Can you count them? The years of the Millennium! According to Scripture

Can you count them?  The years of the Millenium!

Any of us can hear or read about the coming events that will most certainly affect many of us still living or those descendants soon to follow.  The Church does not falter in Her expression of depicting prophecies of the end times, but may not make it a day to day announcement.  

Before Crist’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.  The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.  The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.  (CCC 675).  

Then I saw an angel come down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a heavy chain.  He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil or Satan, and tied it up for a thousand years and threw it into the abyss, which is locked over it and sealed, so that it could no longer lead the nations astray until the thousand years are completed.  After this it is to be released for a short time.  (Rv 20: 1 - 3).  

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so we too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.  Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  Thus we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore, console one another with these words.  (1 Thes. 4: 13 - 18).

Preceding the millennium will occur the Rapture, or being caught up, which guarantees that the final Tribulation is about to happen.  Some scholars may not accept these occurrences but the prophecy found in the Book of Daniel regarding the period of events that will happen is a sign leading to the final battle of Armageddon and the words in the Book of Revelation are truth about the final days of earth as we know it.  The Rapture, the Tribulation, and the awful occurrences that will surely come are not hyper-bole but predictions regarding the final establishment of Christ’s return, the Parousia, and his new heaven and earth as John describes in Chapter 21 of Revelation.  

Counting the thousand years of the Millenium is not possible, but living these and the eternity we all shall be part of is real and we who have believed and adhered to, with Christ, is our future with God in heaven.

None of us can excuse the words of Scripture when we know the bible is inerrant, (contains no faults or mistakes),  and we should not attempt to take verses out of context.  Don't read one section  and say “it says here” when there are always verses before and after what one may assume as truth without reading the entire statement.  That was the first explanation from our scripture teacher who was exemplary in Old Testament Scripture.

Some students might ask, “are we in the days where the Rapture will catch us by surprise?”  Tell us, when this will happen, and what sign will there be of your coming, and the end of the age?  Jesus said to them in reply, “See that no one deceives you.  For many will come in my name, saying, “I am the Messiah, and they will deceive many.  You will hear of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for these things must happen, but it will not be the end.  Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold.  But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.”  (Mt 24: 3 - 6, 11 - 14).  

Ralph B. Hathaway