Archive for April 2016

The number ten is a specific number that holds meaning in the Bible. Like the Ten Commandments which cover all the Laws of Moses. So the number 10 times 10 times 10 is the completeness of the Trinity’s view on a matter within time and history. Two illustrations of that.

Remember the number 144,000 that are saved? Was that a literal number limiting the actual souls of people who can get saved? Of course not. In sermon #27 covering Revelation 14:1-5 I said that This 144,000 represents the twelve tribes of Israel, multiplied by the twelve Apostles, multiplied by a millennium. It’s God’s way of speaking about the Great Host of the Redeemed, united in one Faith Community in Heaven. (12x12x1,000=144,000) Cults think it is literal.

Jesus talked this way when He said that 7 times 70 is all the goodness and kindness we must offer in hospitality. To limit our forgiveness to 490 would disappoint Jesus and the Apostles. We must think deeper than that.

When a period of time is described as a thousand years, God is describing a period of time that is complete and done. God is counting out complete periods of time between one event and another. God is not counting out the exact years. This period of time described as a 1,000 years is God’s way of saying that the specifics of that period of time will never again occur. The uniqueness of that period of time is done. Complete. Satan will never again be bound awaiting his being loosed back to the Earth. Satan is never coming back!

There is a long period of time when Satan is bound, and a short period of time when Satan is loosed. If 1,000 was literal, then why didn’t God give us the exact number of years for the little period of time? Because neither period of time is necessary for us to know in real numbers.