Time Span of the Bible - A Key to Understanding Bible Prophecy

What are you going to be doing for eternity? 

Play harps and float on a cloud?

What sparked the war in Heaven?

Did Satan and his fallen angels try to storm the throne room of God?  Was it an epic battle?

Who and what are demons?

Are they the same thing as a fallen angel?  Why do they need to live inside of a body?

Why don't we know these things?

Here is the key:  The Bible is specific to this 7000 year period of man on Earth.

That's it, no more, no less - we don't know much about what God was doing before the Earth was created and we don't know much about eternity after the Millennium.

Before Creation:

The Lord does give us some info and primarily seems to give us information about the enemy.  Here's what we do know:

We see that the angels (or elohim)  were witnesses to the Creation (Job 38:4-7), so we know that they were around before the Earth.

Angels Watching Creation

Psalm 8 appears to be written from an angel's point of view, right after the Creation and during the Edenic period because it states that God walks with man (Psalm 8:4).

We do not know the timing of Satan's rebellion, but we do know that by Genesis 3, he was already the enemy of God.  We know how the rebellion began in Satan's prideful heart (Ezekiel 28:17) and we know that he sought to exalt himself above the Most High (Isaiah 14:13-14).

Jesus says that he saw Satan thrown down from Heaven like lightening (Luke 10:18) but we are not quite sure when this took place!

Eternity:

In addition, we are not told much about eternity, except the most salient point which is the assurance that the church will be with the Lord always (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Revelation 22:14-15 is totally confusing if you try to study it through the "eternity" filter.  

Sin?  

Unsaved people? 

How can that be in eternity?

The mistake stems from Rev 21:1, the new Heaven and the new Earth.  This looks like eternity but it's not.  Like 42% of Revelation, it's taken directly from the Old Testament: Isaiah 65:17 and Isaiah 66:22.  In context, this is clearly the coming age of Israel - the thousand year reign of the Lord on the Earth; the Millennium.

Once we understand that the Bible was written for yesterday, today, and tomorrow and that tomorrow only goes as far as the end of the Millennial Kingdom, we can study the Scriptures with increased discernment and understanding.

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