This is part two. Read the first part here: https://www.nairaland.com/6783710/what-expect-after-mark-beast

THE END OF THE WORLD.
At what state does Christ find His people in when He returns? How do we welcome Jesus at His second coming? Are we in church sitting calmly on the benches listening to a sermon? Are we on the streets looking up expectantly, dressed our best? Are we, perhaps, preaching His word to the unbelievers as the skies open and the Messiah breaks through with His angels? Or maybe we're sitting at home watching the evening news waiting for His appearing to be announced on TV?

Not at all.

The conditions under which Christ finds us are nothing like the aforementioned.

When "the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of
God" 1 Thessalonians 4:16, He finds us in a state resembling those old end-of-the-world pictures where, on a gloomy day, groups of tired and weary people in torn clothes, with tears streaming down the face, are kneeling on mountain tops looking up, watching Christ coming in the distance while all around the mountains whole cities lie in ruins. That's a more accurate rendition of our last day on earth.

How we end up in the wilderness with nothing except the clothes on our back is because of Jesus's admonition:

"When ye therefore shall see the
abomination of desolation, spoken of by
Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy
place, (whoso readeth, let him
understand
Then let them which be in Judaea flee
into the mountains:
Let him which is on the housetop not
come down to take any thing out of his
house:
Neither let him which is in the field
return back to take his clothes."
Matthew 24:15-18.

The Messiah's return is precipitated by the Mark of the Beast. All talk of the end of the world must begin with that Mark. That Mark is the catalyst. The count down to The End begins with the creation and enforcement of the Mark, which in turn brings the anti-Christ to the world stage, which then causes the falling away of all churches as they take the Mark and follow the anti-Christ (the "falling away" of 2 Thessalonians 2:3), this leads to the persecution of those of us who call out the apostasy of the churches and who exclude themselves from the Mark. We face backlash for our defiance which includes being forbidden to buy or sell, which escalates to death threats and finally an official law that condemns us to death. All this causes the world to fill up its cup of iniquity and Michael stands up, which removes the Restraint and the world is plunged into "a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time". Daniel 12:1 - this is the Tribulation, which intensifies when Jesus, the heavenly High Priest, ceases His intermediary work in the temple above and the seven plagues commence. We, the faithful, are not directly affected although we live through these calamities.

Presently the suffering world concludes that we who reject the Mark of the Beast must be the cause of all suffering, and to stop the suffering we must be found and killed so God is appeased. This triggers a massive manhunt for us the UnMarked which covers the whole world. Humans guided by demons search the ends of the earth for us - scouring the mountains, caves and forests. Until they find us. When Christ appears with the clouds of heaven, He appears first and foremost to save our lives. This is the immediate result of His return - we're delivered from imminent death. Christ's arrival gives us a way out where we have none.

At Christ's voice, dead believers come to life, while we the living are translated and together we're caught up in the sky to meet our Savior and His angels.

This is the rapture.

As we depart earth headed for Heaven, everyone remaining behind on the planet is cut down by the glory of Christ.

We go to Heaven and stay there for a thousand years. Meanwhile Satan and his evil angels spend that millennium on an empty earth covered with dead bodies. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Revelation 20:5.

This is a summary of how the world ends. For a more detailed account with scripture references, go here: https://www.nairaland.com/6757595/end-world-sequence-events

BACK TO EARTH.
After the thousand years Christ takes us back to the desolate earth. Says the prophet, "the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." Zechariah 14:5.

Zechariah 14 and Revelation 20 and 21 cover most of what happens at this point.

"the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." Zechariah 14:5. "And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south." Zechariah 14:4
"And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." Revelation 21:2.

At our return from a 1000 years in Heaven, we bring the New Jerusalem city with us and Christ lands His Feet on the mount of Olives in Israel and it separates into two and in the space between He puts the holy city.

THE BATTLE OF GOG AND MAGOG.
"And when the thousand years are
expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his
prison,
And shall go out to deceive the nations
which are in the four quarters of the earth,
Gog, and Magog, to gather them together
to battle: the number of whom is as the
sand of the sea.
And they went up on the breadth of the
earth, and compassed the camp of the
saints about, and the beloved city: and
fire came down from God out of heaven,
and devoured them". Revelation 20:7-9.

Christ resurrects all the dead around the world who did not make it to Heaven. This is the second resurrection, the resurrection of damnation. Every sinner who ever lived, young and old, great and small: everyone - from the beginning of the world to the end of the world - is brought to life. Their number is so vast it is impossible to calculate. They are "as the sand of the sea". Now Satan, who has been without purpose for the past thousand years because everyone was dead, is suddenly back in business. This is likened as him being set free from his prison as John said "and after that [the 1000 years] he must be loosed a little season." Revelation 20:3. Satan uses the respite given him to resume his work of deception, this time convincing the resurrected sinners to attack the New Jerusalem:

"And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." Revelation 20:9.

The events of the Gog and Magog war were also prophesied a long time ago by the prophet Ezekiel. Chapter 38 of Ezekiel parallels the events of Gog and Magog as told by John in Revelation, as we shall see shortly...

HOW SATAN DIES.
Satan is a superior angel once known as Lucifer. He was created magnificent and breathtaking - so much that he started to believe that maybe he was more than an angel: That he was a god, worthy of the worship of angels just like God. That is his sin and the cause of his fall.

Says Isaiah, "How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!....
For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God:
I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation,
in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of
the clouds; I will be like the
most High."(Isaiah 14:12-14)

Ezekiel says of Lucifer, "Thus saith the LORD GOD, Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so."
"Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness."
Ezekiel 28:12-14,17.

Lucifer allowed the glory, beauty and power gifted him to get to his head and corrupt him.

When God says, "I will destroy thee, O covering cherub..." Ezekiel 28:26, God has just the perfect ending befitting an angel that has ruined the lives of billions of humans...

When Satan's vast armies surround the New Jerusalem where we and Christ together with the angels are, this is what happens:

"And this shall be the plague wherewith
the LORD will smite all the people that
have fought against Jerusalem; Their
flesh shall consume away while they
stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall
consume away in their holes, and their
tongue shall consume away in their
mouth.
And it shall come to pass in that day,
that a great tumult from the LORD shall
be among them; and they shall lay hold
every one on the hand of his neighbour,
and his hand shall rise up against the
hand of his neighbour." Zechariah 14:12,13

In Genesis when people came together and built the Tower of Babel in defiance of God who wanted them to scatter and spread all over the world, He confused their language and caused them to misunderstand each other which made them fight each other and eventually abandon the building project and scatter all over the world. Genesis 12:1-9. At the battle of Gog and Magog, as Satan's numberless army surrounds the New Jerusalem city, God causes a panic among them and in their confusion they start fighting one another. Whatever weapons they have come with, they now use at each other. It's a bloodbath straight from the most horrifying of nightmares. As the vast throng cut and maim each other, guess who's among them getting cut up too!

I'll give you one guess.

Yes, Satan, the chief of demons himself, Lucifer the bright and morning star, in all his glittering glory is caught at the centre of the slashing. Facing the fury of his own armies.

Ezekiel makes it clear it is God's will that things end this way for Satan. Describing this divinely-engineered end to the devil's long career of ruin and destruction, Ezekiel says:

"Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD;
Because thou hast set thine heart as the
heart of God;
Behold, therefore I will bring strangers
upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and
they shall draw their swords against the
beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall
defile thy brightness.
They shall bring thee down to the pit,
and thou shalt die the deaths of them that
are slain in the midst of the seas.
Wilt thou yet say before him that
slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be
a man, and no God, in the hand of him
that slayeth thee.
Thou shalt die the deaths of the
uncircumcised by the hand of strangers:
for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD." Ezekiel 28:6-10.

The same masses Satan has delighted to mislead and ruin and celebrated when they died in their sins, the same ones Satan's temptations have caused to miss Heaven, the very same people whose worship he has enjoyed - at the last, God throws Satan to them to do with him as they will. Lucifer's legendary wisdom can not save him now. His glory - the brightest of any creature, that glory no other creature can equal, which filled him with pride - the doomed mob destroys it. No one cares for his screams. The lost want their revenge.

The universe looks upon this scene and fully approves. Thousands of years ago creatures everywhere watched Satan in the Garden of Eden deceive Eve, plunging the human race into unimaginable ruin. God gave Jesus who gave His life to correct that mistake via the very costly Plan of Redemption. Now Adam and Eve together with those of us who utilized the second chance given are saved and created anew now Satan wants to ruin us all over again! What kind of determination is this? How can someone be so relentless in his pursuit of destruction?

By this very attempt the fallen angel fills up his cup of iniquity and is ripe for destruction. Satan's long career of ruin reaches its limit at Gog and Magog.

There's now no doubt in the mind of every angel that Satan deserves to die. If God puts the devil down now, no one will doubt God's justice. Everyone sees the fallen angel is incurable. His unrelenting drive to destroy everything God has created exposes him as a virus that needs to be eliminated for the well-being of the universe. At this point his demise will be greeted with relief. He won't be missed. And his ideals and ambitions will die with him.

GOG AND MAGOG ACCORDING TO EZEKIEL.
Ezekiel describes this same gathering of the forces of evil against the New Jerusalem and the confused fight amongst themselves that end with God raining fire on them, like this:

"And it shall come to pass at the same
time when Gog shall come against the
land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my
fury shall come up in my face.
For in my jealousy and in the fire of my
wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day
there shall be a great shaking in the land
of Israel;
So that the fishes of the sea, and the
fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the
field, and all creeping things that creep
upon the earth, and all the men that are
upon the face of the earth, shall shake at
my presence, and the mountains shall be
thrown down, and the steep places shall
fall, and every wall shall fall to the
ground.
And I will call for a sword against him
throughout all my mountains, saith the
Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be
against his brother.
And I will plead against him with
pestilence and with blood; and I will rain
upon him, and upon his bands, and upon
the many people that are with him, an
overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire,
and brimstone." Ezekiel 38: 18-22

JUDGEMENT AND HELL.
As the slashing and the cutting goes on, "fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." Revelation 20:9.

This is hell.

Everyone is burned in proportion to their sins - "out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." Revelation 20:12, after which they're vanquished and annihilated, "This is the second death", Revelation 20:14. "For the wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23. Said Jesus, "but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell". Matthew 10:28.

A NEW WORLD.
After the wicked, together with Satan and his angels, are destroyed and no longer exist, says John, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." Revelation 21:1

God creates a new earth and new skies that is our home forever. Says Paul, "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23. Jesus Himself says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" John 10:10. Having been faithful stewards of our short temporary life on earth, God now entrusts us with something more permanent - A life as long as His.

We will live as long as God shall live.

Remember the most important thing is that we understand God's sacrifice by giving us Jesus and what that means to us. Prophecy and everything else must add to a relationship we already have with Him.

There's a loneliness that a lover, parent, family or success can never satisfy. You can have it all, but still feel something is missing. That loneliness is put in your heart by God Himself so it can draw you to Jesus who alone can satisfy it.

God is love and He loves you.

Happy Sunday