Why I Am Not An Amillennalist — Keith Malcomson

Daniel Series Conclusion and the Meaning of Amillennialism

We're coming in this last message tonight, it's part 18 that we've dealt with the book of Daniel. And for 14 parts of this, we've expounded, gone through chapter by chapter dealing with the book of Daniel.

Then we dealt with, this will be our fourth message added as an appendix on the end of the series, but we've been concentrating, teaching on Daniel. And these four messages that I've added are just things I didn't have room for or time for when we are doing the series.

And I didn't wanna take away from the exposition of scripture, but they've been very, very important. We've already asked, will the Antichrist be a Muslim? Our answer was no. We asked, will the Antichrist be the Pope?

And again, we said no. Then last week we looked, will the Antichrist be a Jew? And again, our answer was no. But I wanna finish here on this message. And my title tonight, as we finish this complete series on Daniel, is why I am not an amillennialist.

And if you don't know what that means, don't worry a bit about it. Before we read the scriptures here in Daniel chapter two, many years ago, when I first became engaged to Candice and she maybe didn't know much about me before we got engaged, but she certainly has since.

But when she was engaged, she visited my mom's house for the first time, looked up at my shelf, all the books on the shelf, and she saw the title of one book and it was on its side and she actually misread it.

What she read was why I am not a musician. That's what she thought it said. And she thought, here's the answer because she was so musical, playing so many different instruments and teaching in Cork School of Music.

She was head of the strings. And so she thought, well, I'm gonna have to settle down to this guy being fully convinced that he shouldn't, why I am not a musician. Obviously had a lot of good reasons for not playing an instrument, but I'm so glad she found out the true title of that book.

It was why I am not a Muslim. So I've got nothing against musicians or playing instruments, but I'm against a man being a Muslim. I'll preach to you the gospel. I'm glad if you play an instrument, but I don't want you to be a Muslim.

But here tonight, why I am not an amillennialist. I believe this is very important and I'm gonna try and confine myself mostly to the book of Daniel here tonight, though we will overspill in the scripture.

But reading first of all in Daniel chapter two, and please follow with me, Daniel chapter two, verse 44. And it says there, in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever.

For as much as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that breaking pieces, the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter.

And the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof is sure. Then please turn with me just to one verse in chapter seven, Daniel chapter seven and verse 13. Daniel seven and verse 13. I saw in the night vision and behold one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him.

And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

Will you pray with me here tonight as we come to this Bible study? Father, we praise you, we worship you. We thank you for this entire series over the past four months. My God, the people you've encouraged, the friends that we have made as we have taught chapter by chapter.

You've brought many friends to us. Lord God, you've made many people members of this body. You have saved people, you have changed people, you have encouraged people, you've informed people. Lord God, you've turned hearts onto you.

And Lord God, I thank you for the power of your word that even as we open it up, it has the power to change lives for all eternity. My God, in this study tonight, Lord God, we're not merely critiquing, but we want to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.

We wanna make him exalted, central and precious to every single heart that listens the word of God tonight. We bless you and we love you. And we desire, oh God, that every eye would see that Jesus Christ is Lord and King in Jesus' name.

Amen. My message, why I am not an amillennialist, and our entire series was called The Heavens Rule. And you're gonna see tonight, although we're critiquing and looking at some thoughts and testing them with scripture, I promise you tonight, you're also gonna see that the heavens do rule.

The heavens do rule. I mean, throughout history, but even more so in the future when Christ comes to rule upon the earth. Now I'm not gonna deal with everything I want to deal with tonight or every scripture.

Four years ago, we taught four messages on the millennium in our series, Authority and Submission. Three years ago, we dealt with the millennium rewards and reigning with Christ in our series, Storing of Treasures in Heaven.

And then one year ago, I taught an entire message called The Millennium just on Revelation chapter 21. So I regularly come back to the millennium. I teach it. I believe it's a precious teaching that we are going to reign on the earth with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ physically, literally, visibly in a thousand-year kingdom.

I believe that with all my heart. And in fact, in this hour and generation, pre-millennialism, in other words, Christ will return physically and establish a thousand-year kingdom reign upon the earth.

That's what pre-millennialism is. After Jesus comes, his kingdom is gonna come visibly on the earth. And by far, pre-millennialism is the most dominant Christian prophetic view in our world today amongst genuine Christians.

It is the dominant view. But let's not be relaxed thinking that we don't need to defend it. I believe we do need to defend every teaching that we hold. We shouldn't become lazy thinking everyone believes this because they most certainly do not.

Historical Dominance of Premillennialism and the Rise of Amillennialism

Do you know, it wasn't always this way. It's very unique that this is the dominant view today. But actually, in the time of the Reformation and for hundreds of years, there was a different teaching that was dominant amongst the Reformers, the Puritans, great leaders, and even great revivalists.

And I'm gonna deal with that tonight. I'm speaking here tonight. Why I am not an amillennialist. Now, what is an amillennialist? The word amillennial means no millennium. In other words, no literal millennium.

They'll say they do believe in it. But in reality, for us to believe what we do here, they really don't. They spiritualize everything in an extraordinary manner. Now, John Calvin, who affected so many lives over the past 500 years, he wrote in his institutes on this teaching that I hold and that you believe, and he called it a fiction.

And in fact, he wrote in his book that it was too childish either to need or to be worth a refutation. So he didn't even try to refute the teaching of the millennium, a thousand year reign. He said, it's child's play.

It's ridiculous. It is mere fiction. And in fact, as I told you before, Calvin did not write a commentary on the book of Revelation. Revelation was a closed book to him. Well, I wanna tell you what else was a closed book to him.

The teaching of Bible prophecy for the end days. Now, I don't have as great a mind as Calvin or some of these other men. I wanna tell you straight out. When I left high school, I'd done seven GCSEs. Six of them, I got F4.

And F did not mean fabulous, I wanna tell you. And I got 1A, which was for art. So I failed my English, my maths. But I wanna tell you, when I left school, God opened my mind remarkably and I've given myself to submission to the word of God, to the study of scriptures and to believe nothing but what I find written in the Holy Bible.

I do believe in the word of God. So we're gonna address this teaching of amillennialism. I'll explain what it is and I'll address it. I won't deal with everything, but I pulled out three specific points here in relation to the book of Daniel that I believe I've got to deal with it.

And you may say, why do I believe in a thousand year reign when so many great men, great teachers, great theologians believe differently? Well, I'm gonna show you tonight. And having failed six of my GCSEs, you can decide if I believe the scripture and expound it correctly, or whether you need to go seek great intellectual teachers of theology.

I'm gonna give you three points here. My first point, why I do not believe in amillennialism and I am not an amillennialist, is number one, because of its hyper-spiritualization. I believe this teaching takes the Bible and introduces hyper-spiritualization.

Let me tell you what they do, because there's a lot of tricks of the trade with amillennialists. They point out holes in our arguments. In other words, when you first meet one of these men, believers, Christians, and many of them are godly men, the first thing they'll do is show you the holes in our arguments.

In other words, they attack before presenting what they believe. They begin to show holes in our arguments. They'll also ask you questions at times that you don't know the answer for. If you're a young believer, that is a terrible thing to be asked Bible questions when you haven't studied everything or know the answers to everything.

They'll accuse you, and I particularly, of always taking things too literally. In other words, we read Bible prophecy and we say that's gonna happen literally as it's written, and we accept that. So they accuse us of taking Bible prophecy and literalizing it far too much.

In fact, one of the authors that I'm responding to here tonight, he says the literalist view is extravagant and absurd to take it literally. So what I've taught you and Daniel all of these months, basically, they say it is absurd, the view that I've actually given.

Also, they point to extremes and excesses of those that teach pre-millennialism. We know at the minute that there's those that teach the vaccine is the actual mark of the beast. Now, that can have a realm of truth, but it is not accurate.

So they pick these people out, or those who make false claims every year, and they use these as an example of those that believe in the literal interpretation of prophecy. One of my family members many years ago, I announced that he'd become a millennialist, and I laughed at first.

I thought it was ridiculous. I give no time to it. But he had such a pile of theological books, all old books, and he had so many questions. In fact, he handed me a sheet with 100 questions a pre-millennialist needs to answer, that it actually, this is how they approach you with all of these arguments, and with much theology, big words, much learning, and questions.

And you know what? This is the first means by which they try to approach you. And that's why I wanna deal, first of all, I do not believe them because they hyper-spiritualize Bible prophecy. They accuse me that I take it too literally.

I deny that. I believe they over-spiritualize Bible prophecy. Let me just take you, one of the main books, The Momentous Event by Greer, is one of the most popular. It's printed by Banner of Truth. It is everywhere.

It is everywhere in secondhand bookshops. Let me tell you in this book, I'll show you not only how they hyper-spiritualize Bible prophecy, but they hyper-spiritualize the teaching of the Bible itself.

And I'm taking this out of this. You see, sometimes until you begin reading their material, you don't know what they believe. While they're attacking us, we're merely barely defending ourselves. But when you read them and begin to study what they believe, suddenly you go, I can't believe anyone holds this.

So in this book, listen to what he says. Hosea did not really marry a prostitute. That's what's in this book. He actually says, there's no way God would tell a prophet of God to marry a prostitute. Therefore, it's spiritual.

It's symbolic. It has some mystical meaning, but it cannot be literal. So you see, these are the men who say that we over-literalize things. I want to tell you, they over-spiritualize it. Anyone who would teach, and I believe Calvin did this as well, taught that Hosea, that it was all symbolic.

It was all prophetic language. Well, I want to tell you, Hosea did marry that prostitute, or it makes a mockery of an entire book of the Bible. Also in here, they say Ezekiel did not lie on his left side literally for 390 days, or on his right side for 40 days.

In fact, what he writes in this book, we must be aware of reading this about Ezekiel too literally. Now, we're certainly not going to make 390 days, 390 years. That would be impossible. I believe 390 days mean 390 days.

40 days mean 40 days. But do you know what the emailing list says? Said Ezekiel didn't literally do that. These numbers, these days are spiritual. They're symbolic. They mean something else. Now, they never tell us what 390 means.

They just cannot do that. That's utterly impossible. But if you start saying Ezekiel didn't really lie on his side, listen, from chapter two of Ezekiel through to chapter four, it also says that he dug through a wall, that he faced Jerusalem and prophesied, that he baked bread.

And he'd done all of these things as symbols in order to prophesy. Are we going to spiritualize the baking of bread, facing Jerusalem and breaking a wall through his house? Are we going to begin doing that?

Do you see how ridiculous they do? These are the men that tell us that we shouldn't take Daniel literally. Also, these same men in the same book in Psalm 90, he said the 70 years that have been given to a man.

Remember where it says 70 years is a lot of time. And if you reach 80 years old, well, they say that's symbolic. That 70 years, it doesn't mean literally, it's just a symbolic general number. Now, I'm going to tell you, most people get their 70 years in.

The Bible is not playing games in numbers. But see what I'm saying here. And I'm just laying the foundation. I am not an amylenalist because they hyper-spiritualize the Bible. And specifically, they hyper-spiritualize Bible prophecy until it doesn't mean anything.

Literal and Symbolic Interpretation in Daniel

Let me take you to the book of Daniel here. And in Daniel chapter seven, we read about the 10 kings who are represented as seven, or sorry, as 10 horns. They would have said seven. 10 horns on the fourth beast.

Now, those 10 horns on the fourth beast, they are horns. What do they represent? They represent 10 kings. So the symbol is the horns. The meaning of it is 10 kings. That's what Daniel seven says. But you know these men, and I've got all of their books here.

I read them from time to time when I'm relaxing. But do you know what they say? In this book, here's a man called Sam Storms. One of the greatest books, I read it last year on my week off. This is what a preacher does.

He has strange relaxing habits. But I read his book on his defense of amylenalism. He started as a pre-millennialist and for many years was taught under great pre-millennialists but he converted or changed his view as the years passed to be an amylenalist.

Well, do you know what he writes in this book about the 10 kings? And I've studied him carefully. He says, well, these 10 horns or 10 kings, they could mean 12 or they could mean 15 kings. The 10 horns and the 10 kings are symbolic.

The 10 is an indefinite large number of kings. 10, I'm telling you what they actually say. 10 represents completeness. 10 is the number of completeness. And so between the fourth beast, the Roman empire, and the rise of the little horn, who some of them believe is the papacy or the last day antichrist, whoever they say that is, but they say during this period, these 10 kings are an unspecified amount of men.

So when it says 10, it doesn't mean 10 kings are gonna rise on the Roman base. That means it could be 12 or 15 or 20 or 30 or who knows. In fact, there's no specific boundary on it or limitation. Maybe it could even mean nine.

Now these same men in their books also teach that on the third Grecian beast that had four horns, notable horns come up on it, they say they are four literal kings and four literal generals that followed Alexander.

Do you see what they're doing? In one place, they take it literally. In the other place, they spiritualize it. Now that's someone, I'm not the one that's being inconsistent. I believe a millennialist, when you really go into their teaching, it becomes so radically confusing, contradictory.

They contradict themselves constantly. And what they do with Bible prophecy makes it no prophecy at all. So 10 doesn't mean 10. It can mean any number of kings whatsoever. And this is what they teach within their books.

Now let's go to Daniel nine here. I just wanna show you how they over-spiritualize Bible prophecy. And I don't, I take it literally unless it's very evident that it's symbolic. You see, if it's 10 horns, those horns I don't take literally.

The beast I don't take literally. That beast, the four beasts are symbolic. The horns that come up are symbolic. But what do the horns mean? Well, the horns mean kings. Therefore I take them as 10 literal kings.

Why? Because the Bible teaches us. Same with Revelation chapter 17 when it mentions the 10 kings again. I don't create my own interpretation. I don't say 10 is a symbol of completeness. Therefore it's symbolic.

In Revelation 17, the angel goes through and interprets the entire vision. Yes, the woman, the beast, the horns are all symbolic, but they're all interpreted in Revelation 17. And guess what? They're exactly the same as we find in the book of Daniel.

Well, let's go further here in this hyper-spiritualization. In Daniel chapter nine in verse two, it says in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolation of Jerusalem.

Now, do you know what all these men teach? The 70 years weren't 70 literal years. So when Jeremiah said, you're going into captivity, God's gonna judge you and you'll be there for 70 years. They say it wasn't literal.

It's symbolic. The number 70 is symbolic. That's what they say. Do you know what that would mean? Daniel misunderstood the text because it says that I, Daniel, understood by books. But here we have to say he didn't understand.

He took Jeremiah literally. When he read Jeremiah and the prophecy said, 70 years you're gonna be in Babylon, 70 years that God's judgment is gonna be. 70 years and Babylon is gonna fall. Well, Daniel, when he read it, he took it literally.

It says he understood by the books, but there are those that actually say now that you cannot understand by books. You don't say that Daniel was misinformed. He should have made it symbolic. And this is why in the teaching, I so emphasized about this 70 years, they were literal 70 years.

Jeremiah's 70 years, they say, was not literal. Let me quote. They were probably not to be taken with chronological precision by the fact that the 70 years of Jeremiah's prophecy were not precisely 70 years.

These men in their books say it wasn't 70 years. I taught you clearly and showed you how it was exactly 70 years. There's two different prophecies concerning the 70 years. And when Daniel is writing here, it's another 20 years until the temple will be rebuilt.

You know what? It was 70 years from Babylon, from the rise of Babylon to its destruction, the fall, the judgment of Babylon from when Daniel was carried away. And listen, in the book of Zechariah, in chapter one and verse 12, Zechariah is prophesying at the end of the 70 years when the temple is rebuilt.

Do you know what he does? He mentions the 70 years in his preaching. He stirs the people and they finish the temple. So all these men, Jeremiah believed in 70 literal years. Daniel believed in it. Zechariah believed in it.

I certainly believe in it. But they spend, they waste an awful lot of ink in their books trying to prove how 70 years does not mean 70 years. They can't give us any definite explanation. In fact, the best they give us, the number 70 years, it's seven times 10.

And it actually points to perfection. This multiplying of seven with 10 is pointing to perfection or completeness. That's the most they can do with 70. So it's a prophecy given about something that's gonna happen, but they turn the number into a symbolic fluid number that has no definite end, but it did have a definite beginning.

You see, Jeremiah prophesied, God is gonna judge you. You'll be carried into captivity and you'll be there 70 years. It had a literal, physical time and beginning, and yet they symbolize it. This is very dangerous.

And you know what? Very good men have believed this. Very good men have taught this. Great thinkers have taught this. All I am is a flunk at high school, but I wanna tell you, I would rather trust to the written scripture.

I may not have great intellect like them or great abilities like them, but I believe in the inspired word of God. I'm gonna read it the way it's written. I'm gonna believe the text. I'm gonna hold fast to it.

Also in a little bit later in Daniel 9, you'll maybe say, why did they do that with the number 70? They had to do it because of Daniel's 70 weeks that come later in the same chapter. They have to do that to the 70 weeks so that they can cut up the 70th week of Daniel as well.

I got it. I got some straight. So as we look at the 490 years of prophecy, we dealt with it again very much. And you'll understand there are people who challenge this. They write theologically, they preach, they teach against this.

And so I believe we need to answer them. We know that later in Daniel chapter 9, one of the most remarkable prophecies in the Bible, we have a prophecy about 49 sevens or a period of 490 years. And they'll say that isn't literal years.

They'll say it's symbolic. They take these 490 years. They believe it's 490, just like we do. And they break it down just like we do, a period of 40 years, first of all, then, sorry, 49 years, then a period of 434 years, and finally a period of seven years.

Friends, listen to what they actually do to it in this. They say that the first 49 years, they'll agree, it's up to Nehemiah, the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Then they take another period of 434, just like us, which is an entire period of 483 years.

And they say it's to Messiah. From the giving of the command to the rebuilding of Jerusalem to Messiah, they say it's 483 years. Now listen to what Sam Storm, he's stirring up a storm here, Sam Storms, what he actually taught on this.

This is one of the greatest thinker on amillennialism in this generation, I believe, one of the greatest teachers. Listen to what he does in spiritualizing all of this. First of all, he takes this period of 483 years and it's amazing how it goes almost exactly to Christ water baptism, this is what he says.

But he says, it's not a literal number, it just falls that way. From the given a command, Cyrus, he believes it's Cyrus, all the way through to Messiah is 483 years. They don't believe it's literal. So what do they do with the rest of it then?

There's seven years left over. So they say that takes you up to the water baptism. Then you have a further seven years that is gonna take place. The next three and a half years is actually taken, it covers the period of Christ's ministry from his water baptism until his crucifixion.

And then the last three and a half years, what they do is take it from the cross all the way through to AD 70. So listen for a moment, 483 years is 483 years. The next three and a half years is actually three and a half years.

Then the last three and a half years is 40 years. Now different ones of these men interpret this differently. Some of them say the first three and a half years actually goes through to AD 70. Now friends, I don't wanna boggle your mind here tonight, but all I'm doing is explaining what they do with it.

So a period of three and a half years can be 40 years, it could be three and a half years, or it could be 2 ,000 years. Amillennialists teach all of this. They have different ideas, different teachings.

Some of them say that this three and a half year period is a literal three and a half year period for the first half of the week. But the second half of the week suddenly becomes 40 years to take you up to AD 70.

So what do they do? They have no standard pattern. They are trying to spiritualize this to make it fit a pattern. Do you know what they're trying to do? That the 70 weeks are fulfilled in the first century, that there's no seven years future.

They'll say I'm being too literal, that I'm trying to split it up, that my teaching on the 70th week is wrong. I wanna tell you, I have studied their teaching carefully. I've looked at their different opinions and nothing could convince me that they are right.

What do they do with that one week? In Daniel 9, 27, it says, and you know this is the verse given about the Antichrist, and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. Do you know what Amillennialists teach?

They teach that he is not the Antichrist, but it's the person of Christ. They actually teach this was fulfilled in the death of Jesus Christ. When it says he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, it means that when Jesus died on the cross, he confirmed the new covenant.

It was the beginning of the new covenant. And listen, three and a half year into that period, Daniel's prophecy says that he, the same person, will cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. For the overspreading of abomination.

What they actually teach, and they have different versions of this, is that Christ's death on the cross brought an end to the blood sacrifices. It finished with the old covenant. It finishes with blood sacrifice.

Now Jesus died on the cross, a covenant is signed and sealed here. It is the new covenant in his blood and it began. Now I want to tell you, this is a very big change. I believe it's Antichrist and it's in the future.

He'll sign a seven-year covenant, that there'll be a third temple. There'll be the starting again of blood sacrifices. You know the interesting thing? A literal view of scripture is coming to pass all around us.

Look at Jerusalem at the minute. We're going to see Ezekiel's war happen. It's literally going to happen. The armies are getting lined up right now. Israel is in place as a nation. The Emalenalists said Israel would never be restored as a nation.

Well, they were in 1948. Men like me, 100 years ago, were teaching Israel will be restored to their nation again. They're going to be in the land before all this happens. The Emalenalists used to mock that and laugh at it.

Well, it happened. It happened. And now Jerusalem and Israel and the Jews getting restored to their nation. You see, they don't believe this. They don't believe this is the fulfillment of prophecy, but I do.

I absolutely do. Do you know what the prophecies in Daniel 9, verse 27? It says that abomination of desolation is going to get set up again. Jesus, in Matthew 24, said that when you see the abomination of desolation get set up where it ought not to be, then the great tribulation is going to start.

That's what Jesus said. But do you know what these men say? They say something radically different. Now, listen, I'm going to my second point. Why did I reject this teaching that men like Martyn Lloyd-Jones held to, Calvin held to, the Puritans held to, and many, many great writers, even Sam Storms here, a godly, godly man.

Why is it I reject it? Because of their hyper-spiritualization. I cannot believe it. It makes these prophecies no prophecies at all. Prophecies that predict nothing in particular or specific. And it makes them everything in general.

This leaves us in the dark. How could you know such a prophecy has come to pass? Second of all, why did I not believe this teaching? Why did I believe in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth?

Here's my second point. Their extreme misapplication. I believe they apply the scriptures in an extreme unbiblical way. Let me prove it from the book of Daniel. And you test it for yourself. In Daniel chapter two, where we read tonight in verse 44, it says, and in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.

And that kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all of these kingdoms. And it shall stand forever. For as much as I saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and it break in pieces, the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what shall come to pass hereafter.

And the dream is certain. And the interpretation thereof is sure. Look at Daniel speaking as king. He said, you've had a dream. It's a prophecy. And everything will happen exactly. He said, it's certain.

And the interpretation is absolutely sure. And he gives the interpretation about it. You know, a millennial is so spiritualized things and so apply things you can never be sure. It is so vague, so broad, so open-ended that you cannot be sure.

But Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, you've received a dream from God. It's got a prophecy of all the kingdoms in world history. It's a remarkable prophecy. It's absolutely sure. Now, you remember what we taught in Daniel 2 about the four kingdoms in that statue.

It began with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire, and it went all the way through to the Roman Empire. Those iron legs were the Roman Empire, the fourth empire upon the earth. They were all four kingdoms on the earth.

They all reigned over the nations of the world. They were all physical. They were all visible. They were all literal kingdoms. And they had certain time spans. They had a beginning. They had an end. They had a ruler.

They had a government. It was seen by the nations of the world. All those nations under their power knew that this was a real and a genuine kingdom. They were world powers. They were physical. Now, what does the amillennialists do with this?

How do they actually apply it? Now, like us, they believe in these four kingdoms. They believe the last was the Roman Empire, the fourth great world empire. But this is what they teach. They take this prophecy in Daniel 2, and they apply it to the New Testament and say that that kingdom, that stone, that mountain actually was established in the first century.

They teach that the stone was Jesus Christ, that it was also the kingdom of God that came with the inauguration of the church and that it brought an end to the kingdoms of this world. In other words, all these kingdoms from Babylon down to the Roman Empire, and then Christ came and set up his kingdom on the earth.

You see, if you don't believe in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ literally, physically on the earth, as is taught in Zechariah 14 and in Revelation 1, if you reject that and spiritualize that, you've got to change Daniel 2.

When you get down to the Roman beast in the days of Jesus, you've got to spiritualize all this and say Christ was the stone. He brought his kingdom. And you know what? It hit the feet of this great statue.

Let's read this again. For as much as thou saw'st the stone that was cut out of the mountain without hands, it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold. They say this is what happened when Jesus came, died on the cross, rose on the third day, and sent the Holy Ghost to Pentecost.

This was the kingdom of God coming on the earth. And it was symbolically portrayed here. And this was the beginning. In the days of the Roman empire, the kingdom of God was set up on the earth. And for 2 ,000 years, it has been spreading on the earth.

But listen in Daniel 2, verse 35. Then was the iron and the clay and the brass and the silver and the gold broken to pieces together and became like the chaff and the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away and no place was found for them.

Do you know what this teaching actually teaches? It contradicts what is here. Daniel was prophesying that when the stone comes from heaven, it is a fifth kingdom. It is a heavenly kingdom. It is a spiritual kingdom.

It is Christ's kingdom coming on the earth. Do you know when it comes, it is going to come and hit the feet. It doesn't hit the head. It doesn't hit the arms or even the legs. It hits the feet, the two feet of clay and iron.