Q: [Dr. Mike] was the earth created in ‘literal’ days: and what about the millennium?
A: [Yes!] Most Bible scholars also believe that at some point Satan inhabited the earth as his dwelling place until God booted him out and put man in his stead, to worship Him. The God man [Adam] was also given the supreme authority to subdue the earth and replenish it. Later, the God man and woman [Eve] committed high treason and gave Satan dominion over the inheritance in which God gave them.
We believe Satan’s control over God’s green earth is for a duration of 6,000 years because as Psalms 24:1-2 states, “The earth [is] the LORD’S, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”
Without spending too much time talking about Bible history, I will state my conclusion, by pointing out scripture that makes reference to the time period in which man is to subdue the earth: In Psalm 90:4, the Bible states, “For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night; and 2 Peter 3:8-9, states, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance.”
If you view those passages of scripture in view of the thousand years being as one day in God’s scheme of time, the earth was prepared for man’s arrival in six literal days. If you view biblical events in natural time, the creation of Adam to the coming of Abraham was a two thousand-year period. In God’s sight, it was just two days. From Abraham to the coming of Christ was a two thousand-year period. In God’s sight, it was two more days (four total days). From the birth of Christ unto present day has been about two-thousand-years (six total days). The Bible stated in Genesis 2:1-2, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.”
Based on true interpretation of scripture, the next thing on God’s time clock [after the RAPTURE] of the church is the millennium, which is a one-thousand-year period of rest – the seventh day. The Bible says that on the seventh day God rested and for us that seventh day of rest is outlined in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 20:4 – “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, nor in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
This [is] the first resurrection. Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part of the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. 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.”