Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Isaiah 11:8

Copyright Ó 2013 J. Neely
Isaiah 11:8ues

8 And the sucking child [yanaq] shall play [sha`a`] on the hole [chuwr] of the asp, [pethen] and the weaned child [gamal] shall put [hadah] his hand [yad] on the cockatrice [tsepha`]' den. [mauwrah] KJV-Interlinear

8 And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den. NASB

The term, asp, refers to various types of venomous snakes.

The term cockatrice generally refers to a viper or a tongued serpent such as would be found in mythical folklore, like the medusa whose look can turn the person to stone if they looked it in the eye.

In either case, both terms refers to extremely deadly animals, both of which no one in their right mind would ever go near, let alone a mother with a nursing infant, or a parent with a young child.

However, when Christ takes the reigns of power in the Millennium, then the changes are going to be so dramatic and so far reaching that it would take the normal person some time to get used to them.

However, these changes will be so dramatic, and complete and thorough, that even young mothers will think nothing of the risks imposed by nature, for there will be none.

The deadly poisons of snakes and all such creatures, will be non-existent.

No more bites.  No more dangers.  No more threatening risks from nature toward the very innocent and helpless of children.

The hole of an asp is not a place that an infant can place themselves near.  A mother has to do that.

The den of other dangerous animals is not a place that a toddler would be allowed to go and play.   A parent would have to allow that.

And yet these restrictions, that we would impose on our own children today, will not be restrictions or even second thoughts or concerns of parents who will live during the Millennium.

And remember this, that these verses are referring to animals, not to the bad behavior of people that might be changing. These as nature changes and they will happen dramatically and virtually instantly beginning at the start of the rule of Christ in the Millennium.

As for people, we have studied in other passages that even the rule of Christ will be insufficient to get everyone to believe in Him.  His presence, the dramatic changes in nature, the dramatic changes in the human lifespan, the phenomenal prosperity that will exist, the perfect weather for one-thousand years, will not cause everyone to believe in Christ.

At the end of the Millennium, Satan will be released and he will find a huge population of unbelievers living on planet earth.  And they will rally quickly to him and rebel against Christ, in Satan’s last effort to overthrow Christ from the throne.

That last revolt will end quickly and the Millennium will end immediately after, followed by the last resurrection of living and dead millennial believers, and their reward evaluation before the last Judgment Seat of Christ.

Then all unbelievers will be resurrected in a very different resurrection to face Christ at the Great White Throne, to receive their final sentence and condemnation.  The Lake of Fire follows for them/

After this the universe is destroyed and the new universe is created and eternity begins for all believers.

Often times it takes something extremely dramatic to obtain changes in people. 

Often times, even extreme changes are not enough to change people.

Prior to the flood, angels infiltrated humanity in order to destroy the human race.  Humanity flocked to that change, and to their own self-destruction.

The flood in Noah’s day was dramatic enough and yet no one turned to the Ark, for their deliverance.

The world saw the ten plagues against Egypt, and turned away.  They saw the many miracles of Jesus and turned away.  The world has seen many diseases and plagues, and world wars, and economic disasters and many weather related and natural disasters that have been beyond extreme, and still humanity has remained negative toward Christ for the most part.

Even in our current day, there is an intense indifference toward the very basics of the spiritual life, in favor of more convenient approaches to God and what people believe is their right or their better way to serve either themselves or God or whatever deity or goal they have defined for themselves.

We will likely see many more disasters in our future.  We already know that the end of our dispensation has been described as the period of the Great Apostasy.  This is simply a turning away from truth, for whatever else people will turn to, whether secular or religious.

Then the next great historical event, the Rapture, may not even get noticed, except perhaps by some, what with such a huge negative interest in God, Christ, doctrine and so forth.

And that leaves the last seven years of human rule, called the Tribulation, in which well over ninety-nine percent of the entire worlds population will die.

Most folks would call that, dramatic and extreme.

The people, mature believers, who only seven years earlier were unbelievers, and now will become the first and only survivors to enter into the Millennium, will do so with the dramatic visions of an entire world that died, with the visions of entire islands and continents that have totally changed their geography, with a nature that is nothing like the nature from before, with life that is so dramatically different and better under the rule of Christ, that one would think, that that would be more than enough to convince people to look to Christ.

But as we have already studied, the world and its changes whatever they might be, are never enough.  People have to believe in Christ and pursue their spiritual lives as God has designed that growth process, in order to effect those same changes in themselves.

But who will listen?  Who will read the words?  Who will figure it out?

And so will you be numbered among the vast, vast, vast majority that will fail? 


Or are you going to be numbered among the very, very few that will succeed by pursuing your daily bible study, every day, without exception?