The Gospel of Luke (#75) "The Kingdom of God (2)" August 25, 2024

First Baptist Church Leominster

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Acts 25, now three days after Festus had arrived in the province, he went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea, and the chief priests and the principal men of the

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Jews laid out their case against Paul, and they urged him, asking as a favor against Paul that he summon him to Jerusalem, because they were planning an ambush to kill him on the way.

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Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea, and that he himself intended to go there shortly.

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So said he, let the men of authority among you go down with me, and if there is anything wrong about that man, let them bring charges against him.

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After he stayed among them not more than eight or 10 days, he went down to Caesarea, and the next day, he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered

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Paul to be brought. When he had arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many and serious charges against him that they could not prove.

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Paul argued in his defense, neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have

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I committed any offense. But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me?

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But Paul said, I am standing before Caesar's tribunal, where I ought to be tried.

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To the Jews, I have done no wrong, as you yourself know very well. If then I'm a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which

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I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death. But if there is nothing to the charges against me, no one can give me up to them.

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I appeal to Caesar. Then Festus, when he had conferred with his counsel, answered, to Caesar you have appealed, to Caesar you shall go.

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Now when some days had passed, Agrippa the king and Bernice arrived at Caesarea and greeted

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Festus. And as they stayed there many days, Festus laid Paul's case before the king, saying, there was a man left prisoner by Felix, and when

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I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews laid out their case against him, asking for a sentence of condemnation against him.

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I answered them that it was not the custom of the Romans to give anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face, and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him.

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So when they came together here, I made no delay, but on the next day took my seat on the tribunal and ordered the man to be brought.

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When the accuser stood up, they brought no charge in his case of such evils as I supposed.

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Rather they had certain points of dispute with him about their own religion, and about a certain

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Jesus who was dead, but whom Paul asserted to be alive. Being at a loss how to investigate these questions,

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I asked whether he wanted to go to Jerusalem and be tried there regarding them. But when

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Paul had appealed to be kept in custody for the decision of the emperor, I ordered him to be held until I could send him to Caesar.

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Then Agrippus said to Festus, I would like to hear the man myself. Tomorrow, said he, you will hear him.

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So on the next day, Agrippa and Bernas came with great pomp, and they entered the audience hall with the military tribunes and the prominent men of the city.

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Then at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in. And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all who are present with us, you see this man about whom the whole

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Jewish people petitioned me, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought not to live any longer.

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But I found that he had done nothing deserving death. And as he himself appealed to the emperor,

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I decided to go ahead and send him. But I have nothing definite to write to my lord about him.

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Therefore, I have brought him before you all, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after we have examined him,

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I may have something to write. For it seems to me unreasonable in sending a prisoner not to indicate the charges against him.

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Let's pray. Our father, what's encouraging in this text is the statement,

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Jesus is alive. And Lord, we rejoice that Jesus is alive, that King Jesus is ruling and reigning, and that he is over all things.

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And Lord, we thank you that we are in Christ Jesus as a church, we are his body.

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And we have been given such tremendous blessings as being in Christ Jesus. And so Lord, I pray that as a church that we would recognize these blessings and that we would live in the reality of them.

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And so Lord, we pray that you would guide us and lead us, especially as we talk through this text this morning.

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We pray, Lord, that things would become clear to us, that we would understand what is being said, that we would understand the big picture and what it means to practically live these things out.

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So Lord God, we just thank you for this time of worship, and we just pray that you would bless the preaching of your word.

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Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. Last week, we arrived in our study of Luke to Luke 17, verses 20 through 37, in which our

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Lord Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God. But we felt after, before addressing the passage itself, we saw the need to give a biblical overview of the messianic kingdom set forth in the

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Holy Scriptures. Of course, promised and foretold in the Old Testament, announced as at hand by John the

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Baptist and Jesus himself, and then inaugurated in the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Christ at the right hand of the

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Father in heaven. Now, this is the passage, again, Luke 17, 20 through 37, and the major theme is the kingdom of God.

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Now, when he, Jesus, was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, see here, or see there, for indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.

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And then he said to the disciples, the days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the

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Son of Man, you will not see it, and they will say to you, look here, or look there, do not go after them or follow them, for as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the

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Son of Man will be in his day. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation, and as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the

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Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

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Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

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Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who is on the housetop and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away.

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And likewise, the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot's wife.

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Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night, there will be two in one bed.

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The italic words is not in the Greek text. Those are implied or provided by the translators.

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Two will be in one bed. The one will be taken the other left. Two will be grinding together.

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The one will be taken the other left. Two will be in the field. One will be taken the other left. And they answered and said to him, where,

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Lord? And he said to them, wherever the body is there, the eagles will be gathered together.

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Well, in preparing us to consider this passage, we spoke of the kingdom of God last week.

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In one sense, having always existed since the creation, for God, the creator, is the sovereign ruler of all that he has created.

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God is king. Adam's sin and its consequences did not dethrone

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God, the God of the universe. With the fall of mankind into sin, the willing subjection of mankind, in fact, all of creation, no longer existed in God's world.

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God continued to rule, overrule, even in the presence of sin.

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And so God, the Father, continued to be the sovereign king or ruler over all history, but because of sin, nothing and no one acknowledged or submitted willingly to his authority.

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And the story of the Bible is God recovering and restoring all his creation to its willing submission and worship of God through a mediatorial kingdom, an intervening kingdom, which he brought to pass, brings to pass in history.

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And so in Adam's fall, paradise was lost, but through Christ, paradise is regained and restored.

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That's the story of the Bible. In the Old Testament, God promised this kingdom, first in the days of Adam and Eve, but his promised kingdom was reaffirmed and its understanding enhanced through the unfolding of Old Testament history.

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The prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, the son of David, who would establish the promised kingdom, that citizens would be reconciled to God, from whom they were estranged in sin and rebellion, through God saving them from their sin and bringing them to love and serve

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God through the salvation that Jesus Christ would bring them. Now, we also sought to show, last

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Lord's Day, that the promised kingdom, although manifested in the presence of Jesus during his earthly ministry, experienced his inauguration upon his death, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement.

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Revelation 5 describes it. Jesus Christ is presently Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

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The promised kingdom of the Old Testament was inaugurated. Jesus is Lord. And yet, the kingdom of Jesus Christ will not be fully manifested until the return of Christ.

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And that return of Christ is commonly called the appearance, or sometimes coming, or the parousia.

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That's the Greek word referring to the coming or appearing of Christ.

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And so, regarding the promised kingdom of God, we must always recognize and distinguish the already, the kingdom has been established, and we are citizens of that kingdom, the present spiritual kingdom, and the not yet, that is, the future fullness of the kingdom at the second coming of Jesus Christ.

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The kingdom has come, and the kingdom is yet to come. You have to keep those truths in balance, emphasizing one to the exclusion of another.

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The other will get you into trouble real quickly. Well, this brings to the forefront a whole matter of the millennium, for this is where the issue of the kingdom of God becomes a rather complex and difficult matter to understand.

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When addressing the subject of the promised kingdom of God, the question arises as to its true nature and its manifestation in history.

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The discussion and debate arise over the nature and timing of the millennium, which is the term commonly employed as a synonym for the messianic kingdom.

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Everyone would argue the millennium is a reference to the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

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Now, although millennium is not directly a biblical term, millennium is used as a name for the promised kingdom of the

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Messiah, the kingdom of God. The word millennium is a translation of a Latin word containing the two

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Latin words mille, which means 1 ,000, and enium, meaning years, 1 ,000 years.

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Sometimes you'll read of millennialism referred to by the word of chileasm. A lot of the old commentators use the word chileas or chileasm, which is taken from the

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Greek word chilea, which is the Greek number for 1 ,000.

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The millennium is derived, of course, from Revelation 20, primarily, in which the reign of Christ is set forth as encompassing 1 ,000 years.

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And I put that in quotation marks for a reason. Revelation 20, verses one through 10 is the only place in the

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Bible in which the kingdom of Jesus Christ is depicted in terms of 1 ,000 years in duration.

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And so we'll read Revelation 20, one through 10. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

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He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who's the devil and Satan, and bound him for 1 ,000 years.

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And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more until the 1 ,000 years were finished.

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But after these things, he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was committed to them.

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Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.

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And they lived and reigned with Christ for 1 ,000 years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the 1 ,000 years were finished.

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This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection.

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Over such, the second death has no power, but they should be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him 1 ,000 years.

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Now when the 1 ,000 years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations, which are in the four corners of the earth,

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Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.

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They went up on the breadth of the earth, surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

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The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

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Again, we've just read everywhere in the Bible where the kingdom is depicted in terms of 1 ,000 years.

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Evangelicals, that is those who regard the Bible to be the inspired word of God, have differing views as to how this millennium or the kingdom of Jesus Christ is to be understood in history with respect to the second coming of Christ.

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There are premillennialists who believe the second coming of Christ will occur before a future literal 1 ,000 -year millennium.

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There are postmillennialists who believe the second coming of Christ will occur after the 1 ,000 -year millennium.

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Amillennialists do not believe the millennium to be literally 1 ,000 years in duration, but that 1 ,000 in Revelation 20 is an apocalyptic term to depict this church or kingdom age to be a long, unspecified period of history.

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God doesn't want us to know when Jesus is gonna return. He just indicated that the kingdom would be long in duration.

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The millennium or the promised Old Testament kingdom is this present church age, according to amillennialists.

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The promised kingdom is present in that it's a spiritual kingdom. But with the second coming of Christ, the kingdom will be fully realized in eternity.

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And it's this third view, the amillennial view, which is the position that many of us espouse in this church.

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But it's a minority opinion out there in the evangelical world, apart from those who are

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Reformed. Most Reformed folks affirm amillennialism.

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A small percentage of them affirm postmillennialism. Now, I don't claim to have all the answers to every issue involved, but I do have some experience in these matters.

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It was over 50 years ago I bought my first Christian book, which dealt with the end times. A book on eschatology, which is the word for last things.

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And I've been reading books on the subject ever since then, for over 50 years. In the section of my shelves at home that contains books on the end times,

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I have 147 books. I've got them all listed in my Excel file, and I count,

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I looked them up the other day, 147 books. In addition to those,

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I have 15 books specifically addressing the millennium. And in the past 12 months,

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I've read five books on the end times. Substantive books. All that is to say,

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I do not have all the answers, but I think I know all the questions, frankly. Which itself is helpful when coming to a passage like the one we have in Luke 17.

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But it would be good for us if we attempted to find and describe these different views of the kingdom or the millennium to help us in advance of understanding the passage before us in Luke 17, which we read, verses 20 through 37.

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And so let's address these three views of the millennium. First, by addressing premillennialism.

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And by the way, some people might just assume, what's the difference in all this? It makes a lot of difference.

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To understand the purposes of God, the promises of God will ground you and strengthen you and affirm you as you have hope in what

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God has promised to do. And if you misunderstand these matters or you're confused about these matters, will be to the degree that you cannot, you will not have the hope, the confidence, the assurance and peace that you could have had had you understood these things rightly.

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Those who are premillennial assert that the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur before the future thousand year millennium, that is the promised messianic kingdom on earth.

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And of course, this is by far the most widely held view of Bible believers in the world today. This is the view of dispensationalism.

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Now it might be helpful to define and describe the belief system of dispensationalism for those who may be uninformed.

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You've probably heard the word many times, but what in the world does it mean? A lot of dispensationalists do not understand that they're dispensationalists until you start getting into the details.

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Dispensationalism is a fairly recent teaching regarding the end times having originated in England under a man,

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J .N. Darby, who became the leader of Plymouth Brethren movement in southern England, Plymouth actually.

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You've heard of the Plymouth Brethren. And so it originated the 1830s, this dispensational view of the

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Bible, but popularized in America by C .I. Schofield in his Schofield -referenced

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Bible published by Oxford University Press in 1909 first, but the real big influence was the edition of 1917.

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And its teaching is spread throughout the world largely by American missionaries and American Christian literature, the dispensational view of the kingdom of Christ.

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Well, what are the major tenets of dispensationalism? Well, they claim that to interpret the

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Bible rightly, it must be read according to seven dispensations or ages of biblical history.

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Each of these dispensations was a period in which God tested the people living in that period regarding their willingness to choose and believe, to choose to believe and obey

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God. Fallen mankind failed in each one of these dispensations, which then gave way to a new and different dispensation in which

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God would test people according to a different divine stipulations. And so dispensationalists claim that the

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Bible should be divided into seven distinct dispensations, which include, and I listed them.

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The Age of Innocence, which was short lived, of course, in the Garden of Eden before the fall, Adam and Eve.

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Secondly, then, because Adam and Eve failed that test of innocence, the

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Age of Conscience was established by God and that goes from the fall of Adam and Eve until the flood.

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Then they claim there was the Age of Human Government with Noah after coming out of the ark from the flood to the colony of Abraham, which we have in Genesis 12.

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And then after the call of Abraham, you have the Age of the Family, the call of Abraham to the giving of the

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Mosaic law in Exodus. And of course, you have the

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Age of the Law from Mount Sinai under Moses to the cross of Christ.

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And then the Age of Law came to an end because the people under the law failed their test.

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And then six, the Age of Grace, which they claim is from the cross until the coming of Christ for the church at a future rapture of the church, the first, second coming of Christ they teach.

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And then the last, the seventh age dispensation is this thousand year millennial age from the second coming of Christ to the final judgment and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth.

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And so when you read the Bible, you have to understand it according to these seven dispensations or you'll misinterpret what's being laid out.

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Dispensationalists assert that God's primary purpose in all of history is to bless the Jewish people as an ethnic race, physical descendants of Abraham.

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God promised them a golden age, the millennium, in which ethnic Israel would rule over the world, the

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Gentile world with the son of David, Jesus, reigning as their king in Jerusalem, earthly Jerusalem.

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And they teach that when John the Baptist and Jesus announced the kingdom of heaven is at hand, they were offering,

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John and Jesus were offering the Jewish people this earthly Jewish thousand year kingdom in which the nation of Israel would be the preeminent nation in the world.

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However, because the Jews rejected and crucified Jesus Christ, their Messiah, God withdrew this offer of this earthly kingdom and postponed its inauguration until the second coming of Christ after this church age.

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And so here is C .I. Schofield's note on Matthew 11, 28, with which you're probably familiar.

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Jesus said, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. This is what

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Schofield wrote in his footnote. The new message of Jesus, this is new.

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A great change took place in Jesus' teaching. The rejected king,

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Jesus, now turns from the rejecting nation and offers not the kingdom, he was no longer offering the kingdom, but rest and service to such in the nation as are conscious of need.

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It's a pivotal point in the ministry of Jesus. In other words, dispensationalists teach, or many of them taught, that Jesus stopped teaching about the coming kingdom and that offer of the kingdom was postponed until the second coming of Christ.

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This is the reason the kingdom of God or heaven was not proclaimed by the majority of evangelicals through the 20th century.

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They'd been taught that Jesus had offered to the Jews the earthly Jewish millennium or kingdom, but then he withdrew that offer and instead began to proclaim a message of grace.

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The offer of the kingdom, that is the earthly Jewish millennium of the Jews, was postponed until the future just before the second coming of Jesus Christ, and God will go back to that plan in a future tribulation period.

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And so, dispensationalists teach at this current church age, the age of grace is a secondary purpose of God, a parenthesis in God's true desire and design for Israel in his world.

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After all, the Jews are the true people of God, they would argue. They claim that no prophecies regarding Israel in the

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Old Testament are fulfilled in the church at this age, none. But in the future, after the rapture of the church, the snatching away to heaven of all

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Christians in this church age, God will return to his original plan with the nation of Israel.

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There will be a terrible seven -year tribulation on earth, they say, under the reign of the Antichrist, which will end with the second coming of Christ.

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Then the Lord will cause all the Old Testament saints to rise from the dead, and they will live along with all

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Gentile survivors of the tribulation period, they will go into the thousand -year earthly millennium.

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And during this millennium, Satan will be removed, bound from this world, Revelation 20, they argue.

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The future kingdom will then be an age of peace and righteousness in which people will live, will continue to live long lives in their physical bodies along with Christians who've died, and they're in their glorified bodies, but they're mixing it up during this thousand years.

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Christians will be in their glorified bodies, but you will have people on earth still in their physical bodies, for they haven't died and been resurrected yet.

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It's one of the problems with this whole doctrine is they've got resurrections that have to take place throughout the thousand years.

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What of Christians who died during that time? When are they raised? It's a real problem when you start working out the details.

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But toward the end of the thousand years, after Satan is again released, there'll be a short -lived rebellion, short -lived rebellion of people throughout the world against King Jesus ruling in Jerusalem.

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But then Christ will destroy them in really a second battle of Armageddon, first battle's back during the

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Tribulation, the second is at the end of the thousand years, which will be followed by the great white throne judgment when

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Christ will condemn all unbelievers, they say. No believers at the great white throne judgment, only unbelievers, they claim.

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And then they're consigned to the lake of fire forever. And so dispensationalists have taught that the promised kingdom of God, that is the promised kingdom of heaven, as Matthew calls it, is a future millennium, a thousand -year

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Jewish kingdom on earth. Older dispensationalists believed and taught that Jesus Christ is presently prophet and priest in this church age, but that he would not become king over the kingdom until the second coming of Christ.

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And years ago, I had a dear friend, Dean Olson, who was very intelligent, very informed. He knew

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Greek at that time better than I did. And he left our church because I would not accept the fact

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Jesus Christ is not yet king. The devil's the prince of the power of the air.

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He's the God of this age. Jesus won't be king until the second coming. And, of course,

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I couldn't go there. And so he left our church. He's with the Lord now. He's right on these matters now, but he was a good friend.

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But it shows you he was a well -taught dispensationalist who knew his

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Greek, and it was such an important matter. He couldn't have fellowship with me because of his view.

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It should be noted, however, that in the 1980s, that wasn't that long ago. I was preaching during those days.

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Some classical dispensationalists, the older ones, had come to see the error of their denial of Christ presently reigning as king, and so they made adjustments.

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Although they continued to teach that Jesus Christ would one day inaugurate an earthly thousand -year Jewish millennium, they also taught that Jesus Christ is currently king over the kingdom of God.

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And so they teach that there are two separate and different kingdoms in God's plan.

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There's a spiritual kingdom of God over which Jesus currently reigns, but one day there will be an earthly Jewish kingdom that will endure for a thousand years on earth.

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And they would argue that although Jesus is Lord now, he's not yet reigning as the son of David.

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And that won't take place until he sits on that throne in Jerusalem during the thousand -year millennium.

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Two different kingdoms. And so these modified dispensationalists came to identify themselves as progressive dispensationalists and thank

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God they corrected some of their former errors. And John MacArthur is one of the main promoters of this understanding, and clearly he emphasizes the present lordship of Jesus Christ, as he should.

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But he still claims Jesus is not reigning as the son of David, which I find just incredible. So that's premillennialism.

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But there's another view of the millennium, postmillennialism. This is the belief that the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur not before, but rather after the one thousand -year millennium.

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The proponents of this view teach that the world at some point in the future will be so greatly transformed by the gospel, by the working of God in history, in bringing salvation to the world, that there will be ushered in the kingdom of God on earth before the second coming of Christ.

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The world is gonna become Christian, according to the postmillennialists.

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This millennium will be a thousand years in duration in which the world is Christianized. Although some postmillennialists would say that thousand years is just figurative.

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It'll be a long time, but not literally a thousand years. But at the conclusion of this millennial age, which is yet future, the second coming of Christ will occur.

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He will return to judge the world. And so postmillennialists believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ will not occur until after a golden age is experienced in this world that's brought about through the preaching of the gospel and the conversion to Christ of multitudes.

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Now we might scoff at this notion as we look at the world about us. They would argue that it's our problem for we look too much at the world around us rather than at the promises of God and the

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Holy Scriptures. They would say that Christians today are too much like the

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Jewish exiles that had returned from Babylon. They're defeated and defeatists. They would say, look to God, pray and believe him for great things.

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And so they claim to be very optimistic about what the gospel will accomplish in this fallen world.

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This postmillennial view was held by most Bible -believing Christians for at least two centuries until the early part of the 20th century.

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Really it was World War I dispelled the whole notion that the world is going to be converted and get better.

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Postmillennialists have had great confidence in God's power to bring revival to the world. The 17th and 18th century

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Puritans were largely postmillennial. It was really a who's who of reformed guys.

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Almost all Bible -believing Christians were postmillennial through the 19th century. Most Baptists were postmillennial through the 18th and 19th centuries.

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The exception was John Gill and Charles Spurgeon. They were historic pre -millennials, not dispensational pre -millennials, but a whole different animal which we don't have time to address.

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There's really so few of those around anymore. I didn't see the point of it. But when you consider the great advance of the gospel through the missionary work of the 19th century throughout the world, it's easy to see why they would think that they were witnessing the onset of the

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Christianized world of the millennium. Postmillennialists are still around, but they're relatively few in number.

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They're among some reformed people. I have friends who are postmillennial in their persuasion.

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One rather disturbing aspect of some postmillennialists, not all, is their belief that the millennium would be brought about by the transformation of society through the applying of scripture to all of life.

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Now on the surface, that might sound pretty good. But these folks believed that the mosaic law of the

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Old Testament must be reinstituted in society, and by this means, the millennium will be realized.

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Can you imagine if you took the Old Testament law in Israel? Public executions of children who were rebellious to their parents.

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Stoning people that gather sticks on the Sabbath day. Can you imagine imposing those kinds of laws in the world today?

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It would be mass carnage. But there are some that advocate this needs to be done. They advocate the mosaic laws to be forcefully imposed and enforced by the government upon all citizens, whether Christian or not.

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So these Christians are sometimes called theonomists or reconstructionists. But other postmillennialists believe that God will convert the world to Christ through the power of the gospel.

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R .C. Sproul quoted an advocate of postmillennialism. The thing that distinguishes the biblical postmillennialist then from the amillennialist, again, the amillennialist believes that the kingdom was begun when

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Christ ascended out of the grave, was enthroned in heaven. He became

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Lord of lords and King of kings and will continue until the second coming when it will be fully realized.

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But the difference or distinction between postmillennialists and amillennialists and premillennialists is his belief that the scripture teaches the success of the great commission of this age in this age of the church.

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This expectation includes the virtual Christianization of the nations. And they believe this will take place.

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The world's gonna be converted. It's gonna become a heaven on earth. Lorraine Bettner was a well -known postmillennialist.

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He gave this definition and description of his position. Postmillennialism is that view of the last things which holds that the kingdom of God is now being extended to the world through the preaching of the gospel and the saving work of the

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Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals. That the world eventually is to be Christianized and the return of Christ is to occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace commonly called the millennium.

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And so, postmillennialists do not believe the millennium has yet arrived. It will one day.

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And postmillennialists will commonly claim that whereas they are optimistic about the success of the gospel in history, amillennialists have a pessimistic view of history.

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But this is not entirely true. For many amillennialists believe that there will be an end time conversion of many, particularly

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Jewish people, who embrace the gospel just before the coming of Christ. I'm of that persuasion.

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Cornelius Venema, who has written really the standard work now on understanding the end times by the reformed, and the book is entitled

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The Promise of the Future, which I read last year. I was surprised to read last night, he's two years younger than I am, but he's a sharp guy.

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It's an excellent book, by the way, The Promise of the Future. And he described himself as an amillennialist.

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I noted previously the notorious difficulty of labeling different millennial views. If I were to label my own position,

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I would prefer to call it optimistic amillennialism. But then he said, no doubt many postmillennialists would view this as an oxymoron.

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You can't be an amillennialist and be optimistic about the world. Postmillennialists would cite the following biblical promises to argue in favor of their position, and I cited some, we won't read through them all, but there are passages that speak about a real optimism about the gospel, the kingdom going out and conquering all,

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Genesis 22. The nations will come under the authority and power of God.

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Isaiah 2, the kingdom being established, and all nations shall flow to it.

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Many people will come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of God. And I gave the extended passage,

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Isaiah 2, 2 -4. Isaiah 11 -9, they shall not hurt nor destroy at all my holy mountain.

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In other words, the messianic kingdom. That's what the holy mountain is an emblem of. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the

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Lord as the waters cover the sea. Postmillennialists say that hasn't happened yet. We would argue it has happened.

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The gospel is all over the world. And it has since the first century. Habakkuk 2 -14, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

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Lord as the waters cover the sea. And we would argue again, you can just about go anywhere in any place in the world today, you'll find

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Christians there. A lot of places where the gospel has not yet been, but it's a worldwide kingdom.

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It's not restricted just to Palestine or Israel. In 1 Corinthians 15 -25, he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet.

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And so postmillennialists have this optimistic view about the future and the power of the gospel to convert the world.

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It'll be Christianized. I wish that were the case, but in my mind, there's no way the scriptures teach this.

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And so let me provide a few critiques of the postmillennial understanding of the kingdom of God.

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And we could list more, but I'm only gonna cite the two biggies in my mind. First, we would ask them the question, when does

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Jesus Christ really become king in history? Postmillennialists teach that the golden age of the

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Messiah, the millennium, in which the nations of the world are converted through the gospel has obviously not yet occurred.

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It's a future event. They advocate it will take place at some time in the future in this current age, where Cornelius Venema posed the issue.

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The first objection to postmillennialism can be stated by the question, when does Christ become king?

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Golden age postmillennialism suggests that the kingship of Jesus Christ is not so much a present as it is a future reality.

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The coming of Christ in the fullness of time, though it inaugurated a new period in the history of redemption, did not by itself constitute the great turning point in history as far as the kingdom of God is concerned.

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In other words, they have to downplay the last 2 ,000 years because it hadn't been realized. In other words, postmillennialists reason that Jesus Christ as Lord has not yet assumed or manifested the authority and power he will one day demonstrate when he converts the world to Christianity.

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That's a problem. The problem with this understanding is that New Testament represents

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Jesus Christ as having been given all authority when he gave the Great Commission. All authority has been given to me and heaven and earth, therefore, go.

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Make disciples of all nations. Postmillennialists claim that Jesus Christ has not yet arrived or achieved the victory that will be seen in the future millennium between now and the second coming of Christ.

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But in the New Testament, there's no suggestion, these are the words of Venema, no suggestion made that this present reign of Christ is to be divided into non -millennial and millennial phases.

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Nowhere in the New Testament does it suggest that there is a future millennium within this church age, each to be distinguished from the age to come, that is the second coming.

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Does the Bible anywhere clearly teach that Christ is not presently king in the way in which he will be in the future become king during the millennial age?

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Postmillennialists cannot answer that. But the second major problem

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I have with this view, I think, is more critical. The second major problem with postmillennialism is it's teaching that the time will arrive in this church age when the world becomes a rather easy and pleasant place in which

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Christians may live. Many postmillennialists teach that the binding of Satan, mentioned in Revelation 20, bound for 1 ,000 years, is yet a future event.

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This is what brings about the conversion of the world. Satan's not yet bound, but he will be in order for the onset of this kingdom age to take place.

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One popular postmillennialist, David Clark, made this assertion regarding the book of Revelation. Clark suggests that the capture of the beast and the false prophet occurred at the fall of pagan

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Rome, you know, back in the 500s. But the binding of Satan remains to be fulfilled in the future.

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See, that's at the onset of the millennium in this church age. Postmillennialists, it was said, others see the binding of Satan to represent a future point in time when the successful preaching of the gospel will have effectively reduced the devil's influence to nothing.

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So they say that when this glory age comes, that Satan will be removed and no longer be a problem for Christians for 1 ,000 years.

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Does the New Testament teach that there will be a time in this church age when Christians will not be waging a battle with the devil, the enemy of our souls?

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Does the New Testament ever hint at a prolonged period of history in this church age when there will not be hardship, suffering, persecution by the world, in the world?

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Jesus declared, these things I've spoken to you that in me you may have peace, in the world you will have tribulation.

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They would say, at least until Satan's bound, then there'll be 1 ,000 years of peace and everything will go well.

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There'll no longer be any trials for the Christian. We'll be able to live in a world of peace and righteousness. But he said, in this world you will have tribulation.

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Did Jesus ever say the time would come when you would not have tribulation in this world? Postmillennialism teaches a future life of glory in this world.

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Before the second coming of Christ, there will be no longer the need for cross bearing or enduring persecution.

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For all will be at peace in the world. And so consider again these words of Venema. The theme of the believers suffering in fellowship with Christ was often emphasized in the writings of the great reformers,

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Calvin and Luther. Calvin, in his treatment of the Christian life in his institutes, spoke of cross bearing as a hallmark of the life and pilgrimage of every

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Christian. But again, postmillennialists say that won't take place during 1 ,000 year millennium in this church age.

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Luther likewise described biblical theology as always a theology of the cross, not a theology of glory.

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In the teaching of Jesus in the gospels, the emphasis upon suffering is an inescapable dimension of discipleship.

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It's unmistakable. No disciple is worthy of the master unless he or she is prepared to assume the suffering service that marked his life.

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In the service of every believer, there's a conformity to the likeness of Christ's suffering, a participation in Christ that inevitably includes the elements of self -denial, shame, and loss.

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They're basically saying that there will be 1 ,000 years when Christians don't have to experience that.

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That's a problem. But postmillennialists hate that when the golden age of the future millennium is established in the future, long before the second coming of Christ, this will no longer be characteristic of the

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Christian life. Again, Venema concluded his critique of postmillennialism with these words.

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Golden age postmillennialism mutes this biblical teaching about the fellowship in suffering between Christ and his disciples.

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No matter how it's qualified or described, the millennium of postmillennialist expectation excludes these dimensions of what it means to be a follower of Christ in the present age.

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Consequently, postmillennialism betrays a triumphalist theology of glory that prematurely anticipates in history what will be the circumstance of God's people only in the day of their vindication.

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In other words, the final judgment. Only Christ coming again will bring an end to the trouble that marks out the

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Christian's pilgrimage in this life as he or she anticipates the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is

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God. No more than Abraham or the saints in the past is a believer today able to find rest in this life.

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Hebrew speaks about our Sabbath rest in the future, of course, after we labor through this life with great difficulty.

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And so the teaching of postmillennialism serves to misdirect the hope of Christian living in this world.

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Rather than looking to the blessed hope of Christ's return, the Christians taught in these matters instead look to a long period of history in this age of undiminished blessings.

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They focus on the coming millennium rather than the return of Christ. And I've talked with friends that hold this position.

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That's exactly what they do. They view the coming of Christ, second coming of Christ as at least 1 ,000 years off into the future, but they're anticipating the conversion of the world to Christendom.

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That's the postmillennial view. Well, what about thirdly, amillennialists? The position holds that there's no literal 1 ,000 year kingdom on earth taught in the scriptures.

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1 ,000 years of Revelation 20 is a symbolic number signifying the current gospel age.

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And numbers in the book of Revelation have symbolic meaning. They do else in scripture. The Bible says that God owns the cattle on 1 ,000 hills.

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What about hill number 1 ,001? Doesn't he own the cattle on that hill too? Of course he does.

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The expression he owns the cattle on 1 ,000 years means he owns everything. All the cattle everywhere on any hill.

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And 1 ,000 years again in Revelation 20, the Lord didn't want us to know how long this kingdom age is going to be.

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He indicated it would be a while, a long time. Can you imagine what happened in the year

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A .D. 1 ,000? It went nuts in Europe because they thought this was the end of the millennium.

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That's a whole nother story. The second coming of Christ will occur at the end of this age.

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And so the word amillennial means no literal millennium. The letter A in Latin is a negation of the word a, no literal 1 ,000 year millennium.

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Now historically the term amillennialism is of fairly recent origin. Really only the early 20th century.

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That's not to say the doctrine of amillennialism is of recent development. But the term as a distinct word was not widely used throughout history.

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Historically there was only premillennialism and postmillennialism. Premillennialists believe the second coming of Christ will occur before the millennium.

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Postmillennialists believe the second coming will come after the millennium. But so does amillennialism.

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Christ is gonna return after the kingdom. After this age, this kingdom age. And so amillennialism was also referred to in the category of postmillennialism.

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The difference, as we've already shown, is that whereas postmillennialism teaches that there is a distinct future period of time within this church age that they referred to as the millennium, amillennialists teach that this entire church age, from the resurrection and enthronement of Christ until the second coming, is the promised kingdom, is the millennium of scripture.

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It's the kingdom of David. But both postmillennialism and amillennialism teaches that the second coming of Christ will take place after the millennium.

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After Christ's kingdom of this age. Amillennialism became the predominant position of the

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Christian era, beginning with Augustine in the fifth century AD. Roman Catholicism is amillennial, interestingly.

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It's one of the doctrines that many Protestants agree with Rome as to the Bible's teaching. Most of the reformers were amillennial, including

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Luther and Calvin. The position is most commonly held today among evangelicals who are reformed and Calvinistic in their theology.

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J .I. Packer, R .C. Sproul were amillennial in their understanding. The amillennial position is held today by Protestants who are

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Presbyterian and Reformed Baptists. And although I had believed in a premillennial return of Christ in the first years after I became a

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Christian, at least for the first eight years, because that's all

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I was ever taught. I've held to this amillennial view of the end times since the early 1980s, 1982.

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I'm a grandfather in this position compared to everybody else around, interestingly. Holding this position has not been easy as there have been numbers of folks who have come to reject me and my church ministry over the years because of my convictions on this matter.

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Many, if not most, premillennialists can be quite intolerant of views of the end times other than their own.

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Just as a side note, I remember sitting at a table with another pastor and his wife some luncheon years ago, and I asked the question, is eschatology a test of fellowship?

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In other words, should it be a thing that you separate from the brethren over different views of the end times? Oh, no, no.

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I don't care if a person's premillennial, postmillennial, but those amillennialists, they don't believe the Bible. A fellow brother, a true brother in the

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Lord, and God bless him for it, but that is the attitude many times, and I've received that kind of reaction for 40 years plus years.

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One of the most outspoken opponents of amillennialism today is the very respected teacher

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John MacArthur, and I love John MacArthur, and he has reformed in his view of salvation, but he stirred up some controversy several years ago at an annual conference that his church sponsors, the

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Shepherd Conference. Dave Farrar was there. He was sitting there listening to this, and there were a bunch of reformed guys, other speakers, sitting on the front row there who were amillennial, and MacArthur brought a message entitled

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Why Every Self -Respecting Calvinist is a Premillennialist. It was really quite, a number of people saw this as insulting.

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He was trying to instruct them in the truth, of course, but it brought up an issue.

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It became very controversial, and a lot of debate took place after that. Don't misunderstand the doctrine of the millennium as an important teaching, but it's not an essential doctrine.

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Good Christians differ on their understanding of these matters, but who have honestly come to the

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Bible as a word of God, they differ in their understanding, and we should not divide brethren over views of end times, but many do, sadly, and so amillennialism is the belief that the promised kingdom of the

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Messiah was inaugurated upon the resurrection, ascension of Jesus Christ to the throne of God in heaven, even to the throne of David.

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Jesus is presently sitting on the throne of David as what Peter declared on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two.

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Christ rules as the son of David over his kingdom, which he's expanded to encompass

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Jewish and Gentile believers all the world, and this view of the kingdom is in conflict with the popular dispensational view of the

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Messiah's kingdom which teaches the promised Messiah's kingdom will be an earthly political kingdom over which

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Jesus will reign in a future thousand year millennium with the ethnic political nation of Israel as preeminent among the

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Gentile nations. That drives so much geopolitics today in the world, and it's based on false doctrine, in my opinion, and by the way,

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I am pro -Israel. You know, they're an ally of America. You know, it's a free country.

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They tend to be socialistic to a great degree, but the people are free, and they certainly have a right for self -defense.

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Well, the differences between the two views, well, they're numerous, but they might be summarized, and we're gonna go quickly through this.

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First, the Amillinus understands the church age as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

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Dispensational premillennialism does not, but believes the prophets never foretold of this church age, but only a future thousand year millennium on earth after the second coming of Christ.

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John MacArthur, God bless him, who in many ways is a great and faithful servant of the gospel, nevertheless made this ill -advised and errant comment in his study

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Bible on Zechariah 9 and 10. Old Testament prophets didn't see the great time period between the two comings.

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In other words, this church age, they didn't see it. The church age was a mystery hidden from them.

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No, the mystery that was hidden from them is that Gentiles would have an equal part in the kingdom with Jewish believers.

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That was the mystery. Everywhere in the Old Testament spoke about this church age, and that's what

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Peter declared in Acts 3 .24, speaking about the early days of the church in Jerusalem.

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Yes, all the prophets. MacArthur said none of the prophets. Peter said all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow after, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.

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The Old Testament is filled with prophecies of what you and I are enjoying today. The prophets, they wish they had understood and experienced what you and I enjoy today, according to Peter in 1 and 2

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Peter. And secondly, the Amalekites, he's one people of God, all those redeemed by Christ, including all

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Old Testament true believers and New Testament Christians, there's one people of God.

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We are Abraham's children. You are children of Abraham if you have the same faith as Abraham.

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We are inheritors of the promises to Abraham, according to Paul in Galatians. Dispensationalist premillennialists understands the

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Bible to teach two separate peoples, Israel and the church, and God had two different plans in history, two different futures, one earthly, one heavenly.

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Third, the Amalekites sees the one promised mediatorial kingdom in Scripture that being the kingdom of God ruled by our

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Lord Jesus Christ. The dispensational premillennialists teaches that there are two separate and distinct kingdoms of God which are the kingdom of God during this church age and the kingdom of David in a future thousand year

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Jewish millennium. Two different kingdoms. Four, the Amalekites believes that Jesus Christ is now ruling as the king over the kingdom of God, although his kingdom will be manifested before everyone to see it at the second coming when he puts down all the rebellion.

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Every eye will see him, every tongue will confess, every knee bow, confess

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Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father. Traditional dispensational premillennialism teaches that because of the

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Jews' rejection of Jesus as their king, God postponed his kingdom. They've taught that Jesus will not become the king as the son of David until his second coming at the beginning of the thousand year

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Jewish millennium. And then fifth, the Amalekites understands the prophets to foretell spiritual promises for a spiritual people, the church in this current age.

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The Old Testament is Christian scripture. That's what Paul declared. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's profitable for how you think, what you to believe and how you to live in this world.

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Second Timothy 3 .16, dispensationalists say no, that's Jewish scripture, does not apply to you because we're not under the law any longer but we're under grace.

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And so you have to go to the New Testament and even to the epistles, not the gospels because that was Jewish scripture before the cross.

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You gotta go to the epistles to find Christian instruction. And that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says the entire

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Bible is Christian scripture. Paul declared in 2 Corinthians 3 that you cannot understand the

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Old Testament scriptures. The Jews couldn't understand the Old Testament scriptures. There's a veil over their face and that veil is taken away by Christ, in Christ.

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You cannot understand the Old Testament until you interpret it Christologically. They say they take the

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Bible literally. That's their problem. They need to take the Bible Christologically, Christ on every page.

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And six, the Amillinus understands the Old Testament prophets to be veiled as to their true meaning and they can only be understood when one sees

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Christ proclaim through them even as the New Testament writer provide an inspired interpretation of the prophets.

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The dispensational premillennials claims they interpret the Old Testament prophets literally. The Amillinus argues that the

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Old Testament means what it says, but the New Testament says what it means. You interpret the

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Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. They say you interpret the

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New Testament in the light of the Old Testament. They got it backwards. The divine order is first the natural which gives way to the spiritual.

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The Old Testament is filled with types which give way to their anti -types in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews emphasizes this throughout.

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That which was physical in the Old Testament gave way to that which is spiritual in the New Testament. So just as the kingdom of God was promised in the

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Old Testament came to realization with the life and ministry of Christ, so the church too was promised in the

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Old Testament but came into realization with the coming of Christ. Just as Old Testament believers were brought to enjoy the kingdom blessings that came with Jesus Christ when he inaugurated the kingdom, so they too were brought to share in their participation in the universal church that our

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Lord was built. Jesus said of that Roman centurion, many will come from the east and the west, Gentile lands, and sit down together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom.

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One people of God is what the Lord Jesus taught. We're gonna stop there, but really, in order for us to deal with Luke 17, 20 through 37, which we will get to next time,

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Lord willing, okay, we're gonna have to say a word about the importance of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70 because that's gonna impinge how we understand that passage in Luke 17 and also in Luke 21.

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Now, some might perceive, you know, we've just gone into too much detail about these matters. All I'm trying to do is lay a foundation so that when we set forth what we understand the scriptures to teach, you'll say, yeah,

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I see how that fits. And without this context and understanding, you wouldn't have the right tools to be able to comprehend or certainly not appreciate some of the things that our

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Lord Jesus himself taught to his disciples about what's coming down. So may the

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Lord help us. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word that you've given us.

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We lament, our God, there's so much confusion and errant thinking, but it's clear in our mind, our

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God, Jesus Christ, you are Lord of lords and king of kings, and that although you were rejected, it was the very means of your obedience on the death of the cross that resulted in the

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Father highly exalting you, giving you a name above every name. You indeed are

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Lord of lords and king of kings, ruling over this glorious kingdom of God of which we are citizens.

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We thank you, our God, that although the wheat and tares are growing up together in this church age, you are calling out a people, and you are populating your kingdom, our

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God, with disciples of Jesus Christ, and we look for the day, Lord, when

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Jesus Christ returns, and we will be perfected, exonerated on the day of judgment, declared to be righteous through faith in Christ alone, and then glorified all due to your grace and your love, your kindness and mercy you've shown to us in Christ.

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Help us to understand these things clearly, our God, and live in the light of the truths of these.

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Give your people assurance and peace and confidence, our God, as we live in a very unsettled, difficult time in history.

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May we look forward with confidence, our God. King Jesus, you are on the throne, and you are controlling the events of history taking place even now, bringing judgment upon your enemies, but thankfully bringing salvation to your people, the ones that the

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Father had given you from eternity. Help us to hold forth these truths, our God, and keep them on our hearts, and may they direct our thinking and the manner in which we live.