The Failed Millenniums

This is being reposted because a lot more has been added to it.

(Note-By the way, I know that I break rules of grammar sometimes but it sounds better. The actual correct plural term for millennium is "millennia" My old English teacher would also say that sentences should not begin with "And" or "Or", but sometimes that rule is made to be broken).

We have already seen how the glorious time known as The Sixties was actually God giving humanity a chance to see if they could build the Millennium Kingdom on earth themselves, without going through the Apocalypse foretold in the Bible.

We saw my view of the Sixties as the beginning of a would-be Millennium in the two sections of the compound posting on this blog, "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy" October 2016, sections 17) CROSSING THE RED SEA and 18) THE PENTAGON PROPHECY.

Jesus foretold that when the Jews regained control of Jerusalem from the Gentiles that would begin the countdown to the Return of Jesus to set up the Millennium, when the earth would finally be the godly paradise that it was always intended to be. But, due to our sinfulness, that meant that most of civilization had to be destroyed in the Apocalypse first.

But maybe the Baby Boom generation, that would come of age during the Sixties, might be different. This would be the generation that had heard about the recent cataclysmic world war, the genocide, the new weapons that ended the war but could destroy the world at the touch of a button. Before this there had been the terrible time of the Great Depression and before that, the First World War.

Maybe the Baby Boomers, the generation born beginning just after the end of the Second World War as returning soldiers settled down and started families, would be the generation that had learned it's lesson and would be different.

I conclude that God decided to give them a chance to build the Millennium themselves. Maybe we could call Hitler the Antichrist and the Second World War the Apocalypse, and the Baby Boomers would bring about the Millennium. That is why the nation of Israel was reestablished in 1948, after nearly two thousand years, but the original city of Jerusalem itself remained under control of the Gentiles so that the prophetic countdown, Jesus return to set up His Kingdom while people were still alive who had been alive when Jerusalem was taken back from Gentile control, had not begun.

But we just couldn't do it, we were just too sinful. There was no way that the Sixties, despite the commendable idealism, was going to bring about the Millennium without going through the Apocalypse first.

Many of the Sixties generation had their hearts in the right place, there was a seeking not only for personal fulfillment but for a better world. At the Woodstock concert, in the summer of 1969, 400,000 young people got together for three days and there was not a single act of violence. There was even an effort to "levitate" the Pentagon by people surrounding it in meditation, in order to bring peace to the world starting with ending America's Vietnam War.

Most of the Sixties idealism was not focused on Christianity but there was a Christian side to it, in the Explo 72 concert of Christian music and sermons. It was held in Dallas in 1972 and was kind of the Christian version of Woodstock.

But the Millennium was not to be. It was not mainly a time of God. A famous 1966 cover of Time Magazine asked "Is God Dead"?

The year after that, 1968, a popular movie was Rosemary's Baby, involving Satanism.

The summer of 1967 was optimistically called "The Summer of Love" but drugs and crime ran rampant. Cities across America were convulsed by urban riots. Time Magazine referred to 1967, which should have been around the beginning of the new Millennium of Jesus, as "That long, strange year".

Three of the most prominent rock stars, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and, Jim Morrison died right in a row of drug-related issues.

Clearly, humans bringing about the promised Millennium by their own power just wasn't going to work. It was in June 1967 that the Six-Day War resulted in the return of the old city of Jerusalem to Jewish control, in the state of Israel. That thus began the prophetic countdown to Jesus' promised return to earth, with people who were alive at the return of Jerusalem in 1967 still being alive at Jesus' return.

That is why there was the nineteen-year delay between the reestablishment of the nation of Israel and the actual return of the original city of Jerusalem to Israel. That delay was to see if we were able to being about the Millennium ourselves, without going through the devastating Apocalypse, but it was not to be.

What I want to add today is another unsuccessful would-be Millennium before the Sixties.

There was once a glorious time in the western countries. It lasted from about 1865 to 1914. It was called by various names in different countries. In France it is known as the Belle Epoque, "The Beautiful Era". In Britain and the U.S. it was known as the Victorian Age, coinciding with the reign of Queen Victoria. In America it was also known as the Gilded Age.

There were no major conflicts during this time. It was an extended time of relative peace like the world had rarely seen.

Many of the technical developments that shape our world today came to be. Movies, radio, cars, electricity, aircraft and large ships that made travel for many people common were developed. Mass production in factories was perfected so that the masses, instead of the few, could benefit from manufactured goods.

Some people got fantastically wealthy. Great exhibitions were held in major cities that showcased the wonderful new developments. Perhaps the best symbol of this time would be the Eiffel Tower, which was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 Paris Exhibition, the centennial of the French Revolution. It was the tallest structure ever built. The Eiffel Tower was actually intended to be only temporary, to be dismantled after the exhibition was over, but was probably saved because radio had been developed and it was the ideal place for a broadcasting antenna.

There was amazing advances in science, particularly chemistry. Treatments for disease were developed continuously and life expectance increased dramatically.

Maybe the rapid development of industry during this fortunate time of peace would even allow humans to bring about the godly paradise that was promised in the Millennium themselves.
Unfortunately, there was a decline in belief in God during this apparently glorious era. The publication, in 1859, of "On The Origin Of Species", by Charles Darwin, gave many who did not want to believe in God and intellectual foundation to explain the existence of life without the need for a creation by God. Even though the book states no such thing and does not attempt to explain how living forms could have originated.

The secularism and hostility to organized religion of the French Revolution also had it's long-term effect, particularly in Europe.

The good times were not to last. It all came crashing down into the horrors of the First World War, a war like the world had never seen before. The technical developments that had contributed to the prosperity of the Victorian Age also made it possible for humans to kill each other on an industrial scale, and that is unfortunately what happened.

The war, at least on the Western Front, bogged down into the deadly stalemate of trench warfare. Neither side could break the impasse. Before this war, guns could fire only a single bullet at a time. But the new machine guns multiplied the deadliness of the war many times over. During an offense to break the deadlock, thousands of soldiers might die over a hundred meters of ground.

Hideous new weapons were developed in an attempt to break the deadly stalemate. Tanks with treads all around the body of the tank that could pass right over a trench. One way to take out an enemy trench was to sneak up to it with a flamethrower. At sea, newly-perfected submarines sank ships unexpectedly.

The most infamous development of the war was poison gas. Lethal gases, such as phosgene, mustard and, chlorine, were heavier than air. So if a shell containing the gas could be landed near an enemy trench, the gas would seep down into the trench.

Instead of creating a man-made Heavenly Millennium, humanity had turned it's attention to creating a man-made Hell. Evolutionary theory had humans as the highest form of life but there are no animals that kill each other like this in a war that was essentially over nothing.

What I have always found to be so disturbing about the First World War was that, first, the war wasn't really over anything of great significance. It is sometimes called "The war over nothing that changed everything". Remember that we saw the beginning of the First World War in the posting on the economics blog, www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com , "June 28, 1914, Assassination In Sarajevo" November 2014.

The second thing that is especially disturbing is that so many people, in capitals like London and Berlin, actually gathered to cheer the declaration of war. It was as if all that time of peace was getting boring. Both sides were under the delusion that the was would only last a few weeks. But the war would turn into far and away the most devastating and deadly war that the world had yet seen.

The First World War became simply known as "The War to End All Wars" although, of course, it wouldn't be.

The war eventually ended, and the good times returned. In fact, the good times were better than ever because the now-unneeded manufacturing capacity that went to supply the war effort could be turned to making consumer goods. The result was that fabulous decade known as the "Roaring Twenties". If the Eiffel Tower could be considered as the icon of the Victorian Age ( or the Belle Epoque or the Gilded Age ), then the Empire State Building could be considered as the icon of the "Roaring Twenties".

But, once again, it wasn't to last. Factories were producing, in great quantities, all kinds of goods from cars to radios. The trouble this time would be economic. While some were becoming fantastically wealthy, the workers who were actually producing the goods were not being paid enough to be able to afford to buy them. Manufactured goods were just piling up in warehouses and factories began cutting back on production, meaning that workers had even less money, and it spiraled into a devastating economic crash in October 1929.

Following was the terrible time of the Great Depression. There were long lines at soup kitchens. Many who had gained, but then suddenly lost, great wealth during the 1920s were dead by suicide. Germany was now a democracy, the Weimar Republic, but had it's postwar economy devastated by this crash.

There is one sure way out of an economic depression. Unfortunately, it is to have a war. A party emerged in Germany that had the answers. They were the National Socialists, or Nazis. They absorbed unemployment by drastically increasing the size of the armed forces, and got factories back to full production by making war equipment for them.

It was simple and brilliantly effective, except that it was part of the reason that there would be another war, even more terrible than the First World War. The reason that the Second World War would be even worse than the First is that now civilians were considered as a legitimate target.

When this war finally ended, millions of soldiers returned home and began families. That is what brought about the Baby Boomers and the Sixties that we saw at the beginning of this article. I have concluded that God decided to give them the final chance at building the promised Millennial Kingdom on earth, without going through the horrors of the Apocalypse which will make the two world wars seem like minor conflicts by comparison.

But it was not to be. We will get to the Millennial Kingdom, where the world will finally be the godly paradise that it was always meant to be, but only by going through the Apocalypse first, as we saw in the posting on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It" June 2019.

Notice the chronological placements of newsworthy mass murders like the killings of Jack the Ripper, in 1888 London, and the Manson murders, in 1969 Los Angeles. Both happened right at the height of one of these two failed Millenniums.

Jack the Ripper was in the news in the autumn of 1888, right in the middle of the Victorian Age in London. Times were good, but people in general had been getting more and more secular since the publication of "On The Origin of Species", in 1859. The general movement was away from God.

Could it be possible that these shocking killings, which really jolted society, were allowed to happen to make people start thinking that something was wrong with society and that it needed God?

Likewise the Manson murders, actually an attempt to set off the Apocalypse foretold in the Bible as a race war beginning in the U.S., which would conclude with Charles Manson reigning over the world as Christ as described in the posting on this blog, "Jonestown, Charles Manson And The Gnostic Gospels", December 2019.

In July 1969 there was the epic even of America landing astronauts on the moon, and then getting them safely back home. The following month was the signature event of the idealism of the Sixties, the Woodstock concert in New York State. Woodstock was all about the better world that we could have if we would all live in peace. It does deserve a lot of credit that 400,000 young people got together for three days and there was not a single act of violence.

But what happened right in between those two events? The country was horrified by the Manson killings. The best-known of the victims was actress Sharon Tate. The members of the Manson "Family" wrote "PIG" on the wall in the blood of the victims. The intention being to get it blamed on black militants and thus begin the race war that would be the Apocalypse that would end with Manson ruling over the world as Christ.

Once again, could it be that these horrific killings were allowed to happen between these two great events to remind us that, despite the accomplishment of putting men on the moon and the commendable idealism of Woodstock, something was wrong with society and we needed to return to God?

THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION AND THE SIXTIES

We saw the importance of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in the posting on this blog, "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", January 2017. I see it as having an impact on the world that is comparable to the French and October Revolutions that completely changed the world. The world had been secularizing until the Iranian Revolution turned the tide of history back toward religion.

The effect has been spreading ever since, and has gone well beyond the Islamic religion.

But the Iranian Revolution actually has a close relationship to the Sixties in the west. It is a reflection of the Sixties in how the Iranians demonstrating against the U.S. were a mirror image of the U.S. protests against the Vietnam War the decade before. Bell-bottomed pants were even in style in Iran at the time. The U.S. administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were simply replaced by the unpopular government of the Shah.

The demonstrations outside the U.S. Embassy compound, after the Hostage Crisis began, were the Iranian equivalent of the attempt by antiwar protesters to "levitate" the Pentagon by meditation in 1967.

So the idealism of the Sixties in America and the west was a failed attempt at creating the promised biblical Millennium ourselves, without going through the Apocalypse first. But it turned out to have been reflected in the Iranian Revolution in the following decade. The world was moving away from religion but this is what turned it back. This has affected the entire world, including the Christian nations.

We will still have to go through the Apocalypse to get to the Millennium. But the Sixties were not a complete failure as it did inadvertently end up getting the world moving back toward God.