I believe the thousand year reign is symbolic of the unknown time of Christ's Second Coming...which shall be Judgement Day. I know many take this Thousand Year Reign literally, considering our differences then I shall respond to the question in part here at least...you seem to welcome such a response.Revelation 20:7-9
7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
Obviously for anyone to believe we're almost there, they would have to believe that we're currently living in the millennium, which I realize many people do not, but even from those people I ask to consider what they believe this time will look like and contribute to the conversation on that level.
I believe we're currently in the thousand years and I believe the thousand years started sometime in the first century AD. Not sure if it was at Jesus' resurrection, or the destruction of Jerusalem, but no matter. The point is, I believe that the next major event to happen on the prophetic timeline is the end of the thousand years, which is precipitated by the release of Satan. So what would this look like?
I believe what I'm seeing in the world today looks very much like we're nearing the end of the thousand years and I'll explain why. Revelation 20:9 tells us that Satan will do three things.
I believe Satan would be released invisibly but that he would immediately set to work prepping the people to do his dirty work, and that would primarily involve deceiving people into believing that Christianity is evil, and then leveraging that belief into an outright attack on Christianity.
- Deceive the nations
- Gather the nations for battle
- Surround the people of God
Deception
The deception that we're seeing now in the world is at a level I've not seen in my life time (I'm 49 years old). Just 12 months ago I felt that 9/11 was the greatest deception to ever be perpetrated on the general public, although the "climate emergency" talk was a close second in my mind. Today our governments and media lie to us every single day about everything and anything, we're told that there are no genders, that everybody is racist, that killing unborn babies is a "women's health right" and that demanding a fair election makes you guilty of "ripping up the constitution" and in need of "deprogramming". In the eyes of many today, truth is hateful and evil is righteous.
Gathering
The redefinition of gender, the erasing of lines between male and female, the fight for sexual immorality and the accusations of "hate speech", with its fluid definition, getting nearer and nearer to the teachings of our Bible and it's not hard to see where this is going. Public individuals are already calling for the Bible to be classified as hate speech, and how long will it be before elected politicians make it official? I just can't see this taking more than 5 or 10 years at most.
Surrounding
Clearly this "surrounding" would have to be a spiritual surrounding because Christians live all over the world so it can not be the surrounding of a single city. I imagine this to be the marginalization and indeed criminalization of Christianity, and this, seems very near indeed. Sweden is already jailing pastors for preaching that homosexuality is sinful, California has made it a criminal offense to criticize homosexuality in schools and Scotland's proposed new hate crime bill includes vague language that can easily be used to label the Bible as criminal.
Now to get to the next step I think things would have to get much worse and the Bible would indeed have to be outright banned, and the attacking of Christians not only tolerated but encouraged, so I don't think we're there yet (at least not in western nations) but things seem to be progressing rapidly now so it may not be long.
Other Signs
Other signs that have me thinking we're nearing the end of the age revolve more around science, than faith or the current socio-political climate. The combining of human DNA with animal DNA; Scientists can essentially do it now though it's not widely done. will God allow it? Scientific discoveries, now that the god particle has been discovered and we start talking about time travel and other dimensions; how much will God allow us to discover about the universe? The alien agenda seems to be more and more accepted in the mainstream as if we're "almost ready" for disclosure; will the aliens have a part to play in the final deception?
I personally would be very surprised if we're still here in 2040, and I would be somewhat surprised if we're still here in 2030. Yes, of course, I could be completely wrong (just as my mother was when she was certain that 1987 would be the "year of the rapture" because Hal Lindsey said so) and that's fine. I'm not making a prediction or anything like that. I'm just saying, based on what I'm seeing today, it seems unlikely to me that God will allow us to continue on our current trajectory for much longer.
Is anybody else thinking along these same lines, or am I on an island here?
I believe the warfare is primarily spiritual warfare which plays itself out on those living on the earth...Satanic power va God's power given to the saints, namely our faith in Christ who fights all our battles for us and to our good no matter what the outcome appears while we live.
Consider Matthew 24...I'll paraphrase here, but at the Judgement Day things will go on as in the day of Noah...eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Yet on the other hand, we read that during this same time frame there will be such distress unequaled from the beginning of time until now and if those days will not be cut short none would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days were cut short.
So, what then is being spoken of by none would "survive"? Physically? why would people then be eating and drinking and being jolly? Must be spiritual survival. Perhaps such evil will prevail that it will so darken the world of the knowledge of God that few will survive...a type of persecution for the believers or actual persecution of the believers may exist.
Here in Matthew 24 it is also mentioned that because of the increase of wickedness the love (I believe this means love of God) of many (some Scriptures read "most") will grow cold...in fact, Luke 18:8 has Jesus saying when the Son of Man returns will He find faith on the earth?
So, if we look at that metaphor of the fig tree in Matthew 24 it does look very much like end times, why wouldn't it though, we are marching that direction and things get increasingly evil. Paul pens in
II Timothy3:12-14:
12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,
Matthew also speaks of the rise and fall of nations and one might suppose these end times signs are most pronounced at such times as well. We do not know the last day, but Jesus says when you see all these things to WATCH, and so we all must do so...watch and pray...testify and keep the faith to the end.
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