A well-known New Testament expert once said: ”When, in a certain passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain “psychai edzesan” (souls become alive), and the rest of the “nekroi edzesan” (dead become alive) only at the end of a certain period after that first one—if then in such a passage that first resurrection is to be understood as a spiritual resurrection with Christ, while the second resurrection then signifies the literal resurrection from the grave—we have reached the end of all meaning of the language, and Scripture has been erased as a witness of anything at all!”
There will be two resurrections: one at the beginning of Christ’s millennial rule and a second one at the end. Something else will happen before that second resurrection takes place. Satan will be released from the Abyss! What will happen now? How will the people of the nations, react? Will they reject Satan’s new seductions and say: No, thank you, our heart has chosen the Lord and His Anointed One, who’s Kingship, with all its blessings we have been privileged to experience these last thousand years? Will they say: No, thank you, six thousand years of world history have been sufficient to teach us that a human being is no ‘god’ in his deepest thoughts and inner being and neither should he wish to be? Will they add: No, thank you, ‘Babylon’ and ‘anti-Christ’ and everything that goes with them once is more than enough for us. History has made us wise and we want no more to do with ‘Babylon’ and the ‘anti-Christ’? Unfortunately not! ‘L’histoire se répète’: history does repeat itself.
Mankind will fall for the trap again. They will fall for Satan’s whispered seductions once again. Perhaps the devil goes to the four corners of the earth because those ‘peripheral areas’ are furthest from Jerusalem. That was also where the four ‘winds of destruction’ had to be held back.1 The ends of the earth are sometimes associated with ‘doom and disaster’. “From the ‘ends of the earth’ I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint.”2 ‘Eretz’ can be translated as ‘land’ and ‘earth’. The entrance to the ‘realm of the dead’, the ‘underworld’ is sought at the farthest sea.3 Does this refer to ‘peripheral nations’ that live geographically far away from the centre of Messianic government? Were these nations ‘hypocrites’ who have indeed submitted outwardly, but not inwardly to the rule of Christ and the believers, Israel and the resurrected Church over the nations? Solomon writes: “May He rule from sea to sea and from the River (Euphrates) to the ends of the earth. May the desert-tribes bow before Him and His enemies lick the dust. May all kings bow down to Him and all nations serve Him”4—a truly royal Psalm! Yet another Psalm says: “So great is Your power that Your enemies come cringing to You.”5 So they outwardly bow before Him, but in their hearts they hate Him. And: “Those who hate the Lord would cringe before Him, and their punishment would last forever.”6 The nations were punished sometimes because they refused, under Christ’s rule, to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the families/nations of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.7
The names ‘Gog’ and ‘Magog’ are mentioned by Ezekiel—nations from the far north: “Gog, I will bring you from the far north and send you against the mountains of Israel. I will send fire on the coastlands (far away from Israel).”8 What Ezekiel is talking about is concerning nations from the far north and their allies. These nations, however, come from the four corners of the earth, from the ends of the earth. So ‘Gog and Magog’ are used here as a metaphor, meaning the hostile nations far away from God and His Anointed One. Both the disposition of their hearts and minds as well as the disposition of the devil, who, after a thousand years in the Abyss has not learned anything either, must come to light, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God,9 as far as the justice of God’s judgments is concerned. The rebellion will only last for a short time however.
• People who suppress and deny the truth are without excuse.10
• Mankind’s main problem is not ‘poverty’, poor ‘social circumstances’ or an unfortunate ‘environment’, but rather rebelliousness, the stubbornness of the sinful human heart.
• The bad consequences that are the result of this basic attitude will not change unless the heart and the mind change. Isaiah 59:1-2 “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
Bible References:
1.Revelation 7:1 2.Psalm 61:2 3.Psalm 139:7–12 4.Psalm 72 5.Psalm 66:3 ESB 6.Psalm 81:15 7.Zechariah 14:17 8.Ezekiel 39:1, 6 9.Romans 3:19 10.Romans 1:20
