09 - The Final Rebellion and the Great Judgment
The Final Rebellion and the Great Judgment.
ALL THINGS MADE NEW. THE GREAT ABDICATION.
214. The reign of the Lord Jesus will, indeed, be an age of blessing; but the Thousand Years will soon pass by, and, sad as it is to contemplate, their completion will be speedily followed by another and final outburst of sin and rebellion. During the whole period of the Millennium, Satan will remain bound in the Abyss, and be unable to deceive the children of men as he did in the previous Dispensations. Hence all the spiritual influences of the Power of the Air will then be tending to good, and no one, save the wilfully and persistently wicked, will be able to find reason or excuse for sin. But the hearts of men will still be carnal, and very many of them will render service to the Lord, not with loyalty and good-will, but merely through fear and the absence of any other leader. Consequently, when, at the expiration of the Thousand Years, Satan and his legions are loosed from the Abyss and the air again becomes tainted with evil influences, the multitudes of the insincere will yield to temptation, and will soon be breathing out hatred and defiance of God.
215. In brief, then, some or all of the nations will once more he tempted and deceived into revolt, and will raise the standard of rebellion against the Government of David, the Lord’s vicegerent at Jerusalem. They will gather themselves together to march upon "the beloved city," and will even compass it about; but, before they can come near to harm it, they will be destroyed by a direct interposition of God, Who will send down fire and utterly consume them. This revolt will break up the Millennial peace, and a period of judgment will follow it. The Great White Throne will be set, and the dead, the small and the great, will be summoned before it to give an account of the deeds done in the body. And all who are condemned will be cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.
216. As soon as the judgment is ended, the whole earth will he purified by a fire so intense that, as Peter tells us, the very elements shall melt with fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10-12). But, as, the conflagration dies out, New Heavens and a New Earth will appear, in which none of the former evils will be found. For sin, the curse, sorrow, sighing, sickness, death, and even the separating sea, will then have passed away for ever, and all things have been made new.
217. This will be the Eternal Rest, when the former things shall not he remembered, nor come into mind (Isaiah 65:17). And the New Heavens and New Earth are those wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Peter 3:13), and which "shall remain" (Isaiah 66:22).
218. Perhaps, it will be immediately upon the establishment of this final order of things that the great event foretold by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:24-28, will take place. For all the conditions mentioned by the Apostle will have been fulfilled. The Lord. will have finally put down all opposing rule and authority and power, and have; subjugated all His foes; even Death, the last remaining enemy, will have been destroyed. The whole of the work, to do which He came forth from the Godhead, will have been perfectly accomplished, and all creation apart from men, and all those of the human race who could be saved, will have been restored to a glorious and intrinsic purity and holiness. There will, therefore, be no longer anything to keep the Supreme Father and Most High God away from His creatures and the works of His hands. And so, the Lord Jesus will vacate His Throne, and deliver up His Kingdom to God, even the Father, that God, that is, the Glorious and Ever-blessed Trinity, may be all in all. Henceforth the Lord will cease to reign as Man; but He will continue to reign as God in conjunction with His Father; for the grand consummation of God’s plan in the Bible will then have been effected. His wisdom and power, ever blended with His love and mercy, will have triumphed over every foe, and overcome every obstacle: sin and death will be no more: time will have passed away, and the endless ages of Eternity have resumed their course.