Bible In A Year - Revelation (part 1)

And we're going to be spending four Sundays out of the next five on the book of Revelation,

a book which has probably caused at least as much controversy as the rest of the Bible put together.

But we're going to be, you could preach easily for a couple of years trying to go through Revelation.

And we've already done four lessons on Revelation, and we're going to

do four more.

But through the month of March, skipping Resurrection Sunday, because we don't have Sunday school on the

23rd, we will be looking at Revelation.

Now, Revelation, its title defines

what it is.

Its purpose is to reveal.

And yet, people look at Revelation and they say, oh, we can't possibly figure out anything about what's

going on in Revelation.

I mean, they talk about seals, and bowls, and trumpets, and this, and that,

and all kinds of trouble.

And so we'll just ignore the book of Revelation, which is, of course, to

go directly against what Scripture says of itself.

It says all Scripture is written and given for our profit, and for our use,

and for our instruction.

And so we're going to look at Revelation as well as we have looked at the rest of the

Bible.

On this first Sunday, we're going to do kind of a quick overview of the entire book.

There are sheets on the back table back there that you can pick up if you haven't already,

which will go through and complete your set.

If you've been collecting all of them, you know, get them all, you know, and put them together.

Because this is the grand finale of God's word.

He started in Genesis by saying, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And he details in Revelation...he details in Genesis

the entry of sin into the world.

And in the account of Noah and the flood, he details just how serious it got,

how bad it got.

And on and on, we go through the Scripture where it's God's dealing with mankind.

And we might be forgiven sometimes for thinking that things are constantly going from bad to worse.

The Scripture even says that things will go from bad to worse.

And yet, when we get to the book of Revelation, it's the grand finale where God is

going to tell us, at least give us a glimpse of how things are going to wind up.

Now, I won't ask for a show of hands, but some of you, probably, if you read novels,

do you ever sort of look at the last chapter, you know, to see how it all

comes out before you read the whole book?

Well, that's what we're going to do.

Revelation is the last chapter.

And it shows us how it all is going to come out and how, what do you know,

throughout all of human history, God has been in charge.

And throughout all of human history, it has all been going to the end to which

he has directed everything.

And it's all going to come right in the end as he is going to correct

everything and set up the world as it was intended to be, to set

up and rule on earth as it was intended to be with Jesus Christ.

And so, this book details all of that.

Now, the book is written by the Apostle John.

Several times in the book, he identifies himself as the writer, as the Apostle John, the same one

that wrote the Gospel of John and that wrote 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, the same John.

He's an old man by this time.

If he's not over 100, he's pushing it pretty hard because this book was probably written

around 94, 95, 96 AD, somewhere in there.

John is very likely the last of the apostles that's still alive.

And he has been exiled.

He has been sent to Patmos and exiled there.

And while he is there, he is going to receive these visions that he will write

down.

And so, we have to make some allowance too for

John.

John is trying to describe the indescribable.

Some of the things that he is trying to describe simply can't be put into words very well because he's

going to be talking about great cataclysms that are going to affect the entire earth.

And he talks about stars falling from heaven and all of these things that...

And he uses the word, like, a lot.

It's like this, and it's as if it were that.

And so, we have to allow for these things, but we still interpret the book of Revelation

using exactly the same historical, literal hermeneutic that we've been using for the other 65 books of the

Bible.

We don't suddenly adopt an entire new mode of allegory or anything else when we get to the book of

Revelation.

It's...

He's writing down the way it's going to come out.

It's writing down the way it's going to come out.

And so, what we're going to do over the next few days or next few weeks, we're going to do an overview today.

Next week, we are going to look at the judgments.

And there are three categories of judgments, each of increasing severity, where we start off with the

seals.

If you'll remember, I did a sermon a few weeks ago on Chapter 5.

And in Chapter 5, we see Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, taking

the title deed scroll to the earth, and it's sealed with seven seals.

And we're going to start seeing what happens as those seals are broken.

And then, there are trumpet judgments.

There are seven seals.

There are seven trumpets.

There are seven bowl judgments.

And these are coming in very rapid succession, and the severity is

ramping up at an enormous level as you go through all of these judgments.

But that, even though a lot of people focus there, they put all their attention

on all of these terrible calamities that are going to befall mankind, that is not what the book of Revelation is about.

The book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

It is to show us Jesus Christ glorified.

It is to show us Jesus Christ as the conquering king.

Remember, the last time any of mankind

in general has seen Jesus Christ, he was what?

He was hanging on a cross, which pretty well implies defeat, doesn't it?

You can't really think of somebody who's hanging on a cross right now as coming in

glory and honor to conquer the world.

And so, John's book is going to show us a glimpse

of the conquering king who's going to come and who actually

does win out in the end.

We're going to take a look at the final victories as he sets up his kingdom and

rules.

And so, the third week, we're going to deal with some of the central characters

that we look at.

We're going to look at the Antichrist.

We're going to look at the false prophets.

We're going to look at the tribulation saints, the 144 ,000

evangelists that are spoken of in Revelation.

We're going to look at...it details the final world government.

It details the final world economic system.

And we're also going to look at the two witnesses, if we can cram all of that into one short

hour.

And then, week four, we're going to talk about Christ's return, the return of the king,

the return of the king.

And I'm not talking about Tolkien here.

The king really is coming back.

And we're going to look at Armageddon, the Armageddon battle, and the final victory, and the millennial kingdom, and the great white throne judgment,

and the new heavens, and the new earth, all of which that are spoken of towards the end of Revelation.

But the main thing is, this is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

There are only two key people in Revelation.

One is the apostle John, who makes reference to himself on several occasions, and the other one is Jesus,

who is presented as in his glory.

And John is uniquely qualified to present Jesus Christ as the

glorified king.

Why?

Because he saw him.

He saw him like that.

John is one of the three men who were given a look at the

glorified Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And you remember what happens.

James and John are struck silent, and Peter begins to babble the way

Peter normally does.

And so, the effect that Jesus, that the transfigured Christ had on these three men.

And so, John is going to present that view of Jesus Christ.

He's the son of God, only now he's risen and glorified.

And he's the conquering king.

He's king of kings and lord of lords.

If you look at the first chapter one, you see Jesus

Christ ministering to the churches.

He's moving among the churches, among the seven lampstands.

Each one represents a real church of that particular time.

He's seen as the faithful witness.

He is presented as the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, all of

human history.

He is presented as the one who was, and who is, and who is to come, the eternal one.

He is presented as the lion of the tribe of Judah in chapter five.

He is presented as the lamb in heaven.

He is presented as the lamb on the throne.

He is presented as Messiah.

He's presented as Messiah.

He's presented as king of kings and lord of lords.

He is presented as the word of God.

And this is another thing that's unique to John.

Only John describes Jesus Christ as the word.

Go back to John's gospel.

What's the opening of John's gospel?

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

He is also presented as the offspring of David, the one who has the right to rule.

And he is presented as the bright and morning star.

Revelation is also the doctrine of last things.

It presents, it's the back of the book.

It's by no means coincidence that the book of Revelation is also physically

the last book in the Bible.

It's the chapter you turn to to find out what happens throughout the entire book.

And so it has its parallel in the Old Testament in

the book of Daniel.

If you read Daniel's prophecies, Daniel's prophecies, he did

prophesy about things that did occur in that basic time period where Daniel

was alive.

But it also has future implications

of the prophecies and future applications of the prophecies that Daniel made.

And so Daniel and Revelation are more or less parallel books, Old Testament, New Testament.

And so what's shown?

Well, first of all, there's the central message.

Both of those books have the same message.

God providentially rules over the affairs of men.

That's the bottom line.

Whatever you think is going on in the world, whatever you think is going on in the universe, God is

providentially ruling over these affairs.

Nothing has occurred that surprises him.

Nothing has occurred that is not part of the decree

that he has laid down before the foundation of the world.

Everything that is happening, nothing is going to surprise him.

He's not going to call in the emergency committees to discuss, you know, what are we going to do?

Everything is playing out exactly as he laid it out.

And it's all headed now, now that we are in the second half, all of human history has been heading

towards one of two events, the first advent and the second advent of Jesus Christ.

First advent has passed.

Everything else is now headed towards the second advent of Jesus.

In fact, if you want to look at it this way, we are in the last times.

Not that Jesus Christ is going to come tomorrow or next week, although he might.

In fact, we are supposed to look for him constantly.

We are supposed to conduct ourselves looking for the imminent

return of Jesus Christ.

But we are in the last times because we've passed the first advent and now everything

is headed towards the second advent.

And whether it occurs today, whether it occurs in a year, whether it goes for another thousand

years, we're still in the last times.

And so it's the doctrine of last things.

And what are we going to see?

Well, it's going to detail the final political and religious and economic systems of the world.

We are headed towards a world government.

We are headed towards a world economic system.

We are headed towards a world religious system, if you will, where to buck any of

these things will be a very, very serious thing and have very serious consequences for whoever

doesn't go along and get the marks and all the rest of it.

It also details the final battle.

There will be a great battle at a place called Armageddon or Megiddo,

the Valley of Megiddo.

Napoleon Bonaparte is supposed to have said when he saw, when he

witnessed the Valley of Megiddo, he said, you could maneuver the armies of the entire world here.

And so we're going to take a look at that, the final battle.

We're going to take a look at the career and the defeat of the antichrist.

We serve Christ, the king of kings, the Lord of lords, the son of God, the second

person of the Godhead.

There is also an antichrist that will arise and be opposed to him.

Not that people have not opposed Jesus Christ before, but this is going to be something unique in history.

We're going to see the details of the final defeat of Satan and all of his, and all of his

minions.

We're going to look at the Christ kingdom on earth.

Christ's ultimate victory.

We'll be looking at that.

And we will also be looking at the final state of the righteous and the final state of the wicked as

we go.

So how does the book outline again?

I want to emphasize the bottom line here on the, on the, on your sheet.

The key purpose of this book is not to explain every nuance of the prophetic record.

We are not to be caught up with bowls and cups and horns and creatures and all of that.

This is the revelation of a person.

It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And the purpose of the book, as the name implies, is to reveal.

And I will caution you several times as we go through this, this study, do not be

caught up.

There, there's a certain element that loves to read with revelation in the right hand and the

newspaper in the left hand.

Don't get caught up in that trap because while

it's intriguing to look at current events in light of scripture, you

can't make, you can't make that the focus of your study because

while yes, to us, it certainly looks like everything can't possibly get any worse, but you know,

human beings have a great ability that whenever it looks like we can't possibly get any worse, we manage.

We always somehow managed to make it worse.

And the Bible even says that things will wax worse and worse as the, as the end approaches.

And so even though it looks pretty bad, it can get worse.

Don't worry about that.

And who knows Jesus or God may work providentially in our lives and reset, move the clock back a

little bit.

We don't know.

And so don't get caught up in, it's a danger to get caught up in this, uh,

uh, and overall interest in current events versus revelation.

I noticed I did some, um, internet searching

and I'll tell you what, Google on Armageddon, Google on

Armageddon, I got 547 ,000 returns.

I didn't look at all of them.

Uh, I mean, everybody and his, and, and, and his cow has got something on, on the

internet about revelation and Armageddon and all of this and charts and so forth and so on.

I did find the chart I was looking for, by the way.

But, um, so that's just a word of warning.

Here's how the book outlines.

John is told in, in this visions that he has, John is told that he's going to write three

things.

First of all, he is to write the things which you have seen the past.

And that's chapter one, verses one to 20.

And in that he has a prologue.

He has the, his vision of a glorified Christ and he details his commission to write.

He said, the Holy Spirit told me to write this book.

And so here it is.

And then he's to write the things which are the things which are at present.

And that's chapter two, verse one to chapter three, verse 22.

These are the letters to the churches.

Now we've already done four lessons on the churches and we're not going to do them again.

I direct you the, there are the, those lessons are all online.

You can go back and pick them up if you want to.

But just briefly that there were seven churches that he wrote letters to.

And these are seven physical churches that were now in what we now call Asia minor.

Some of them still exist.

There are great, great grandchildren still exist.

Some of them are gone, but each one of these churches was

first of all, a physical church with a real pastor.

It is also indicative.

Every one of these churches is representative of a church age or a period during

the church, during the church age.

And each one of these churches is also somewhat representative of individual Christians.

Like each one of these and most of the cases, each one of these letters, he has a commendation

for that church.

He has a criticism for that church.

He has a warning for that church and he has an encouragement, a word of encouragement or promise for that church.

And so what was the criticism for the church at Ephesus?

Lots of good stuff going on at Ephesus.

You know, you're doctrinally sound, you resist evil, you resist the Nicolaitans.

You know, you do all of these things, but I have a problem with you.

You've lost your first love.

You've lost that first rush that marks a new Christian.

And how many of us can say that of ourselves?

You know, as time goes by, you lose that first rush.

You lose that first rush and he goes on.

He talks to Smyrna, the persecuted church.

He talks to Pergamum, the worldly church.

He talks to Thyatira, which was the idolatrous church.

He talks to Sardis, the dead church.

He talks to Philadelphia, which was the church in revival.

And finally, he talks to the church at Laodicea, the apostate church.

And there are some indications that we are getting into the Laodicean age, but maybe not.

Things might turn around and we have a few more millennia to work.

And finally, he is told to write the things which will take place after this, past, present, future.

And that's chapter 4, verse 1, on to chapter 22, verse 21.

And then, we are seen, once we get into heaven, once we get into

heaven with the start of chapter 4, first of all, we see worship in

heaven.

We see what goes on in heaven, the worship that's taking place in heaven.

We are going to be told about the great tribulation which takes place on earth.

We are told about the return of the king.

We are told about the millennial kingdom and the great white throne judgment, and finally, the eternal state.

And that's how the rest of the book outlines.

And so, throughout history, there have been four primary views

of revelation.

How do you view revelation?

Because there are things in revelation which are described,

which, again, are simply indescribable.

You're trying to describe the indescribable.

It's as if when we were doing the first hydrogen bomb tests in the

1950s, if one of the natives in the South Pacific had

witnessed the hydrogen bomb going off at Bikini Atoll,

and he's trying to describe that to his fellow tribal members.

How could you describe that?

It's indescribable, what he's seen.

And you have certain of that that we see in the book of Revelation.

But of the four views, there's the preterist view.

And the preterist view interprets revelation as a description of events that occurred during the first century,

primarily under the Romans, and specifically, the Roman Empire's sacking of Jerusalem

in 70 AD.

There are problems with all of these things.

We're not going to investigate them right now.

There is the historicist view, which also, which interprets revelation as an overview of all of church

history.

There is the idealist view, which interprets revelation as an allegory, that it's a

presentation of the cosmic struggle that has existed between good and evil since Genesis.

And finally, there is the futurist view.

And I'll give you a hint, we're futurists here.

The futurist view interprets revelation as prophecy, that

the events, particularly starting in Chapter 6, that the events that go forward from there are genuine

prophetic descriptions of things that will happen in the future.

And again, I said we use the same historical literal hermeneutic that we use for the other 65

books of the Bible to interpret revelation with due allowance for the fact that John, yes, is

using metaphor in some places.

Because again, whenever you're trying to describe the indescribable, you have to start using metaphors.

And so you will see in the text that John has, he said, it was like, or, you know,

words of that type, as if, you hear a lot of that, you know, as if it were,

and those types of things.

So, we'll rush along here, a few key words, a few key words that we run into

in revelation, first of all, we run into the term Hades,

and in Greek, in Greek it also, Hades, and it means literally the

place of the unseen.

In our minds, we tend to use Hades and hell as interchangeable, but they're not.

Hades is the place of the dead.

Hades is the place, the abode of those who are no longer alive on this earth.

Hell is a place where the wicked dead will wind up.

So, they are not one and the same, or they are not interchangeable.

Hell is a place of eternal punishment.

And so, that's one thing that goes on.

We also, another term that we see a lot in revelation, and I just want to hit a few of these, is Almighty.

And again, the Greek literally means one who has power over everything.

And that's the description of God in all, the entire trinity,

in every member of the trinity.

Almighty God, the one who has power over everything.

Very similar to saying a sovereign God.

A sovereign God, the word, if you are a sovereign king, the word have to

and sovereignty don't go together in the same sentence.

A sovereign ruler answers to no one.

And we have trouble with that because, for one thing, there are no sovereign rulers, earthly speaking anymore,

except for maybe a tyrant or two.

And even they're not very sovereign because they are also under God's control.

But Jesus Christ is a sovereign king of kings.

God is a sovereign God.

He does what he does, and he answers to no one, least of all to us.

And so, you know, Paul addresses this to a certain extent.

Who art thou, O man, to, you know, to challenge God and to say, why have you

done whatever it is that you did?

But also because of what God has revealed to us about his nature, we can say with

absolute assurance what God hath done is rightly done.

Will not the judge of the universe do right?

You know, Job asked that question, and the answer is yes, he will.

He will do right.

Whatever he does is right, whether we see the rightness of it or not.

And we can have confidence in that.

The devil, of course, also appears several places in Revelation.

And also the term alpha and omega, we see that a lot.

Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and it means everything, the

beginning and the end.

And one of the titles that is given to Jesus Christ is that he is the alpha and the omega.

He is the beginning and he is the end of all human history.

He's the start and he's the finish.

Everything has been focused upon him.

And everything that has occurred in human history ultimately is to bring glory to him.

Excuse me.

Well, that probably fried the converter.

Does Revelation fit the central theme of the whole Bible?

It certainly does, because the central theme of the entire Bible is God's provincial

dealings and redemptive dealings with mankind.

And Revelation is going to tell us how it all comes out in the end, because

we have been told as we read through the New Testament, for example, that we are to leave

vengeance to God.

We are not to extract revenge, even though we will be persecuted.

Peter assures his readers that, you know, you're going to be persecuted.

All who will live holy lives will be persecuted.

And we are not to take to extract our own revenge and vengeance for this.

God will take care of that.

And so Revelation shows us that, yes, he does take care of that.

What do you know?

He is as good as his word.

He does do what he says it will do.

Jesus Christ is our redeemer, and he's going to come again in judgment.

You know, Jesus Christ came the first time.

What did he say to his disciples?

He said, I have come to call sinners to repentance.

That's why I'm here.

I have come to die for the sins of men,

for the sins of the elect.

I have come to call men to myself.

And we see, you know, we sort of like, particularly around Christmas time, don't we, we like the little baby

in the manger.

The baby in the manger is not threatening.

And then it all seems to close with him hanging on the cross.

And you would certainly think he was defeated.

You get nailed to a cross, that's pretty well defeat, isn't it?

And yet, it doesn't end there.

And the book of Revelation shows us this time when he comes, he comes as the king of kings and the Lord

of lords, as the conqueror.

As one writer put it, you know, when Jesus was here the first time, he had kind eyes.

He had the kind of eyes that made little children come up to him and want to climb up on his lap.

He had the sort of eyes that made their mothers want to let them go up to him and

climb up on his lap.

The next time, his eyes blaze.

The kind eyes are gone.

The next time, the eyes are eyes of judgment and conquering.

We have to move ahead though.

Frequently asked questions.

Well, first of all, I've already talked a little bit about the different ways in which the book of Revelation can be interpreted.

Because it's true, the book of Revelation probably imposes more interpretive challenges

than any other book in the Bible.

Maybe Daniel's up there along with it.

But, you know, basically, there's a lot of challenges there.

And as we've talked about the four basic ways throughout history that people have

looked at the book of Revelation.

And again, as I said, in this church, at least, we use the futurist,

we take the futurist position because that view does justice to

Revelation's claim to be prophecy.

It claims to be prophecy number one.

And it interprets it using the same hermeneutic that we have used for all the rest of the Bible.

We didn't suddenly change course at the end.

Something about the churches, the seven churches, we've gone through those where you had Ephesus, which was the loveliest church.

Lots of good stuff going on at Ephesus.

But they lacked one really important thing.

They had lost that first love.

Smyrna was the persecuted church.

And then, interestingly enough, Smyrna was one of the churches that did not receive a warning.

To use the vernacular, the message to Smyrna was, hang in there.

You know, I know that you're under persecution and just existing,

you know, is what we can ask of you.

So just that there was no warning to the church at Smyrna.

Pergamos, the church that was compromised, the church that was worldly, Thyatira, the church that was

corrupt.

Sardis, the church that was dead.

They had the name, but there was nothing there.

Nothing there.

It's like, you know, as time goes by, you know, the churches start out with the motto, we preach Christ crucified.

But over time, it becomes we preach.

We don't have anything to say, but we preach.

And there was Philadelphia, the faithful church.

That was another church that didn't have a warning, that didn't receive a warning.

And finally, the lukewarm church at Laodicea.

And at Laodicea, nothing good to say.

Nothing good to say.

Revelation 320, we need to say some words about that.

Who can quote Revelation 320?

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

Okay?

When I was growing up, you know, that verse was used over and over and over and

over again as it says.

See, Jesus is standing outside the door of your heart, and he wants you to open the door.

And basically, it's an invitation to get saved.

Please get saved.

I'm knocking on the door.

This is one of the most incorrectly used verses in the Bible.

It's right up there with judge not that you be not judged.

And where there is no vision, the people perish.

This particular verse has nothing to do with salvation.

It has nothing to do with salvation.

It has to do...

Don't forget, we're in the context of the churches.

This is in a letter to the churches, that the context has something to do with the church.

And so, the context here tells us that this is Jesus.

He's saying, look, I'm talking to a church and you bear my name,

but I'm not there.

You bear my name, but I'm not there.

And I want to come in and be a part.

I want your church to really be where my name is upheld.

Not something that's simply on the banner outside or on the sign outside.

And so, there's that.

Some comments on the tribulation.

What is the tribulation?

Where does it fit in the book of Revelation?

Going very quickly here.

First of all, you've heard it said over and over and over again in this church that we are pre

-trib, pre -mill.

What does that mean?

It means that we hold the position that the church, the body of Christ, you guys,

will be taken out before the tribulation begins.

That is by no means is that universally accepted, okay?

But we believe in what is also called the hidden rapture, that Jesus Christ

will come to in the air, not to the earth, in the air and will call his saints up to

him, the church.

Rapture means a snatching away or a catching away.

That's where the term comes from.

And so, the church is taken out.

We base this on the fact that starting in chapter 4 of Revelation,

the church as represented by the 24 elders is present in heaven, not on earth,

okay?

And then that marks the start of what will be called the great tribulation period, which is a

period of seven literal years.

If you go back to Daniel, if you go back to Daniel, Daniel prophesies 70 weeks upon

Israel, 70 weeks of years upon Israel.

Sixty -nine of those weeks have taken place.

Jesus Christ entered triumphal entry into Jerusalem occurred on

exactly the right day that Daniel prophesied, okay?

But now, we're missing a week.

We're missing a seven -year period because Jesus or God is going

to resume his dealings with his people Israel.

And that's what the period of the tribulation starts that.

You can also tie back to Matthew chapter 24.

All the warnings that are in Matthew chapter 24 where Jesus, in effect, says, you know, if when you see the

desolation in the temple, it is time to get out of dodge.

He didn't actually say that, but, you know, that's what he meant.

It's time to leave when it starts to turn bad.

And so, this period of time, seven -year period of time, where it will start off with a

false peace, but then very quickly, things will start to go from bad to worse.

And worse will get worse, believe me, as you go through because all of the seals, as the

seals get open, and the seventh seal contains seven trumpets, and as the seventh trumpet sounds, there are

seven bowls of judgment.

And it's going to be boom, boom, boom as things happen faster and faster and faster into greater and

greater periods of intensity in which the scripture says itself that if this

time wasn't shortened, nobody would survive it.

And so, that's a period of time in which judgment is going to be poured out upon the earth,

and it will come to an end with the physical return of Jesus Christ with his saints to

the earth.

This time, remember, the first time, the rapture takes place in the air, we are told, in the clouds.

The second coming, Jesus Christ puts his foot upon the earth, specifically upon the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives splits down the middle, and the great battle of Armageddon takes place.

I'll skip this comment about 666.

We'll talk about that later.

What does it mean when the great multitude in Revelation keeps saying, hallelujah, what does that mean?

It means praise the Lord.

And what do the saints in heaven do?

They praise the Lord all the time.

What do the angels in heaven do?

They praise the Lord all the time.

One of the things you'll notice, particularly in the descriptions where you're actually seeing things in heaven, is

that people are always stopping to sing hymns and to have hymns of praise.

They have a lot of time available to do that, and they do that repeatedly, because that's what goes on in

heaven, is God is praised.

And finally, what's the millennial kingdom?

Revelation chapter 20, specifically, has mentions of a kingdom that will last 1 ,000 years.

And again, because of the hermeneutical position that we take at this church, we

believe that is 1 ,000 literal years in which the

kingdom, God will restore the kingdom of the Jewish

kingdom.

And Jesus is going to reign on earth for this 1 ,000 years, reigning as the

son of David, because promises were made to Abraham,

promises of land, promises of seed, promises of rulers.

Interestingly enough, when the rulers were promised to Abraham, there was no Israelite nation.

It didn't exist.

And yet, these promises were made.

The promises have been renewed from time to time.

Unconditional covenants.

There are features of the Abrahamic covenant that have never been

fulfilled yet.

All of this will be fulfilled.

And one of the things that was promised to David was that, you know, your son, your descendant, will

rule after you.

Well, Jesus, Jesus Christ, is the son of David.

If you trace his earthly human lineage, he comes from David.

He is of the royal line.

He has the legal right to rule, if you will.

And he will, in fact, rule for this period of time.

It will be a period of time of perfect environment upon the earth.

And interestingly enough, we have to wrap up.

I'll point this out too, and this is not part of this morning's lesson.

It's just thrown in.

For everyone that you've heard the argument that, well, if we have a good environment, people will be good.

Okay.

Well, if you read the description of what goes on during the millennial kingdom, people are being

born during the millennial kingdom.

They still have to repent, believe, put their faith in Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

Because what happens at the end of 1 ,000 years, a little flash forward here, is that Satan is going to be

released for a little period of time at the end of the 1 ,000 -year reign.

And guess what happens?

There they go.

You know, we've had 1 ,000 years of perfect environment.

But fallen men are still fallen.

And they will follow.

And there will be a last rebellion that will be put down at the end of that.

But we'll go into that at some length when we talk about it.

Any questions so far?

Oh, one other point I wanted to make before we quit.

Here's the question.

Will there be believers on earth during the period of the tribulation?

The answer to that is yes.

However, you are unique people.

Do you realize that?

You are unique people.

You are members of the church, the body of Christ.

The church started at Pentecost.

The church will end with the rapture.

So there were saints before Pentecost.

There will be saints after the rapture.

But they're not members of the church, the body of Christ.

We are special.

We are the bride of Christ.

We are very privileged to live in a very particular time.

But there will definitely be believers on earth during the tribulation period.

Where will they come from?

Good question.

One of the things that we are told in Revelation is that there are going to be 144

,000 Jewish evangelists.

And one former pastor of mine, who himself was a Messianic

Jew, made the comment, he said, I can't prove this.

But one possibility is there are going to be 144 ,000 Damascus Road experiences.

Because right now, no Jewish person knows what tribe they're

from.

Because all the records were destroyed in 70 AD, when Jerusalem was sacked.

So nobody can really say, I'm of the tribe of Levi, I'm on the tribe of whatever.

But God knows.

And he says that I'm going to have 12 ,000 from each one of the tribes.

So 144 ,000 evangelists are going to go out.

And they're going to be the two witnesses.

And there will be, suffice it to say, the gospel will be preached.

People will come.

People will come.

People will repent and believe.

People will place their faith in Jesus Christ.

And it's going to be very, very hard for them during that period of time.

A lot of them will be martyred.

Because if you don't, and this is a bit of a preview, if you don't

have the proper marks, you can't participate in the economic system.

You can't buy and sell or do anything like can't hold a job.

And so it's going to be very hard for these people.

But they'll be there.

And God will be faithful to them, too.

OK, any questions?

Sort of like drinking from the fire hose this morning, I know.

All right, let's close in prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, our Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you that you have

given us a glimpse into the way everything will wind up.

You have given us the final chapter of the book so that we can get a preview of

the way it's all going to come out, that we can see the King of Kings returning in glory, that we can take comfort

from the fact that in spite of how bad it might look at some period of time, that you

are in command, that you are in control, that you do providentially rule over the affairs of men, and that you will

bring everything right at the end, and that you will, in fact, triumph.

We thank you, Lord, for this, that you've given us to this.

May the Holy Spirit apply the lessons of the book of Revelation to our hearts.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.