Confusion from not WANTING to believe it!

The kingdom of the saints will last forever

Scripture does say that the kingdom of the saints will last forever. That is not really an idea to contest, unless you have a very distorted view of the Bible or of prophecy. When God was promising a kingdom to David’s Son Jesus the Christ, it was said that,

“Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before you: your throne shall be established forever.”
2Sam 7:16

We are now translated into this kingdom, past tense.

“who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love;”
Col 1:13

Heb 1:5 quotes 2 Samuel 7 as being about Jesus! Further, Hebrews says that we are Jesus “house.”

“but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.”
Heb 3:6

And Revelation talks of Jesus already being on His throne.

“He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne.”
Rev 3:21

And that throne is forever, per Daniel 2 and many, many verses.

But the beast “conquers” the kingdom?

Huh? What? It is amazing the number of verses which we gloss over and fail to get the messages we desperately need.

There is someone called the “beast” in Revelation 13, and the “man of lawlessness,” in 2Thessalonians 2, and the foolish shepherd, or the idol shepherd in Zechariah 11, and it does indicate that for a while, it does look like, he has had the final victory over the saints, the house of God, the kingdom of God. The entire world will worship this man.

“that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
2Thes 2:12

It says the same thing in Rev 13:4-5. Further it says,

“It was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation was given to him.”
Rev 13:7

No it couldn’t be, I have heard it argued. NO ONE can overcome the church, so they said, and they rejected the clear meaning of Revelation 13.

Of course ultimately, the church will NOT be overcome.

The beast thinks he has won, but it is only for a short 3-1/2 years. Then at the last the faithful saints are delivered and the beast is thrown alive into hell, Revelation 19. Still the Savior says,

“… Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Lk 18:8

In other words, even our Lord questions whether there will be any faithful at the end.

Our incomplete understanding of Scripture sometimes prevents us
from seeing God’s warning to us.

We should always remember that Scripture is NOT a pick and choose buffet, but that it is all true. The challenge is to see how all the parts fit together.

Scriptures are from the World English Bible (WEB), a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901