Recently I received a good question from a reader regarding the scriptural pattern of two thousand years and the significance of that pattern in scripture. Below is my response and I pray you may find it illuminating.
Hello Jeremy,
Thank you for your email. Let me see if I can break this down into a brief explanation, as I do tend to get very wordy and I would not like to bore you with a long email.
God has set a period of seven thousand years to play this all out. Three sets of two and the final as the Millennium. Each set of two is two days. Thus six days are allotted to man and the final day is His Rest - a Millennium period of His reign. God has stated that man's years shall be 120. There are 120 jubilee cycles in six thousand years. Each set of two days is a lesson for mankind with the Millennium being the final teaching - that we - apart from our Father, are doomed. We need Him.
The explanation of the two thousand years is this:
Firstly, God is teaching man lessons. Lesson one - Without Me, you are lost. This the Jewish Rabbis refer to as the "Epoch of Void" or years of void. There is nothing here of the Law or teachings of God, save for the teachings that Adam was passing down through his line that reach Noah. By this time over sixteen hundred years had passed and the only ones following these teachings were Noah and his family. The rest of the world was led astray and deprived. Assisted rather well, by the Nephilim, in my opinion. So God is showing man that he is in need of the Law of God.
The second two thousand years are referred to as the Epoch of the Law (or Torah), for it is recognized that Abraham began to hear from God and obey His voice, thus heeding the Law of God. This Law progressed through Abraham and his lineage but was learned by Abraham also, at the feet of men like Noah and Shem. Shem in fact opens the first school of the prophets and here Eber is taught. Eber is who the Jews derived their name as Hebrews. Abraham knew and learned from Noah and Shem directly, and Shem was influential in the life of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.
Once the Jews are enslaved in Egypt their bondage causes a generation to forget much of the teachings in a specific manner and they are brought out to Sinai so that God may show Himself strong on Abraham's behalf and demonstrate that there is only One God. But with all their successes and failures in the promised land, they are eventually taken captive again, this time by Babylon for a period of seventy years. Upon their release and the establishment of their homeland once again there is a period of four hundred years - called the years of silence, for there are no prophets during this time. No voice of God in the land and this creates a void filled by the religious fanatics. A sect of Judaism called Pharisees. This group creates an additional four hundred laws for the people to have to obey to be considered holy. So without us hearing directly from God, any of us can be led into the bondage of legalism. This is a slow boil and it can happen very subtly. So we have had two thousand years of the law to follow but man is still no better. What could possibly help mankind out of the darkness?
The next two thousand years is called the Epoch of the Messiah. Now the Jews believed it was to be the time of the Messiah and have written about this in both Talmuds. Yet they record that - "due to our sins this time has been postponed". Now you and I both know that the Messiah did indeed come, yet He was not recognized by them. We would call this period, the time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and you can see by studying revivals since the Cross, the impact of the Holy Spirit on culture and in the hearts of men as they have given themselves to God with all their hearts. Yet, even still, through all these great outpourings sin has abounded and great men and women of God have made mistakes and yielded to temptations, grieving the Holy Spirit. Recommend the series of books called, God's Generals to reflect on these great movements in church history. So the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was wonderful but man needs more.
We need both the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the very presence of our Father. The abolishing of sin and the works of darkness, we need Satan bound. Well, that is exactly what the Millennium is there to teach us. That even after a thousand years of peace and His presence with us - if given the loosing of the devil and temptation once again, many a heart would turn to darkness, never really being children of light with ALL their hearts. Desiring more, the pleasures of the flesh then the communion with the Father.
So over time, as humanity has spread away from those garden gates that closed so loudly behind our father, Adam, we have learned that without God's spirit in us and around us, we are lost, we are without hope. So when you picture Adam and Eve in the garden and the Word says they were naked. We think naturally. We should know that they were crowned with the glory of God. Ps. 8. The glory of God caused Moses to so shine that people could not look upon his face. Your cells are designed to be exposed to Life - to God - to radiate His glory. This kind of glory would have caused Adam and Eve to radiate as they walked through the garden and indeed, they would have appeared as beings of pure light, as their skin entirely radiated His Glory. We are on our way back to the garden. The time after the Millennium will reveal this and will reveal your destiny and purpose on a level you have not even dared to imagine yet. The things He has seeded inside your Spirit - the things you love to do - dream about doing are there because it pleases Him to give you these desires. And they will be fulfilled. Do not limit God to have to cause all these things to occur in a timeframe that is limited to our time - now. Pre-Rapture. Because your life is eternal, just as your dreams and ambitions and hopes and purposes, are eternal. The best is yet to come.
Blessings,
M. Joseph Hutzler, Eschatologist
www.FullBibleTimeline.com