Friday, December 4, 2020

Millennium: The Beginning & the End?

Have you ever wondered why Satan was to be bound for a 1000 years at the beginning of the Millennium, and then loosed at the end to orchestrate a final rebellion / battle?1 Could it entail more than just to test the “millennials”?

Here is one man's understanding of why Satan is merely bound for a thousand years and then “loosed for a little season.”
That man may be "without excuse" God is going to subject him to a final test under the most favorable circumstances. Man has charged his fall and continuance in sin to Satan. "Take him away," he cries, "paralyze his power; cripple his malignant activity; bind and imprison him and deliver us from his dominating influence, and then you will see that man is radically good and virtuous and is simply the victim of an unfavorable environment."

God answers it shall be done. Satan shall be bound and imprisoned so that he can no longer deceive men, and lest man shall say that sinful habits are too deeply rooted to be soon eradicated the test shall last for a Thousand Years, and man shall have during that period of probation all the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit and the presence of Christ Himself.

Man has never known and therefore cannot conceive what this world would be like free from Satanic influence. It would certainly be a marvelously different world. There would be no one to stir up hate and passion, and engender strife and turmoil. True, man would still have an evil heart of unbelief to contend against, but it would be like a magazine of gunpowder without a spark to ignite it. That the evil heart of man has not been eradicated will be evident when at the close of the Millennium Satan is loosed and finds no difficulty in deceiving the nations. Rev. 20: 8.2 ...

As the evening shadows of the Millennial Day fall, the Angel who imprisoned Satan will unlock the "prison house" of the "Bottomless Pit," and Satan will come forth embittered by his forced confinement to vent his anger upon the people of God, a refutation of the claim that the miseries of perdition will lead to repentance. Satan will still be the same malignant being after his 1000 years of confinement that he was before. His hatred against God and His people will be unquenched.  ...

As soon as Satan is loosed from his prison in the "Bottomless Pit," he will find a vast multitude ready to believe his lie, and to serve and obey him. He will gather them from the "Four Quarters of the Earth" to battle. They will be in number as the "sand of the sea." Rev. 20: 8-9. The revolt will be Worldwide, and will mean the Mobilizing of Vast Armies. Satan will conduct them across the "Breadth of the Earth" until they compass the "Camp of the Saints" (the Holy Land), and lay siege once more to the "Beloved City." From this we see that the unregenerate heart is like a powder magazine, all it needs is a match to set it off, and Satan when freed will be that match. This the "last war" that this world shall ever see, will be bloodless, for the vast armies of Satan shall be destroyed by FIRE.

From this we see that the "Millennial Dispensation," like all the six Dispensations before it, will end in failure [for most]. God will have tested man in "Innocence," under "Conscience," under "Self-Government," under the "Headship of the Family," under "Law," under "Grace," and finally under the influence of the "Holy Spirit," free from Satanic influences, and under them all he will prove himself to be hopelessly, incurably and incorrigibly bad.

If after a 1000 years of the Presence of the King, and of universal peace and blessing, man still persists in rebelling against his Maker, what will there be left for God to do?3
Except, the most important thing, He already accomplished millennia ago, at age 33. The final thing left to do will be the Judgment according to His warning:
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.4
So, will this 1000 years finally prove that man is NOT, by nature, radically good and virtuous as so many new-agers and others declare in this age of the “Sovereign Self”? Will we finally see that the lamentations by God and His prophets5 throughout the ages were more than justified? understand why the words “Repent” and “Love” occur an identical number of times (628) in our four books of scripture?6 Will we at last comprehend that the measure of God's love for us, wretched sinners that we are,7 is immeasurable.

BUT, we also must know that despite our wretched natures, we also have the capacity to fill the measure of our creation as measured and assisted by God. We have the ability to choose good over evil, to self-reflect, to forgive, to repent. We have the ability to see through the lies, deceptions, propaganda and recycling ideologies of the Utopians and schemers of every age. We have the unrelenting witness of history that secret combinations continually cycle, intent on the destruction of all that is good.8 We have the ability to say NO to the powers9 and the Utopians.

Will we, in these days of trial, have the courage and strength to refuse compliance and complicity when the “authorities” / the “powers” claim: 'It is not lawful'10? Will we be any better in that ending day 1000 years from now? For Whom do we reserve our YESes?

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1. New Testament | Revelation 20:1-3, 7-10
1 AND I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. ...
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Doctrine and Covenants | Section 88:110–114
110 And so on, until the seventh angel shall sound his trump; and he shall stand forth upon the land and upon the sea, and swear in the name of him who sitteth upon the throne, that there shall be time no longer; and Satan shall be bound, that old serpent, who is called the devil, and shall not be loosed for the space of a thousand years.
111 And then he shall be loosed for a little season, that he may gather together his armies.
112 And Michael, the seventh angel, even the archangel, shall gather together his armies, even the hosts of heaven.
113 And the devil shall gather together his armies; even the hosts of hell, and shall come up to battle against Michael and his armies.
114 And then cometh the battle of the great God; and the devil and his armies shall be cast away into their own place, that they shall not have power over the saints any more at all.
2. Larkin, Rev Clarence. The Book of Revelation (Kindle Locations 3896-3917). Kindle Edition.
SMS NOTE: And what if all the abused, the trafficked, the aborted, and all those who never reached accountability were healed of their traumas and given the opportunity to grow up without sin unto salvation [if that were their choice]? We cannot know all the nuances of God's plan of Mercy and Justice, but this may apply here, too: “that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (New Testament | 1 Peter 4:6; Doctrine and Covenants | Section 76:73; 88:99; 138:10, 34).
3. Ibid., (Kindle Locations 3981-3999)
4. New Testament | Matthew 7:13-14 (bold emphasis added)
5. Just five examples out of hundreds possible:
Old Testament | Deuteronomy 31:16 ~ And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
Old Testament | Deuteronomy 31:25-30
25 That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying,
26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.
27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the LORD; and how much more after my death?
28 ¶ Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.
29 For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.
30 And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.
New Testament | Romans 3:10-18
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Old Testament | Isaiah 59:1-21 (classic lament)
https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2014/01/gods-lament.html
6. CD-Rom: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © 2001 Intellectual Reserve, Inc.,
7. New Testament | Romans 7:24 ~ O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
New Testament | Revelation 3:17 ~ Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 4:17 ~ Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.
Book of Mormon | Mosiah 2:21 ~ I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.
8. https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2020/03/in-one-fell-swoop.html
https://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-covert.html
9. New Testament | Ephesians 6:12 ~ For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
10. (to sing, to embrace; to visit in nursing homes / hospitals; to open your business; to gather for social, cultural, sports, family events; to go maskless; to stand too close together; to freely worship; to travel without "necessity"; to reveal facts counter to the power narrative; to protest tyranny; and on and on.) Remember what the Savior did when He was told "It is not lawful"? https://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-is-not-lawful.html (The video clips therein have been censored by the powers, but can perhaps be found in other places by searching relevant words.)