Millennium Superworld
Introduction:
Every thinking person is concerned about the future. What does it hold? What lies ahead for us, and the next generation—and the next?
Everyone wants to know. Witness the phenomenal advances in technology and communications. Witness the all-time high of mental illness, the disappearance of traditional morality, the breakdown of the family, the upsurge of lawlessness and crime. Witness the millions inquiring into astrology, spiritism, and the occult; all to no avail. What lies ahead? A magazine that could predict accurately the events of the coming week—or year—would not be able to publish enough copies to meet the demand.
But reliable information about the future is not man’s to give. Knowledge of the future belongs to God only, and we today have but one source from which to obtain His knowledge—His written Word, the Bible.
But reliable information about the future is not available from any human source. Knowledge of the future belongs only to God our Creator; and we as members of the human race have but one source from which to obtain knowledge of Him and His designs: His written Word, the Bible.
The question arises: Is the Bible trustworthy?
This series is written upon the premise that the Bible is—positively and absolutely—the Word of God, without error in the form in which it was originally delivered. (The evidence to support this statement is beyond the scope of this writing.) If we cannot trust the Bible and its Author for knowledge about the future, what—or who—can we trust?
One who plans to travel a long distance purchases a road map. He has probably traveled on very few of the many roads pictured on the map, yet he trusts it as a guide. Knowing from experience that a few of the roads are as pictured, he trusts the remainder. Shall we be less trusting of God’s road map, the Bible?
Recall Daniel’s prediction of four world kingdoms, a prediction made when only the first of these kingdoms was in existence. Each rose and declined exactly as foretold (see Daniel, chapters 2 and 7).
Recall Moses’ prediction of the curses that should come upon the Israelite people if they persisted in their idolatrous practices (Deuteronomy 28). The prediction was delivered even before the people of Israel were established in their own land, and some sixteen centuries before Jerusalem finally fell in a d 70; yet it was fulfilled precisely.
Recall the many prophecies of the captivity of Israel and Judah, also the prophecies of their return.
Recall Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the magnificent temple of the Jews more than thirty years in advance (Matthew 24).
All these predictions were fulfilled exactly as foretold. Is it not reasonable to believe that the prophecies yet unfulfilled will also be fulfilled in due time?
Social and moral conditions in the world today are precisely those predicted for the “last days”—that men would be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4), that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13); that “men’s hearts” shall be “failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven [the political heaven] shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26). These are “perilous times,” just as the apostle Paul predicted, a time when children are “disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,” when there is a serious lack of morality and principle and natural affection, when marriage contracts are broken at a rate unprecedented in our history; when homosexuality—strongly condemned in the Bible—is widely accepted—all just as was predicted (2 Tim. 3:1-3). do we not take the greatest risk in the world if we disregard the Author of such prophecies and say by our actions that we do not believe He knows what He is talking about?
The Bible outlines a detailed plan for this earth and thus mankind. The next great event in that plan is the advent of Christ Jesus, preceded by His herald Elijah the prophet (Mal. 4:5). The second coming of Jesus Christ is a promise repeated more than three hundred times in the New Testament alone. Jesus Christ is coming back, just as He went away (Acts 1:10-11). Whoever may deny these facts is powerless to change them. They will come to pass just as God has predicted, whether any choose to believe them or not. Jesus Christ is coming back majestically, gloriously, and soon. He is coming to set up an eternal, worldwide kingdom of righteousness and peace.
This is the plan of God revealed in the Bible.
Thank God, some will believe. According to the Bible, at the time of the end there will be living believers. There will even be some living and believing when Jesus returns who shall never die. says the apostle Paul as he speaks of the whole body of Christ with its many members in different ages, “We shall not all sleep” (1 Cor. 15:51). Again, “We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them [those who are resurrected] in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17; see also John 11:25-26).
And then?—
Then will follow the greatest transformation earth has ever seen: Conquest, renovation, reconstruction, and finally glory that will extend from sea to sea. The scope of the work, its speed, its thoroughness and its final achievement is far beyond the ability of the human mind to conceive. The Bible, however, does give us a brief outline of the principal events and the conditions that will result from the establishing of the new Kingdom, and of the Golden Age that will follow. This is what Millennium Superworld attempts to discuss—within the limits of what God has revealed in Scripture and our more limited ability to express the wonders of His workings. Even so, the little we can say seems almost too good to be true—it would be, but for the promise of the Book: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Using Bible evidence as our foundation, and this broad and comprehensive promise from God, we feel justified in letting our imagination picture to a limited extent the wonders of the Millennium Superworld that is coming.
In general the human race is occupied by small goals, small interests, small purposes. Some of this smallness may be unavoidable; our whole threescore and ten years is a very brief moment in comparison to Eternity.
But let us not limit our existence to what is seen; for “the things which are seen are temporal.” Only “the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). So let us raise our sights above the natural horizons of life and see our world in its true perspective, in relation to the plan of the Almighty Creator and the new order that He will soon bring into being.
Multitudes will scoff, saying it is a dream, that all things continue as they have from the beginning of the creation. People still build houses, and plant, and harvest, and marry, and settle down for normal life, as they have for generations. Let such words strengthen our faith as we see another divine forecast fulfilled: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; …even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:26-30). All was business as usual, until suddenly the end arrived. “Even thus shall it be.” Could words be plainer?
The insights contained in this series are not original with the author. They are the result of the lifelong work of an intensely dedicated and little known student of the Bible, L. T. Nichols (1844-1912), who spent his entire life in quest of a correct understanding of the Bible.
The Bible provides the foundation for the ideas projected in this book. But since the Bible does not relate all the details we would like to know, who can condemn one’s taking the liberty to use his God-given imagination to picture what may be—within the scope of what is revealed? Who can condemn, so long as Scripture is not contradicted? Time will prove—or disprove—the accuracy of the details. But be that as it may, the plan projected in the Word of God shall be. And those who exert the time and effort to understand it shall be strengthened.
Challenge what you read. Take your Bible and verify the foundation beneath what you read, then look forward with radiant anticipation to the reality. For some day soon, the Millennium Superworld will begin to take shape.
In the words of the poet,
These things shall be; a loftier race
Than e’er the world hath known shall rise,
With flame of freedom in their souls
And light of knowledge in their eyes.
Man shall love man with heart as pure
And fervent as the angel thron
Who chant their heavenly psalms before
The throne of God with grateful song.
New arts shall bloom of loftier mould,
And mightier music thrill the skies,
And every life shall be a song
When all the earth is paradise.
Nation with nation, land with land,
Unarmed shall live as comrades free;
In every heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity.
—John Addington Symonds