It is morning. A new millennial day is dawning. The forecast is bright for decades of unparalleled technological advances. The prospects are hopeful for an era of increased prosperity and a higher standard of living.

But foreboding clouds also loom on the horizon.

Turmoil encircles the earth as nation fights nation and tribe fights tribe in ugly ethnic battles that threaten genocide.

Drug traffic, teen age gangs, drive-by shootings, and high crime rates infect the inner cities. Scandals and corruption are rife in the highest citadels of power.

What does the new millennium hold? Man’s predictions are, at best, confused. The scholars of our day are perplexed.

A Mixed Legacy

As the new millennium dawns, an old century fades away. It has left a mixed legacy.

The twentieth century opened with the Wright Brothers making a flight of a few hundred feet. It closed with the earth being circled by jet aircraft, some going over the speed of sound.

It opened with the first automobile crossing the United States in 15 days. It closed with streets clogged with traffic and a world interlaced with super highways.

In 1906 the world heard its first radio broadcast. We enter the next millennium with thousands of stations joined by numerous television networks spanning the globe.

The century began with the telephone in its infancy. It closed with instantaneous communication through the computer with its World Wide Web.

As the century began, men were content to gaze at the moon; today, they have not only walked on it, but are building a way-station for travel to the outer planets and beyond.

As Charles Dickens summed up his day in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

Sweeping World Changes

The twentieth century was a century of sweeping world changes:

World War I was a death knell for the hereditary ruling houses of Europe and the concept of the divine right of kings. As Barbara Tuchman phrased it in her Guns of August: “In 1914 a world came to an end.”

World War II with its mighty atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, raised the awesome specter of a world with the potential to destroy all human life.

While men of military brilliance have fought bravely, there have been villains, too—Adolf Hitler directing the genocidal Holocaust against the Jewish race and the people of Poland, and the “killing fields” of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Ethnic strife has savaged both land and life in Rwanda and the Balkans while religions clash in Northern Ireland and the nations of Islam have directed their wrath against Israel.

The Civil Rights movement behind the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. in America, and Nelson Mandela leading the fight against apartheid in South Africa permanently challenged old concepts on the segregation of the races.

Scores of new nations claimed independent status behind such outstanding leaders as Mahatma Ghandi of India and David Ben Gurion of Israel.

Despite the strong leadership of Pope John Paul II, the laity in both the Catholic and Protestant churches asserted their independence from their church hierarchies.

The past century also saw a 70-year political and economic experiment with Communism fall along with its symbolic “Berlin Wall.”

The world will never be the same as that which entered the twentieth century.

Another Millennium

While the future that the incoming millennium holds mystifies the commentators of the world, there is another millennium also beginning to dawn. This is the Millennium referred to in the last book of the Bible when the followers of Jesus of Nazareth live and reign with him “a thousand years.” This Millennium includes various aspects—such as the “kingdom of God” (Luke 13:28) and “the times of restitution of all things” (Acts 3:19-21).

There is no question as to the outcome of this Millennium.

It promises peace. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”—Isaiah 2:4

It promises health. “And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.”—Isaiah 33:24

It promises happiness. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”—Revelation 21:4

It promises life. “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”—Luke 20:36

It promises righteous judgment. “He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”—Acts 17:31

It promises security. “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.”—Micah 4:4

It all sounds beautiful. Almost too beautiful to be true. How do we know it is so? What assurance can we have in these promises?

Notice again how Micah closes his prediction: “For the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.”

But is that enough? Many men make promises. Many men break promises. And there lies the difference. God makes promises. God does not break promises. God keeps promises.

Sometimes God’s promises are in the form of judgments. Other times his promises are for blessings. Let’s look at God’s record.

Man was not on the earth for long before the human race became corrupted. God pronounced a sentence—he would destroy the race with a flood. One hundred twenty years later there was a flood and only Noah and his family passed over into the new world order. God’s sentence was carried out.

Years later God promised Abraham that he and his wife Sarah would have a child. Years passed. Nothing happened. His wife was well past the time of child bearing. Abraham was one hundred years old. He had a child. God kept his promise.

Still later God dealt with only one nation on earth—Israel. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). They became idolaters. He predicted that they would go into captivity into Babylon. God’s word was sure.

Even before they were taken captive God promised they would be released after 70 years. When the 70 years were up—that exact year—King Cyrus permitted them to return to Jerusalem. God kept his word.

From the very fall of man—and frequently thereafter—God promised to raise up a seed from the race to redeem all men. This man they would call the Messiah. At the very time God predicted he would come, Jesus of Nazareth was born as that Messiah. God’s promise did not fail.

With such a record of fulfilled promises—and there are hundreds more—can we doubt that he will keep his promise of a kingdom of peace? God’s promises are sure. They can be relied on. There will be a millennial kingdom. God promised it. and it will happen.

The Importance of Justice

Will that Kingdom come just because God promised it? Yes! But there is more. Because it is the just thing for God to do. The Bible proclaims that God is not only just, but because of that justice, he is “the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

Justice enters in because where there is a just sentence there must be a just reason for the removal of that sentence. When Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, there was but one penalty—death. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Man sinned. Man must die. It was that simple. There could be no release unless someone paid that penalty for them.

That is exactly what happened. Jesus Christ died to remove the penalty of sin—death—from Adam and all his descendants. Listen to the Apostle Paul:

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as