The resurrection of the saints has occurred. The books are opened, and judgement is announced. The saints go to eternal life. A life without pain or suffering where we sit on a cloud and play a harp. Or do we? The wicked are thrown into a pit of fire forever. Or are they?
T o start with, I will look again at how long people are thrown into the lake. When we look at scriptures about how long people are in hell, we see that typically the eternal is about the place itself. Only twice does it mention how long people are there for. Revelations 14, And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image.
Matthew 25-46 It just says eternal punishment, which means that it is non-stop. Furthermore, they are left behind in development and never catch up. That would be consistent with the prodigal son parable, where, when the son returned, it was celebrated. When the other son inquired about the justice of the situation, the father told him that everything he had would still be the faithful son’s. 2 Johns “full reward,” or do not fall away and come back again because you never catch up.
The words in Rev 14 in the Greek do not say for ever and ever, but ages of the ages. That is quite different; one is without ending, which is just a long time. We have observed that at the point of resurrection, there will have been four ages so far. So ages of ages means at least two ages to come because the plural is used. The description of Satan is “ages of the ages”. That is for all the ages to come. If there were just two, the same words would have been used. So more than two ages are to come after the resurrection.
The controversy over Edgar Cayce and reincarnation. Cayce was not saying that the eastern idea of reincarnation was right. What he said was that before these ages that our history has told us about and the ones to come, there was an earlier age. That there is another depth to the ages. The one we live in now has our spirit attached to a physical form, and this attachment creates a soul that goes with our spirit and body. When we have left our physical body, the spirit takes this soul with it to create a new type of energy-based being. What Cayce said was that there was an age before that when only the spirit lived. During this age, the spirit went from a blank spirit to developing some individual traits and preparing for the next age. When the word says God knew us before we were born, this is not metaphorical. He really knew us as spirits before we were born. Sound reasonable, and I cannot wait to see if Edgar Cayce was correct.
Because there are ages to come, that will mean further development and growth for us all. Sorry to all those harp players who were eagerly waiting to sit on that cloud. Not going to happen.
What will be the conditions under which this growth takes place? We know that Jesus died for all creation, and the lion will lay down with the lamb. There will be animals in heaven; they just will not be eating each other. Trees and plant life, but no weeds. A new garden of Eden.
Revelation 21 has a lot in it. Rather than copying it, I will just grab the facts from each sentence:
There is a new heaven and a new earth. That is an awkward start. A new heaven implies that there is still going to be some kind of death or transfer from one place to another. It will not be a place just for angels; they still have access to the original heaven. Let us concern ourselves with the New Earth. The old passes away, and there is no more sea. No longer are there water- and atom-based life forms. We are now spiritual and energy based. I think we will look like the picture of Jesus in Revelations. I do not think we will be able to tell whether we were men or women in this life.
A new Jerusalem appears, and the dwelling place of God is with man. That is saying that this dwelling with man is starting. Jesus has ruled the earth with an iron rod for the past thousand years. He rules but does not dwell with us. I always had an issue with Jesus in Jerusalem and the people rising against him. They would know who he was. This explains that, though Jesus rules, he is still not truly with us. He is called the alpha and the omega, which is Jesus and not the Father. Is that the purpose of these ages? To be mature enough to be able to see the Father. What does that really mean? We are getting beyond our ability to comprehend here.
There will be no more mourning, crying, death, tears, or pain any more.
There is a list of those who will not be there. It is different because it includes two groups never mentioned before. “Cowards and Faithless” This is pure speculation on my part, but I believe in the last days when the lukewarm will be spat out. It is a picture of lukewarmness, cowardliness, and faithlessness. A weak and pathetic form of token Christian living.
Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.
That says the bride of Christ is not the church but the holy city of Jerusalem. In fact, it does not say anywhere in the scriptures that the church is the bride of Christ.
Then we get an elaborate picture of Jerusalem. There is no temple in the city, for the city itself is the temple to both the Father and the Son.
The light from the glory of God will lighten it and the entire new earth. The nations still exist, and David is appointed king over the Israelites. ‘They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.’ We will not live in the city but bring our praise, glory, and honour to it. In Rev. 21:27, we get this: 'But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false'. We know anyone whose name is not found in the book of life is in the pit, so who or what could this be talking about? Any speculation on my part would only be wild, but there is much more to this than meets the eye.
When we look at Revelation 22, we come across several paradoxes. Four verses show what the new earth will look like. The problem is that the Tree of Life's fruit will yield monthly. A month is a lunar cycle, and there is no longer a moon. The leaves are used to heal the nations. There will be issues between nations carried forwards through the resurrection. All pain, etc., will be gone. Does that mean, in the fifth age, there will be these issues between the nations? Growth comes about through problem-solving and dealing with issues. Will each of these new ages have troubles and issues to resolve for us to reach new levels of maturity? Only time will tell.
If you see me there, come and have a chat about some of these issues. I will not mind at all being teased about the things I got only half right.
After what we have read, should we just give up, hunker down, and last until the end? Certainly not. Should we arm ourselves, march on our government buildings, and fight our armies and police? Or perhaps be more cunning. This feudal society we are being forced to accept is not one of the common man's ideologies. This is being forced upon us with money. They put a person in a position of power, tell them what they want to do, and fire anyone who disagrees or cancels them out of society. Because this is money, hardly any people need to be indoctrinated to achieve their goals. That may be a strength, but it is also a weakness. It means that the rulers can be easily cut off from the people by removing a relatively small number of them. The Shamgar (Judges 3:31) approach, where he killed just 600 rulers to regain complete control over Israel. Not what Christians should do, with the possible exception of a chosen few. Everything that is going on is all in God's plan, and if we go about fighting the wrong way, we end up fighting against God. All that is written about the end of the age must happen. However, to what degree these events occurred is not stated. Will the headlines in the Paradise Daily read that the saints on earth were defeated totally and completely, or will they read that in a close battle, the saints suffered a close but noble loss?
As Christians, we should fight this fight in the way God wants us to go to war. Be in the world, but not of it. Get involved in boards, committees, and councils. However, far more important than that is the prayer front. To target the cherubs and their schemes in this world. To isolate and choose a cherub or his scheme and attack them through prayer. That is the power God gave to man at the time of Jesus. The aim is to throw these wicked beings into the Abyss before their time. To bring their schemes to nothing. In the Ephesian way.