The recent re-posting of my article on Restoring Planet Earth has sparked some new interest in the Millennium. Many people find it hard to understand how such a seemingly perfect beginning could deteriorate into a massive rebellion at the end. The simple answer is “natural man” but let’s take a more comprehensive look.

First, a little background. The Bible mentions a total of seven different approaches God has made in an effort to maintain a relationship with the human race. Six of these are history and one is yet future to us.

In the early 1800′s John Nelson Darby, borrowing a term from Ephesians 3:2, named these seven approaches “dispensations” and explained how so far each one has ended in failure. Here’s a summary of each in the order of their occurrence.

The Dispensations
1) Innocence … Between the Creation and the Fall of Man in the Garden (Genesis 3) God interacted freely and personally with Adam and Eve. Then they broke the only rule He had given them (Genesis 3:11-13) and were expelled from the Garden. Sin entered the world.

2) Conscience … Between the Fall and the Flood, God allowed man’s conscience to govern his behavior without Divine interference. Because of the sin nature passed down from mankind’s first parents, the result was that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). God pronounced judgment upon the world and destroyed all but 8 members of the human race in the Great Flood.

3) Human Government … from the Flood to Abraham. After the flood God told Noah to go forth and replenish the Earth (Genesis 9:7). Noah’s descendants disobeyed God’s commandment, setting about instead to build a great city and tower from which to study the stars (Genesis 11:4). God confused man’s language, causing them to stop building the tower, and scattered them through out the world (Genesis 11:8-9).

4) Promise … from Abraham to Moses. God promised Abraham a son for himself and Sarah (Genesis 15:4) and a homeland for his descendants (Genesis 15:18-19).  But they grew tired of waiting and produced a son on their own, who they named Ishmael (Genesis 16:1-2,15). When God’s promised son Isaac was born, Ishmael was sent away (Genesis 21:8-13) causing enmity between the Jews (descendants of Isaac) and Arabs (descendants of Ishmael) that continues to this day. After Mohammed, a descendant of Ishmael’s, founded Islam this enmity took on religious significance and became even more intense.

5) Law … from Moses to Jesus. God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and promised the Jews a life of peace and plenty in a Kingdom of their own if they obeyed Him (Exodus 19:5, Exodus 20:1-17). After repeated periods of disobedience which included rejecting their Messiah King, God withdrew His offer of the Kingdom and expelled them from their land (Matt. 21:43, Luke 19:41-44).

6) Grace … from Pentecost to the Rapture, the Church Age. No longer requiring righteousness through works, God granted a righteousness through faith in the completed work of Christ to all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile (Romans 3:21-24). Most will not believe and will be punished through eternity.

Note: It’s important to realize that Grace is unlike any of the other dispensations in that didn’t replace Law, it just interrupted it.  Law has another 7 years to run, called Daniel’s 70th Week (Daniel 9:24-27), which fills the time between the Rapture and the 2nd Coming. During this time all the nations to which Israel has been scattered will be completely destroyed and Israel will be disciplined in preparation for receiving the Kingdom God has promised to give them (Jeremiah 30:4-11).

As you can see these six approaches either already have or are about to end in failure. Now for the seventh and our answer to the questions that prompted this study.

7) The Kingdom … the 1000 Year Reign of Christ also known as the Millennium. It begins with the 2nd Coming. This time Israel will accept the Kingdom offer (Zechariah 12:10, Zechariah 14:8-9). Satan will be bound (Rev. 20:2), all unbelievers will be expelled from the planet (Matt. 25:41-46), and God will once again dwell in the midst of His people (Ezek. 43:6-7). You’d think with all these advantages mankind would finally be able to live in a manner pleasing to God. But it won’t happen. Eventually, with the exception of Israel, the world will rebel against God and His people in one last attempt to regain control of the planet. God will send fire from heaven to consume them all (Rev. 20:7-10).

What Was The Question?
Remember, the question was how such a seemingly perfect beginning could deteriorate into a massive rebellion at the end.

In a near perfect environment, with Satan bound, Jesus ruling in person and only believers left in the world it seems to us like the perfect opportunity for mankind to prove that given the right circumstances it is possible to live in peace and harmony with God. How could something that seems so right go so horribly wrong?

In Jeremiah 17:9 we’re told that our hearts are deceitful above all things and are beyond cure. This is why the Bible never mentions changing our heart. Instead it speaks of giving us a new one. Our natural heart has a built in failure mechanism that has eventually torpedoed every relationship God has proposed to have with us. It’s called sin and the summaries above demonstrate its deadly effect.

At the sheep and goat judgment, which follows the 2nd Coming, the Lord will separate surviving believers from surviving unbelievers. Believers will be welcomed into the Millennial Kingdom (Matt. 25:34) while unbelievers will be sent into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41) never to be seen on Earth again.

Jewish believers will live in Israel, while Gentile believers will populate the nations. The Earth, having been restored to its pre-flood grandeur, will be a remarkable place to live, and will cooperate with its inhabitants to produce a life of peace and plenty never before seen. I can imagine that the people, having just survived 7 years of the worst times humans have ever endured, will feel blessed beyond any measure.

It took 1656 years for pre-flood man to bring God’s perfect creation to a point where His only option was to destroy them all. This was probably due to the long life spans they enjoyed, where there were multiple generations of elders among them who retained the memories of Earth’s earliest days.

By contrast Judges 2:10-15 tells us that after the generation of Israelites who endured the time in the wilderness and conquered the Promised Land had died, the next generation neither knew the Lord nor what He had done for Israel. Before long they had descended into idolatry and brought judgment upon themselves.  Lifespans had already become remarkably shorter and the memory of the Lord was lost as there were no longer the multiple overlapping generations of the past. This time it only took one generation to begin their downward spiral.

In the Millennium, lifespans will become longer again but eventually children will be born who will not have experienced the Great Tribulation and history will begin to repeat itself.

The Bible only hints of this so we don’t know how long it will take, but it seems likely that among each generation there will be substantially fewer believers than in previous ones.

Diverging Paths
It appears that this will only happen among the Gentile nations because there’s no mention of such a falling away in Israel. Therefore, when examining the millennium we have to look at Israel and the Gentile nations separately.

Isaiah 40:1-2 tells us that as of the 2nd Coming the Lord will speak comfort to Israel, and tenderness to Jerusalem, saying that her hard service is over and that her sin has been paid for, having received double from the Lord’s hand for all her sins. In Ezekiel 36:26-27 we read of God’s promise to give His people a new heart and put His Spirit in them to move them to follow His decrees and keep His laws.

They won’t be changed from mortal to immortal yet, so they will still sin. But the Temple rituals they will be required to practice, complete with daily sacrifices for their sin (Ezekiel 40-46), will serve as a constant reminder of the Lord’s death on their behalf. Also, He will extend peace to them that will flow like a river and the wealth of the nations will pour in like a flooding stream (Isaiah 66:12). The combination of these things will enable them to remain faithful to the Lord throughout.

We’ve had more to say about Israel’s Millennial Kingdom in previous studies, so for the balance of this one we’ll focus on the Gentiles because that’s where the long awaited time of peace and plenty will eventually deteriorate into a world wide rebellion and judgment.

The Lord will be a strict administrator of God’s law during the millennium, brooking no disobedience. Psalm 2:9 tells us He will rule with an iron scepter, which means He will be inflexible in His dealings with man. No more of the Sunday School Jesus patting little children on the head and telling everyone to turn the other cheek.  In Psalm 2:10-11 the kings of the earth are warned to serve Him with fear and trembling because His wrath can flare up in a moment.

As it has been through out human history, children born in the millennium will have to mature and decide whether to accept or reject the Lord’s death on their behalf.  As successive generations of children are born in the gentile nations, the sin nature they will have inherited will make it increasingly difficult for them to accept the Lord and His kind of rule, especially as memories of the Great Tribulation judgments fade. In each generation the number of those who reject the Lord will grow and their obedience to His rule will only be given reluctantly and with growing resentment.

Give Us An Example
One example the Bible gives of this resistance concerns Egypt. In Isaiah 19:19-25 the prophet described a time when Egypt will come to know the Lord and worship Him with sacrifices and grain offerings. Then something will happen that causes the Lord to strike them with a plague, subsequently healing them after they turn back to Him. The chapter ends with the Lord calling Egypt “my people”. This prophecy has never been fulfilled.

In Zechariah 14:16-19 we learn that all the Gentile nations will have to be represented each year when Israel celebrates the Feast of Tabernacles. Failure to attend will bring consequences. In describing those consequences Zechariah described a plague of drought. He specifically mentioned that Egypt would suffer this plague but hinted that other nations would be afflicted for failing to attend as well. This prophecy is Millennial in its scope.

In Ezekiel 29:13-16 there’s a prophecy of a 40 year period when Egypt will be completely desolate, with its people dispersed among the other nations of the world. At the end of 40 years the Lord will bring them back. This is another prophecy that awaits future fulfillment.

I believe these three prophecies speak of the same thing; a 40 year judgment against Egypt for refusing to attend the annual Feast of Tabernacles. If so, it’s an indication of how intolerant the Lord will be of any violation of the rules and how severe the punishment for such will be. No wonder the growing number of unbelievers will start forming thoughts of rebellion.

We shouldn’t marvel that natural humans could be so wicked as to bring about the destruction of the very utopian existence mankind has dreamed about from time immemorial. Even a casual reading of the Old Testament shows us that on a smaller scale this very thing happened repeatedly in Israel’s history, even with God Himself living in their midst.

Also, a study of human nature will lead us to the conclusion that eventually the incredible blessings of millennial life will be taken for granted as more and more people are born who haven’t known anything different. Soon these blessings will be overshadowed by the inflexible requirements of the Lord’s rule.

As the end of the Millennium approaches the number of rebellious unbelievers will be as great as the sand on the seashore. When Satan is released they will be primed and ready for a leader behind whom they can unite. From all over the world they will march against the camp of God’s people, the city He loves, and in response He will send fire from heaven to devour them all. And then the devil who deceived them will be thrown into the lake of fire to be tormented day and night, forever (Rev. 20:7-10).

What’s The Meaning Of This?
At first glance, having a 1000 year interlude between the Age of Man and Eternity doesn’t make sense. But on reflection, I think that it may be natural man’s last, best, chance to prove himself to God.

Through out history we’ve had the evil workings of the devil to contend against, but all during the Millennium the devil will be imprisoned. Without him to tempt them can man behave in a manner pleasing to God?

We’ve also had the bad influence of unbelievers, but at the beginning of the Millennium all unbelievers will be taken away. Will that make it possible for man to please God?

For the last 2000 years the Lord has been absent from the planet. When He returns to become their King will His presence among them enable man to please Him?

Sadly, the answer to all these questions is a resounding no. Even with Satan bound, no more unbelievers, and the in person rule of the Lord Himself, there’s still enough sin in the hearts of natural man that as soon as Satan is freed, man will join him in a final rebellion against God. The Millennium is the seventh and final test, proving that there is no circumstance or condition in which natural man can behave in a manner acceptable to a Holy God.

If you haven’t done so lately, give thanks to God that you came into the world during the Age of Grace, where the righteousness of God has been imputed to you by faith (Romans 3:21-24) making you forever perfect in His sight (Hebrews 10:12-14).  Your inheritance of eternal life has been guaranteed (Ephes. 1:13-14) as the example in ages yet to come of the incomparable riches of God’s Grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:7), with no other requirement than to believe in the one He has sent (John 6:28-29). Such a thing has never happened before and will never happen again.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: “This is a requirement of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke. Give it to Eleazar the priest; it is to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. Then Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting. While he watches, the heifer is to be burned—its hide, flesh, blood and intestines. The priest is to take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool and throw them onto the burning heifer” (Numbers 19:1-6).

For the first time in several years there has been a report of a red heifer being born. (Actually it’s a red calf, since a heifer is a young cow at least a year old who hasn’t had a calf of her own.) This has caused a stir in Orthodox Jewish circles as well as among prophecy conscious Christians. The reason being that the ashes of a pure red heifer are an essential ingredient in the purification water necessary to restore the Jewish people to ceremonial cleanliness. Unclean people cannot build and worship in a holy Temple, and a Temple is necessary to fulfill end times prophecy.

Therefore the appearance of a red heifer is a sign that one of the last requirements for the construction of a Temple could soon be met. Notice I said could be met. I’ve already seen several news reports and articles that act as if Temple construction could begin tomorrow. But the truth is that it will be three years before the heifer is old enough and during that time if it should sprout as few as two (2) non red hairs it will be disqualified.

A pure red heifer is a rare animal. Even its hooves have to be red. In all the history of Israel only nine red heifers have been sacrificed, the last one about 2,000 years ago in 15 AD. The Great Hebrew sage Maimonides (1135-1204 AD) claimed that the 10th red heifer would herald the coming of the Messiah.

After All This Time?
After 15 AD There’s no record of a potential red heifer being born until the mid 1990′s when one was born through a special program conducted jointly by breeders in the USA and the Temple Institute in Jerusalem. I remember the excitement it caused among students of prophecy and was blessed to be able to discuss this with both the American and the Jewish overseers of the breeding program at a meeting I hosted for them in 1994. It was one of a series of meetings they were conducting in the USA to increase awareness among Christians of their effort to raise a qualified red heifer.

I had first met Rabbi Chaim Richman, who was representing the Temple Institute, a few years earlier during my first trip to Israel. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on the red heifer, and much of the material that follows came from his book on the subject that he kindly gave to me during that visit to the US.

Excitement was running high until 4 white hairs were found in the heifer’s tail. Since then there have been a few other candidates, but all have been similarly disqualified. Like the others, this current calf will have to remain 100% red for 3 years to qualify.

All sacrifices to the Lord have to be free from any defect, spot, or blemish, but you might wonder why this heifer has to be 100% red. According to Rabbi Richman, it’s explained in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet they shall be white as snow. Though they are red as crimson they shall be as wool.”

God is not approximate about anything. If the heifer is supposed to be red, it has to be 100% red, because that’s the way God sees things. For example, to be sin free we can’t just be pretty good, we have to be perfect. The presence of any sins in our life, even little ones, makes us sinners through and through. For sins no greater by comparison than a couple of non red hairs on a red cow we are excluded from the presence of God. James said the violation of even one law makes us guilty of all (James 2:10). Get the idea?

When the red heifer is completely burned its ashes are white. Being mixed together with pure water from a spring or a brook (called living water) and sprinkled on the people purifies them from their sins.

But like all the remedies for sin in the Old Covenant the ashes of the red heifer only cleansed them from the sins of the past. It gave them no protection going forward. Every time they sinned, the sacrifices and rituals had to be repeated. Since they could never stop sinning, they could never stop sacrificing.

This is one of the primary differences between the Old Covenant and our version of the the New Covenant. The writer of Hebrews explained that the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year could never make perfect those who drew near to worship (Hebrews 10:1). But when Jesus offered for all time one sacrifice for sin, He made perfect forever we who are being made holy (Hebrews 10:12-14).

Reading The Fine Print
“A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They are to be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin”(Numbers 19:9).

But the red heifer alone won’t guarantee that Temple construction can begin. The verse above tells us that in addition to the priest who supervises this, someone who is ritually clean has to be responsible for collecting and storing the ashes.

Normally ashes from previous red heifers would be used to qualify someone for this job. In Biblical times ashes from all of the previous heifers were stored at the Temple. These ashes were undoubtedly preserved in advance of the second Temple’s destruction because of their importance. But over the last 2,000 years the location of the preserved ashes has been lost. Most experts think they are probably in the same area of Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Over the years, numerous searches have been made there using the latest technology, but to date they remain undiscovered. If an unclean person gathers up the ashes, it would make the entire supply unclean, so they must find a way to purify a man to gather up the ashes of the new sacrifice and see that they are properly stored.

Then there’s the issue of obtaining pure water to mix with the ashes. Again, only someone who is ritually clean can collect the water. In Temple times the water was obtained at the spring that fed the pool of Siloam. An ingenious method was implemented to assure the water was not accidentally made unclean in the process of obtaining it.

Jewish people believe they can become unclean by coming in contact with a dead body. Since the creation so many people and animals have died and been buried or simply left to decay that to them the ground itself is a source of uncleanness. Because of this the Temple is built atop a foundation consisting of a series of alternating arches extending down to bedrock to insure it can’t ever become unclean.

The water from the spring comes out of the earth pure. To be sure it stayed that way, certain pregnant women were selected to give birth in a special facility built to guarantee there was no possibility that the children they brought into the world could inadvertently be made unclean. The children were raised in purity in this sequestered environment until they reached eight years of age when they were pronounced ready to obtain the water.

Riding on boards attached to oxen so as not to come into contact with the ground, they were taken down to the spring to collect the water and bring it back up to the temple. Arriving there they mixed the water with ashes from previous heifers and sprinkled the priest who would conduct the sacrifice of the next heifer. The priest would then walk across a special bridge that was built atop a series of arches from the Temple mount across the Kidron valley to the Mt. of Olives where the altar upon which the red heifer was sacrificed was located.

(The image at the top of this article is a fairly rare drawing of the Temple Mount showing the altar on the Mt. Of Olives where the red heifer was sacrificed in the upper right hand corner with the bridge that connected it to the East Gate of the Temple. Note the offset arches that prevented anything from the ground below from contaminating the pavement upon which the priest walked, allowing him to remain ritually pure.)

Of course, Temple Institute officials know all this, and are preparing to meet these requirements, even though they can’t do so today.

So in spite of the breathless headlines proclaiming that the requirements for building the third Temple have now been met, the facts tell a different story. Now don’t get me wrong, the appearance of another red heifer candidate is big news, and it could turn out to be one more of the many signs we see around us that we’re in the end of the end times. But it doesn’t mean that all the hurdles have been cleared for building the next Temple. Far from it.

Probably the biggest hurdle is the desire of the Jewish people themselves. Currently most of those who are pushing for a Temple are doing so for the wrong reason. They think building a Temple will prove to the world that the Palestinians are wrong when they insist the Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem. To these people, having a Temple there would be a huge political victory. The problem is that alone wouldn’t bring the nation any closer to God. Those who want a Temple to renew their covenant with Him are still in the minority.

What’s It Gonna Take?
I believe it will take the Battle of Ezekiel 38 with the supernatural victory God will win for them to ignite a true national desire to come back to Him, and that’s when they will become serious about building a Temple. In Ezekiel 39:21-22 the Lord said,

“I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay on them.  From that day forward the people of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God.”

And even then they’ll be fooled into thinking the anti-Christ is their Messiah, and will let him defile their new Temple. Daniel prophesied that this will happen.

“He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him” (Daniel 9:27)

Speaking of the same event, Paul said,

He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thes. 2:4).

And when God returns to dwell in the Temple during the millennium one of His first statements will be to accuse Israel of letting this happen.

“In addition to all your other detestable practices, you brought foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh into my sanctuary, desecrating my temple while you offered me food, fat and blood, and you broke my covenant. Instead of carrying out your duty in regard to my holy things, you put others in charge of my sanctuary” (Ezekiel 44:7-8).

You’ve Got The Wrong Guy
As Christians we believe the construction of the Temple will precede the coming of the Messiah. Daniel (Daniel 9:27), Jesus (Matt. 24:15-21), Paul (2 Thes. 2:4), and John (Rev. 11:1) all confirm this. Therefore the one Israel will welcome as the Messiah who will help them build the Temple will in fact be the anti-Christ. Speaking to Israel, Jesus said, “I have come in my father’s name and you do not accept me. But if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him”(John 5:43). And so it will be.

Even so, the birth of a calf that could become the 10th red heifer is important news for Israel and for prophecy students everywhere. For Israel it could mean that the coming of the Messiah is close, although the time before He comes will include the Great Tribulation. For the Church it could be one more sign that the rapture is even closer.

More and more prophecy scholars are agreeing that what’s unique about our time is not that there are specific signs telling us we’re at the end of the age. What’s unique is that all the signs we were told to look for are here.