Population Bomb Takes Out Millennium!

Population Bomb Takes Out Millennium!

Or Maybe Not?

Chapter 10 Preview: This is an examination of a mathematical quandary associated with the idyllic, yet oversimplified, view of the “millennium”. Many assume that everyone will have large families in the Everlasting Kingdom. Especially knowing that there will be an absence of premature death from war and disease; what size of a population might we expect? Will utopian conditions precipitate some unexpected consequences? The numbers prove that an unknown factor is mandatory for everything to work out. Colonization of space may not wait!

“The Millennium” is the term that people generally use to describe the seventh one thousand year period since Adam. The millennium is only mentioned in Revelation 20:4-6 “And they lived and reigned with [the Messiah] for a thousand years” While some believe that following this the world will be destroyed, Scripture tells us that there will be an Everlasting Kingdom on earth, hence the title of this book (Psalms 145:13, Daniel 4:3, Daniel 7:27, 2 Peter 1:11).

God has even covenanted with Israel “a thousand generations”:

Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that [Yehovah’] your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations .... WEB

1 Chronicles 16:15-18 Remember His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations, 16 the covenant which he made with Abraham, his oath to Isaac. 17 He confirmed the same to Jacob for a statute, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, 18 saying, “I will give you the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance .... WEB (also Psalms 105:8).

1) The world’s population has doubled every 47 years on average over the last few doublings! The population today is over 6,500,000,000. [2006 figure]

Rate of population increase from Wikipedia

(updated stats)

“The 20th century saw the biggest increase in the world’s population in human history. The following table shows estimates of when each billion milestone was met:

2 billion was reached 125 years later in 1927.

3 billion was reached 34 years later in 1961.

4 billion was reached 13 years later in 1974.

5 billion was reached 13 years later in 1987.

6 billion was reached 12 years later in 1999.

These numbers show that the world’s population has tripled in 72 years, and doubled in 38 years up to the year 1999.”

Each doubling has taken roughly half as long as the previous doubling.

The UN estimated in 2000 that the world’s population was then growing at the rate of 1. 14% (or about 75 million people) per year [1]. This growth rate has been generally decreasing from its peak at 2.19% in 1963.

2) At the present rate of doubling, the world’s population will double 21.27 times in a thousand years. (1000 divided by 47)

3) If, after the Day of the Lord, only one hundred million (100,000,000) survive, (that is, if only one person in 60 alive today, survives!) then with 21.27 doublings, the population of earth will be: 2,663,383,040,000,000. More likely, several billion or so people will survive because much of the world may be relatively unaffected by end time events. Had I begun doubling with a number in the billions then there might not have been room for all of the zeros on the page!

4) Therefore, the world’s population at the end of the seventh millennium will be 443,897 TIMES LARGER THAN IT IS TODAY, assuming that both the birth rate remains constant and death rate remains constant. (Yet, to make matters “worse” , we already know that in the seventh millennium, following an unimaginable bout of all kinds of deadly afflictions, humanity will then start over WITHOUT ANY disease, warfare, starvation and premature death!)

5) According to some, no one will even die during the millennium! (contrary to Ezekiel 44:25) Without deaths to keep the population in check, the world’s population would soar much faster than on the schedule below! Prior to about 1600 AD premature deaths due to disease, warfare, starvation and persecution, kept many people from living long enough to reproduce. The number of deaths essentially equaled the number of births, resulting in a stable population size. Since then, variable # 1-the number of Births has exceeded variable #2-the number of Deaths. However if there were no deaths, and we began to exceed the anticipated 443,897 fold increase in world population, a panic could set in!

Compounding the situation, if women, begin living for a thousand years, and get tired of having an empty nest after their first century, the population could escalate dramatically faster than the rosy scenario described above. Even farmland might feel the impact of urban sprawl, when people are stacked 50 feet deep!

A world population of well over 2 QUADRILLION, as calculated below, would be tiny if THE TWO VARIABLES in world population increased even slightly over time.

The Numbers Could Get ReallyBIG

Addendum: Some people have asked me what I think about the coming population explosion. I believe that we will colonize outer space beginning in a few centuries at most. There will not be room to wait longer. Someone suggested that God could shrink us to the size of mice. OK. There are other possibilities but the mouse thing probably has them beat.