Spir Dynamics 194-196 5/19/93; 135 2/3/93; 2 Pet 8/22/71

DOCTRINE OF CIVILIZATIONS

A. Definition

. 1. A civilization is defined as an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry and government have been reached.

2. Biblically a civilization is a period of history which begins with God’s grace provision and deliverance of believers and terminates with maximum degeneration of mankind to a point of self-destruction. To prevent the destruction of the human race the supreme court of heaven destroys by cataclysmic judgment the entire unregenerate and degenerate category of the human race. Man left to his own devices is self-destructive. If God did not interfere, the human race would have been long gone from this earth.

a. Without parents teaching children values, it is inevitable that over a period of years there will be degeneration that reaches a peak in self-destruction. The biggest contribution to degeneracy is the failure of parents to teach children in the home.

b. As people learn the wrong things in the educational system, the government changes from a system of protecting your freedoms to a system of destroying your freedoms. Believers are either in the pivot of mature believers preserving their nation or they are in degeneracy contributing to the self-destruction of the nation.

3. A civilization from the divine viewpoint is compatible with God’s plan in the creation of the human race to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict. The prehistoric angelic conflict terminated with the trial of Satan and all fallen angels. The sentence of the supreme court of heaven was pronounced—the lake of fire forever. Satan appealed the sentence and God granted an appeal trial. The appeal trial is human history; for God created man to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict. Man has one thing in common with the angels—volition. The fall of man paralleled the fall of Satan (in both cases there was negative volition toward God).

4. A civilization begins with believers only and terminates with cataclysmic judgments that remove all unbelievers from the earth. It is the starting over again of the human race. It begins with believer’s only and ends with a divine judgment, which destroys the entire population of the world except believers.

5. Each civilization has its own climate, environment. Human beings and animals have different characteristics but always remain within their own species. All the changes occur within the species. For example, horses may very in every civilization, but a horse is still a horse.

6. The Lifeboat Metaphor.

a. A lifeboat is defined as a ship’s boat, both readily available in an emergency and able to rescue and maintain people from a sinking ship. The lifeboat analogy recognizes the fact that in human history God has rescued and maintained certain believers during a cataclysmic divine judgment from the supreme court of heaven.

b. On several occasions, God has prevented the self-destruction of the human race by a catastrophic judgment, in which most of the human race is destroyed. During this catastrophic judgment certain believers are preserved to go into the next civilization. Operation Lifeboat occurs at the end of each biblical civilization and is analogous to the preservation of a remnant of believers as a cadre to enter into the next biblical civilization and expand the human race once again. The purpose of this preservation is to continue and resolve the issue of the prehistoric angelic conflict.

c. There are two exceptions.

(1) No further perpetuation of the human race is necessary for the believer who enters the eternal state civilization in a resurrection body.

(2) The Rapture of the Church is in the pattern of the termination of civilizations, but is not a termination point. All believers depart the earth in direct contrast to the Second Advent which terminates the postdiluvian civilization.

d. There are four great civilizations and cataclysmic judgments.

(1) The pre-diluvian civilization, terminated by the flood. Noah and his family were preserved.

(2) The postdiluvian civilization, terminated by the baptism of fire. All believers are preserved at the Second Advent.

(3) The millennial state civilization, terminated by the Great White Throne judgment. All believers are preserved to go into the eternal state.

(4) The eternal state civilization.

e. Civilizations emphasis the self-destructive tendencies of mankind coming to a crisis point, so that the supreme court of heaven must interfere in order to protect the human race from total self-destruction.

B. There are three civilizations in human history.

1. The antediluvian civilization (before the flood) goes from Adam to the flood.

2. The postdiluvian civilization (after the flood) goes from the flood to the Second Advent.

3. The millennial civilization goes from the Second Advent to the termination of history.

C. The Pattern For Each Civilization.

1. Each civilization begins with believers only. This is operation lifeboat.

2. As the civilization continues, degeneracy occurs in many forms.

a. There is physical degeneracy, sexual degeneracy, violence and brutality.

b. There is mental attitude degeneracy from the arrogance skills.

c. There is intellectual activity which excludes God completely.

d. There are the self-destructive human solutions to the problems of life.

e. There is power lust temptation from the sin nature converted by human volition into degenerate forms of government.

f. There is degeneration in the culture and society of a country.

3. The compartmentalization of the human race through languages, nations, attitude toward Christ, and attitude toward Bible doctrine slows down degeneracy or isolates it to a specific geographical location and prevents it from spreading to other geographical locations, so that the ship of the human race remains afloat. However, when degeneracy reaches a saturation point, the human race is in jeopardy of complete and total self- destruction. The supreme court of heaven then has to operate on the cancer with a cataclysmic judgment. This results in operation lifeboat.

4. Each civilization terminates with a catastrophic and cataclysmic divine judgment, which destroys the cancer of degeneracy in the human race and provides mankind the opportunity of continuing life on this earth as the extension and conclusion of the prehistoric angelic conflict. The judgment of the supreme court of heaven accomplishes two things at the end of each one of these civilizations. It removes the cancer of degeneration which threatens the human race with self-destruction and it preserves a cadre of believers to repopulate the earth and perpetuate the issues related to the prehistoric angelic conflict.

a. Noah and his family.

b. All believers who survive the Tribulation.

c. All believers of history who survive the last judgment and enter into the eternal state.

D. The Antediluvian Civilization.

1. This civilization began with Adam and the woman in the Garden of Eden in a state of perfect environment. There volition was tested by one tree in the garden. The only way they could sin was through negative volition to God’s command. The origin of sin is volition, not temptation. Temptation is not a sin. This civilization carries through their fall, regeneration, and the denying of perfect environment to them. Perfect environment was denied to them as a result of the fall, because mankind in the state of sin has no capacity for perfect environment. All values were established in the home through the teaching of parents.

2. In this civilization brothers and sisters married without any genetic problems. The animals were different. This is when dinosaurs existed. Weather was different. There was no bacteria. People lived for 700-800 years. The women were breathtakingly beautiful.

3. This civilization degenerated due to the angelic infiltration of fallen angels who had sexual relations with the females of the human race, producing a super race of heroes, who were the subject of mythology. Gen 6:2ff cf. Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7; Ps 29:1, 89:6, where the Hebrew phrase BENI HA ELOHIM refers to angels. The world was filled with the NEPHILIM, the half angel half human creatures. This was Satan’s strategy to destroy true humanity on the earth and prevent the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. This super race was characterized by two things: degeneracy and self- destruction, and negative volition and spiritual death.

4. Since human beings are self-destruction, and true humanity on the earth was in jeopardy, God administered the great judgment of the universal flood which destroyed the half human half angelic creatures plus all unbelievers. Only eight believers still existed on the earth, Noah and his family. The other believers had already died.

5. God took away all sexual ability from angels as part of this judgment.

E. The Postdiluvian Civilization.

1. This civilization begins with believers only (Noah and his family).

2. The universal flood introduced bacteria into the human race. This started infections which led to shorter life spans. Noah’s grape juice was changed to wine by the action of fermentation, the first time this had ever occurred. (Because Noah did not know the effects of fermented wine the first time he got drunk was not a sin.) The earth was repopulated but the life span was reduced.

3. This civilization terminates with the Second Advent of Christ and the first fire judgment—the baptism of fire, in which all unbelievers who survive the Tribulation are cast into fire.

4. There are at least six dispensations in the postdiluvian civilization: the age of the Gentiles, the age of the patriarchs (from Abraham to Moses), the dispensation of Israel (from Moses to Christ), the dispensation of the hypostatic union (from the virgin birth of Christ to the ascension), the dispensation of the Church, the Tribulation.

5. Principles.

a. Restraints on degeneracy in this civilization are twofold: the impact of invisible heroes (winner-believers) and the restraining ministry of the Holy Spirit, 2 Thes 2:6-7.

b. The Church on earth during this dispensation has a part in this restraining ministry on degeneracy by believers becoming invisible heros, members of the pivot of mature believers. Once the Church is removed by the Rapture, the restraining ministry of the Holy Spirit is also removed, both through the Church and independently of the Church. Restraint of degeneracy during the Church Age can be related to the person of God the Holy Spirit and to the believer who uses the spiritual skills to execute the protocol plan of God. Both restraints are invisible to mankind.

c. In the seven years of the Tribulation, the same concept of degeneracy that occurred in the antediluvian civilization from demonism will occur.

d. This civilization ends with the judgment of all unbelievers at the Second Advent. Believers go into the lifeboat of the millennium. Unbelievers are taken off the earth by the sinking ship of the baptism of fire, the judgment of God which places all unbelievers of the Tribulation into the fire of Hades (which is not the same as the lake of fire during the eternal state).

F. The Millennial Civilization.

1. This civilization begins with believers (the Tribulational saints) who survive and continues for a thousand years.

2. It is a time of perfect environment on the earth. Israel will be restored as a client nation on the earth. Jesus Christ will rule the earth while Satan is imprisoned. The royal family will rule with Christ. All animals will be tame. There will be world peace. There will be universal prosperity for all. The perfect environment of the first civilization will be restored.

3. At the end of this civilization Satan is released from prison and starts a revolution (the Gog revolution) against Christ in which all unbelievers revolt against the perfect rule of our Lord. Our Lord puts down the Gog revolution by force. This proves that environment and prosperity is not the solution to man’s problems. There is no substitute for relationship with God through regeneration. This civilization terminates with the second fire judgment—the Great White Throne or Last Judgment, in which all unbelievers are resurrected and cast into the Lake of Fire forever. This also includes the judgment of Satan and all fallen angels and the entire destruction of the universe, 2 Pet 3:10.

G. The Eternal State.

1. This period begins with all believers in resurrection bodies after the Last Judgment and continues without end.

2. A new universe, a new earth with perfect environment, and a new Jerusalem are created.

3. The eternal state has no terminating judgments; for human history is completed and the divine purpose of human history is accomplished.

4. Believers will live forever in resurrection bodies in a state of indescribable happiness and blessing.

H. Conclusion.

1. Each civilization begins with divine blessing because God provides only the best. But each (except the last) ends with disaster brought on by man and his apostasy.

2. The dispensations interpret history from the standpoint of spiritual life and the challenge to believers at any given time. Civilizations interpret history from the standpoint of their culture, their society, and their government. _

R. B. Thieme, Jr. Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

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