, not through hypocrisy, not with brain-washing and manipulation producing artificial and contemptible substitutes (cf. Isaiah 29;13). Truth has majesty, and it rules in its beauty, even amid lies, like pollution which cannot dim the sun, merely the atmosphere of the soul.

But the will-o' -the-wisp century continues like a child in the things most essential, while the bullies continue to seek to control it. In the end, its antichrist agent of destruction will himself fall with his pride, and the pomp of his limited knowledge, into that very destruction which all unreality courts. HIS will be a reign to make the French Revolution's Reign of Terror seem almost pallid. (They did of course turn on each other, in that adventure, when the lust to kill was not spent, and the ignorance swelled into a torrent of self-will, like the wall of a mountain lake cracking, and leaving first a spill then a raging flood to consume those below. Stalin did much the same like a monolith to murder, whom Krushchev did much to expose).

But he, the antichrist: though he has had many preliminaries where folly has pushed people to new follies, in Germany spent from war, in Russia, troubled with failure, in France, chagrined with oppression, only to oppress: yet his is an international operation to rejoice the heart of the cruel, to intoxicate the unwary and to doom the ungoverned.

He is not in operation yet, in his manifest format. Yet the way is open, the call is clear and the nations are busy assembling themselves into control groups, into more united fronts, ready for the hand which is to rule beyond anything any Pope has contrived, tyrant achieved or aristocracy, whether autocratic or communist, has done. Nevertheless, it will not last long; indeed, in its setting,  it could not (Matthew 24:22-23): but its testimony will be shown for ever, as if not the bones of mammoths but of men, were to speak; and the speech will be eloquent.

THAT is where it is heading. But past all that short time of folly, the Christian church of believers ONLY, the real one, having been removed to Christ, the flash of declared war against God become most obvious (Revelation 19:19 - 1919 interestingly reminding one of the 'flu epidemic following World War II, which slew more than did the war) - then HE RETURNS WITH HIS OWN (II Thessalonians 1:7,10, Zechariah 14:1-5, I Thessalonians 3:13, Revelation 19:8,14).

No play was so scripted; no action was so counselled, nor any achievement so complete: what He says has gone, will go and does go, and here Act V brings the latent forces to their full expression, and all is declared.

Are you ready ? The millenium 2 is past, the signs are present. It is nothing to do with the millenium, as such; but since it is being so noticed, let us remind us to notice what is happening, now we are in the 3rd millenium already: for the signals are saying it loud and clear, the time for the return of the SANE ONE, the SAVIOUR, the TRUTH, the PEACE BOWER, the RESTING PLACE, the PRINCE OF LIFE, the LORD OF GLORY, the author and finisher of the faith, it is near.

Are you near to Him ? Why not ? There is no romance, no grandeur, no peace, no beauty, no reason, no delicacy, no profundity, no necessary power for good things, which is like Him; and all of it,  it is His, who made us. HE  is the King of the universe, whose Eternal Son, the Christ, leads to the Father, as eternal light to its boundless source; and without Him, you are as space flotsam and jetsam, space debris in the vortex of a whirl-pool, the whirl-pool of this world.

The millenium 2 is past, but the salvation in Christ Jesus is present, for the time. It is still here, and  the need to receive it is pressing. There is NO NEWS LIKE THAT. Certainly it has been out for thousands of years; but just as the atomic bomb was at last on site, after decades of concerted research, in 1945, and THIS was significant as the cumulative outcome with many steps on the way, and so indeed, ALL THE MORE SIGNIFICANT FOR THAT: so with this return of the Lord, once crucified, now to reign. It is not some mere cataclysm, as if God had lost patience (II Peter 3:9); no more is it some ruthless substitute for mercy. IF EVER MERCY has shown PATIENCE, it is here.

Constantly He forbears, but not for ever, for truth will be manifest. Meanwhile consider His grace, shown in the prophet Habakkuk:
 


PATIENCE !

What 2000 years of it already ? (II Peter 3:9). If that is not patience, what is ! I do not mean laxity. THIS has been a magnificent exposure of truth in the face of inveterate, but ever changing follies, constantly exposed, as constantly sought again, like vomit.
 

The good pleasure of God (Ephesians 1:5, I Timothy 2:1-4) ? This, like His lovingkindness, is a scene of intense purity, unfathomable peace and intense radiance of power, so just that it will not move, so pitiful that it moved mountains to make the door to heaven easy of access and adequate for ever. It is still here as 2000 years ago, as 4000 years ago. HE does not change; HIS ways do not change (Malachi 3:6, Habakkuk 3:6); but the gears change as the car of time moves to the last lap.

That ? It is round about now. The flag is already held up, ready.

Are YOU ready ?