The Millennium - Common Greetings - January 17, 2012

January 17, 2012 ©Homer Kizer

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Common Greetings —

King of Kings

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On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread [manna], two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.'" So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none." On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day. (Ex 16:22–27 emphasis and double emphasis added)

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When asked by the crowd that followed Him for a sign for why the crowd should believe Him, Jesus said, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’” (John 6:32–33). The crowd asked Jesus for this bread that gives life to the world, And “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst’” (v. 35).

Jesus saying that it was not Moses who gave Israel manna, bread from heaven that was like hoarfrost, is of significance; for it was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of the living—that fed Israel in the wilderness. And it is the Father that gives to Israel the true bread from heaven, with this true bread being Christ Jesus, the one who gives life to the world—

Manna formed the lifeless shadow and type of the man Jesus the Nazarene, who came from heaven so that human sons of God can have life in the supra-dimensional heavenly realm. And as manna formed a shadow of Christ Jesus, the Sabbath [the seventh day of the seven day weekly cycle] forms a shadow and type of the Millennium, the Thousand Years during which God will give Israel here on earth peace and safety, with Israel then being the nation that is circumcised both of heart and in the flesh. But if the preceding is true—and it is—then where is Christ Jesus during the Millennium; for no manna was given on the seven day? And how should a double portion being given on the sixth day be read?

If Christ Jesus is the true bread from heaven, and if manna forms the shadow and type of Christ Jesus, then manna coming from the day that would become the second Passover, the 15^th day of the second month, until Israel behind Joshua [in Greek, [0F@Ø—Jesus] crossed into the Promised Land and ate the produce of that land will have manna/Jesus feeding Israel only while Israel trekked through the wilderness, not while Israel was either in Egypt or in the Promised Land.

Jesus doesn’t feed Israel in the Millennium, a reality of the Promised Land, but what does it mean to realize that Jesus doesn’t feed Israel in the Millennium? And it would seem that Israel, before the Millennium begins, receives sufficient food to sustain the nation throughout the Thousand Years: when food sustains life and Christ Jesus is the life of this world, then no further food or indwelling of Christ is needed than what is received before the Millennium begins to sustain humankind for a thousand years.

Now, the reality that Christendom has not well understood: with Christ Jesus being the life of the world, not just of Israel, and with all of humankind having been baptized into life when the divine breath of God is poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28), and with ancient Israel being commanded to remain in its dwellings when no manna was given on the seventh day, and with the fleshly body of a human person being a tent of flesh in which the living inner self dwells, it shall here be once again declared that throughout the Millennium human persons shall not die from internal causes but will live a thousand years or until their ends come after the Adversary has been loosed from the Abyss to deceive whomever he can.

· Throughout the Millennium, humankind, though still mortal, shall not die from internal causes; for every person will be filled-with and empowered by the divine breath of God, with the law of God written on hearts and placed in minds;

· But being filled with the spirit of God doesn’t mean that the human person will in the fold of Israel, or that the human person will continue to worship God the Father;

· On the contrary, the arrow of time and the movement from order to disorder will have humankind during the Thousand Years beginning to worship local deities in a manner foreshadowed by Israel in the Promised Land worshiping the gods of the people Israel dispossessed.

The last bullet point above doesn’t seem correct when Christ Jesus is to rule during the Millennium as King of king and Lord of lords, but the above is correct … as King of kings and Lord of lords, the glorified Christ will deal with glorified kings and lords during the Thousand Years, not with human beings that will be ruled by these kings and lords. Hence, the personal relationship that disciples can presently have with Christ Jesus who is their high priest will no longer exist once the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man (see Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18). Rather, it will be those glorified human sons of God who are least in the kingdom of the heavens that will rule over human beings here on earth for the Thousand Years. And because it will be these glorified human sons that interact with mortal human beings, these mortals shall begin to worship the king or lord who interacts with them, with the idolization of mortals such as Herbert W. Armstrong and Ellen G. White forming the shadow and copy of human mortals in the Millennium making idols of the glorified human son of God that oversees them. And yes, a certain percentage of 20^th-Century disciples who came to the knowledge of the Sabbath, Holy Days, clean and unclean meats through the ministry of Herbert W. Armstrong idolize the man, deeming Armstrong as God’s essential endtime man when that claim is not true.

Remember, it was not Moses who gave ancient Israel bread from heaven, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living (Matt 22:32) — and both Ellen G. White and Herbert W. Armstrong were of much less significance to Israel than was Moses.

Jesus said, concerning John the Baptist, “‘Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he’” (Matt 11:11) … King David was a man born of woman; therefore, John the Baptist would be greater than King David, a man after God’s heart—and the glorified human son of God who is least in the kingdom will be greater than King David was when he ruled here on earth.

It will be David, though, who will rule Israel during the Millennium:

Son of man, take a stick and write on it, 'For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him'; then take another stick and write on it, 'For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.' And join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, 'Will you not tell us what you mean by these?' say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore. (Ezek 37:16–28 emphasis added)

David as a glorified human person shall rule over Israel: over the house of Judah and the house of Israel that shall again be one house, one nation. But when David ruled over Israel before, there were problems: his own son would have killed him if the Lord would have permitted the rebellion to succeed. So how successful will a glorified King David’s reign over a spirit-filled nation of Israel be? And will not this spirit-filled nation of Israel idolize David as decades quietly slip into centuries? Will Israel not gradually slip across the boundary between respect and honor to idolatry? Yes, Israel will.

The Lord will dwell with all people through the indwelling of the spirit of God [B<,Ø:" 1,@Ø] in the spirit of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø] throughout the Thousand Years, including when the Adversary is loosed from the Abyss and goes forth to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, bringing them against the Holy Mountain of God. So being filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God is no guarantee against being deceived by the Adversary as will be seen in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years [2520 days] that are analogous to ancient Israel’s forty-year-long journey in the wilderness. The only defense against being deceived by the Adversary is to believe God daily, exercising this belief by having love for God and for neighbor and brother. The same rules apply to us today while we are under the Adversary’s reign over the mental topography of living things as will apply in the Millennium when all of humankind is under the reign of the Prince of Peace … if anything, we actually have an easier course before us than will the holy ones have in the Millennium for less is expected from us, which is not to say that nothing is expected: we are to bear the fruit of the spirit in the present darkness of this world. We are to bear fruit when it isn’t the season for fruit. We are to bear fruit by the inner light that dwells within us, light that cannot be seen by others except through our manifested love for neighbor and brother.

Although sin and death continue to dwell within the fleshly bodies of Christians who have been genuinely born-of-God, the inner selves of these Christians have already been glorified in that they have life in the heavenly realm, with the righteousness of Christ Jesus presently garmenting these inner selves that have been raised from death … the invisible cloak of Christ’s righteousness that is euphemistically called grace doesn’t cover the fleshly bodies of Christians in this present age; rather, grace only covers inner selves as a shadow and type of humankind [the fleshly body and its inner self] being liberated from indwelling sin and death through being filled with the spirit of God at, initially, the Second Passover liberation of Israel, then when all of remaining humankind is baptized in the divine breath of God halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation.

Prior to John’s vision [the Book of Revelation] the 1260 day long period known as the Endurance of Jesus was not known to Israel or to humankind—and since the visions of Daniel were unsealed in 2002, circumcised-of-heart Israel has come to know that the Endurance of Jesus follows and does not precede the single kingdom of this world being given to the Son of Man (see Dan 7:9–14; Rev 11:15–18), with the Endurance being that period between when the kingdom is given to Christ, resulting in the Adversary and his angels being cast from heaven and into time (Rev 12:7–10), and when the glorified Jesus returns as the all powerful Messiah. And when the Adversary is cast from heaven and is no longer the prince of the power of the air, Christ Jesus will baptize the world in the breath/spirit of God, thereby giving life to all of remaining humankind (two parts or about 4.7 billion people will have already been killed, a number that staggers imaginations).

When the spirit of God is poured out on all flesh, every person will have been made a firstborn son of God and will have an equal opportunity to take judgment upon him or herself and to be transformed in the twinkling of an eye from mortal to immortal at the Second Advent. However, not every person—even though filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God—will take judgment upon him or herself. Some will return to sin by taking upon the person the mark of the beast; i.e., the tattoo of the cross. Some will be hesitant to commit themselves to judgment. Some will simply be too young to take upon themselves judgment. However, every person who does take upon him or herself judgment and then found worthy will be glorified when Christ Jesus returns as the Messiah, and this number will be about half of remaining humanity.

Using today’s numbers, about 700 million human persons, all filled with spirit, will begin the Millennium as mortal human beings [roughly a tithe of humanity], and of these mortals, all will not have for one reason or another committed themselves to God even though they have the indwelling of Christ in their inner selves.

Knowledge of God will be at its greatest when the Millennium begins—and those mortals that begin the Thousand Years would not be mortal if they had taken judgment upon themselves; so the Millennium doesn’t begin with the most faithful believers, but begins with the young and the doubtful inhabiting the earth. And now we are ready to look at what the prophet Micah records:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may 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 many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and 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; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever. In that day, declares the LORD, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted; and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore. (Micah 4:1–7 emphasis and double emphasis added)

In the latter days is when the single kingdom of this world has been given to the Son of Man; thus, the latter days includes the Endurance of Jesus as well as the Millennium … as an indentifying icon phrase, the latter days could include all of the seven endtime years of tribulation, but it does not include that period preceding when the Lord begins to assemble the lame and gather those who have been afflicted. Therefore, today does not represent the latter days even though that would seem to be the case.

According to the word of knowledge that Micah received, in the latter days all the peoples walk each in the name of its [their] god—and we can now look at what happens immediately preceding when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man:

Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound. The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Rev 9:13–21).

It is from those individuals who, despite twice seeing a third part of humankind killed, do not repent of their idolatry that the young and the doubtful come that will begin the Millennium and repopulate the earth. It is from those peoples who walked in the name of a god other than the Lord that the seed-stock comes for the Millennium. Therefore, it should not be that surprising when this seed-stock brings forth peoples that make idols of the glorified human sons of God that reign over them as kings and lords.

The Millennium will not be a period that is without precedent: the weekly Sabbath forms the shadow and copy—the precedent—for the Millennium, and how many Sabbatarians have genuine love for neighbor and brother, born and unborn? Very few. So how many mortals in the Thousand Years of Christ Jesus’ reign as King of kings and Lord of lords will have genuine love for neighbor and brother? Typology suggests that very few will utilize being filled with spirit to actively manifest love for one another: they would not be scattered to the four corners of the earth where they are able to be deceived by the Adversary (see Rev 20:7–8) if they had genuine love for one another.

Christendom being filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God at the Second Passover liberation of Israel doesn’t save these Christians, who still have to choose to do what they know is right—and know is right because the law of God has been written on their hearts and placed within them … most of Christendom will rebel against God in the great falling away (2 Thess 2:3) of day 220 of the Affliction, and will return to sin, thereby taking death again inside themselves where this death will be in the lake of fire. Likewise, those mortals that begin the Millennium will be filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God, and will then rebel against the Lord in subtle ways that are not necessarily manifested in open rebellion until the Adversary is loosed from the Abyss. These mortals will form the shadow and copy of the angelic rebellion against the Most High in the heavenly realm, and those who join themselves with the Adversary when he is loosed will equate to the demons, with both receiving the same judgment and the same fate.

However, as genuinely born-of-God Christians in this present era have and will continue to have an easier go of it than will born-of-God disciples in the Affliction, Endurance, and Millennium, those angels who were truly deceived by the Adversary will have a greater chance of exiting this death chamber that is the creation than will rebelling mortals in the Millennium if—and only if—they bring forth fruit worthy of repentance without being told what constitutes this fruit. For there would be no reason for glorified saints to judge angels if there wasn’t the possibility that as a court of appeals the saints could overturn the death sentences already imposed on these rebelling angels. But this is a subject for another time: it is enough for now to say that the Millennium will not be as has been traditionally advertised by Sabbatarian Christendom.

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