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The Real Millennium By John Rutis At the dawning of a new millennium, is it time to consider what we should do to prepare for the real utopian Millennium promised in the Bible?
he year 2000 is here. It's the beginning of what most people consider a new millennium. We know now who was properly prepared for the consequences of the Y2K bug. Have planes fallen out of the air? Did you lose your water and electricity? Are government checks late or garbled? Are businesses collapsing? Is the Internet still here so you can read this? No one writing programs 20 or 30 years ago believed that those programs would still be used in the year 2000. Since computer memory was very expensive then and it would be many long years before the century changed, almost everyone used the last two digits of the year in programs, just as we do when writing the date on paper. If programmers even thought about possible problems in the future, they couldn't imagine their programs lasting that long when computers were advancing so fast. But some of those programs are still in use--just grown enormous in size and complexity. In the past two or three years, billions of dollars and thousands of man-years have been spent by the computer industry, banks, insurance companies, government agencies, the military, large corporations and many others to correct the Y2K problems. Most felt they were well-prepared. In spite of all this work, some thought the Y2K problem would devastate the world. Power would go off, banks and insurance companies would fail, cars would stop in the middle of freeways, planes would fall from the air and large government agencies and the military would be in gridlock. These people stocked up on food and water, and bought generators and guns to defend themselves from those who weren't as prudent. They thought they were prepared while all these large organizations were not.
Others thought there would be little trouble. They felt that all the major problems would have been fixed and the minor problems that did occur would be quickly repaired. So they ignored the whole thing. There were many opinions between the two extremes. Now that the year 2000 is here, we know who was prepared and who was not. Except for the Y2K problem, the change from 1999 to 2000 brought no problems of itself. This transition was completely arbitrary. Our calendar was supposedly based on the birth of Christ, but it's well known that the date was wrong and that the 2000th anniversary of Christ's birth was several years ago. There is another Millennium coming--the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on this earth, also called the Kingdom of God. We knew exactly when the Y2K bug would strike, but we don't know exactly when Christ's Millennium will arrive. However, comparing world conditions with the prophecies of the Bible leads us to believe it will be soon. As important as it was to be prepared for the Y2K millennium problems, it is far more important to be prepared for the Kingdom of God. There are even more opinions about this than the Y2K bug. There are those who believe the Millennium is already here--that the church is the Kingdom of God. Within this group are all kinds of opinions about when it started, what church or churches are included and whether Christ came at the beginning or will come at the end or won't come at all. There are others who don't believe in the Millennium, who feel that you can't understand or rely on the book of Revelation. Then there's the vast majority who don't know about the Kingdom of God or don't believe it. None of these people are preparing for the Kingdom because they think it's already here or will never come or they don't even know about it. But it will come--and soon. We need to be preparing for the coming Kingdom with even more diligence than the computer industry, the government and big industries prepared for the Y2K bug. If no one had prepared for the Y2K bug, the world's governments and industries would have collapsed (and some may anyway). Every one of us in the industrialized world would have been facing a world where nothing worked any more. Those who are truly preparing for the Kingdom of God will reign as kings and priests with Christ for a thousand years. This does not mean they will be despots who cruelly oppress people for their own gain as have large numbers of kings and priests throughout man's history. They will be righteous kings and priests serving under Christ. Righteous kings care for their people. They promote peace with their people's neighbors, and harmony and productivity in every aspect of civil life. Righteous priests teach the uncompromising truth of God. They show how keeping God's laws leads to true happiness. They explain that God's laws are not there to limit people's freedom, but to keep people from harm and to give them true freedom.
Just before the biblical Millennium, though, is a time called the Great Tribulation. This will be the most horrible time humanity will ever go through. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24:21-22, "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened." The Great Tribulation will be so bad that mankind would destroy all life on earth if God did not stop us. But God promises to stop that destruction, and to protect and train those who are willing to serve in the Kingdom of God. If it were not for this small number of people preparing for the Kingdom, a group Jesus called the elect, God would not save the rest of humanity, as Jesus showed in Matthew 24:22 (quoted above). How then should we be preparing for the Kingdom of God? Everyone must prepare individually. We cannot depend on governments or corporations or even churches. Families and churches can be a help, but they can even be a hindrance. There are four areas in which each of us must be preparing: We Must Believe the Gospel of the Kingdom of God Gospel means good news--the good news that tells us that the Kingdom of God is coming, how it will come and what it will be like. Knowing the Kingdom is coming and how it is coming will provide us with understanding of what we should be doing to prepare. Knowing what the Kingdom will be like gives us great incentive to prepare to be a part of it. A helpful resource about this subject is The Gospel of the Kingdom which you can receive free of charge. We Must Accept Christ as Savior Once we understand and know that the Kingdom of God is coming, we must accept the salvation offered by its King, Jesus Christ: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). We Must Give our Lives Totally to God We must work toward becoming totally obedient to God: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:1-2). We Must Live by the Spirit In this human life we are not able to live a completely sinless life, but it must be our intent to live through the Spirit of God, not after the flesh: "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Romans 8:13). As we prepare for the coming Kingdom of God, we know that God is preparing things for us so wonderful that we cannot even imagine them: "But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him'" (1 Corinthians 2:9). But God gives us some understanding of these things through the Holy Spirit, as Paul continues in verse 10: "But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God." With such a fantastic future in store, let us, with God's help, prepare for the real Millennium as God prepares His Kingdom for us. Copyright 2000 by United Church of God, an International Association All rights reserved. |
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Other Articles by John Rutis
Origin of article "The Real Millennium"
Keywords: millennium kingdom of God preparing for the kingdom
Kingdom of God - and Christ's coming: