Revelation 20
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."
Alright, so we see here in Revelation chapter 20, an introduction to a description of what we call the millennium, or the millennial kingdom. Sometimes, if you go back in church history, this was called chiliasm. Chiliasm. Chilias is the Greek word for a thousand. Okay, so chiliasm—archē has the idea of reigning. Okay, so chili-archē, a thousand-year reign.
And really, for the first two centuries, almost three centuries of Christianity, most of the writings that we have from Christian leaders believed this, that there was going to be a thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth.
I had an uncle that came from a more mainline denominational background. They did know the Lord as their savior, I had that conversation with them multiple times, but they came from a more mainline denominational background, and the denomination they came from said, "We don't believe in a literal thousand-year reign because we only establish doctrine if it's mentioned twice in scripture, and it's only mentioned once in Revelation 20." And so therefore... I'm like, well, Revelation 20 is pretty clear, right? That's a weird rule to me. Like, if the Bible says it really clearly for most of a chapter, we don't believe it unless it's in another chapter of the Bible. Not to mention in this chapter, the word "a thousand" happens more than once. So it seems like there's more than one mention of it, unless you only count the chapter as one mention.
But as we've said, when we went through the ideas of amillennialism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism in here, we're assuming and moving forward on the assumption of premillennialism. And so we're going to consider the millennial kingdom of Christ.
In other words, I believe, and I think the Bible teaches, that Jesus is literally going to return, that he's literally going to set up a kingdom, that he's literally going to reign on the throne of his father, David, for a literal 1,000 years. I think that's what the Bible teaches. I think that's pretty clear. It's actually very clear from the Old Testament. If you just take the Old Testament prophecies at face value and look at them, it seems to be promising that very thing. And here in Revelation 20, it seems to be talking about that very thing being fulfilled.
And so we're going to move forward. What is the definition of the millennial kingdom, and two, the time of it?
1. Definition of the Millennial Kingdom
So the definition of the millennial kingdom, we're going to look at a basic definition. The millennial kingdom is the rule and reign of Jesus Christ on earth for 1,000 years following the tribulation period. Alright? So it's the 1,000-year rule and reign of Christ. Rule and reign? Well, he's ruling in the sense that he has the authority, but it's also a reign in the sense that this is royal.
I've often said, and it's not original with me, that the best form of government is actually a monarchy. But that is if Jesus is the monarch, okay? You have to have the right monarch. And that's true about a lot of forms of government; a form of government is only as good as the people who are involved in it. So, for example, if you have a king and he's a decent king, even if he's not Jesus, if you have a godly king, a monarchy is not a terrible form of government. It could be a decent form of government. England has functioned with a monarchy for many, many... I mean, modern England traces its history back to 1065 with Edward the Confessor and then 1066 with William the Conqueror. So you're going back almost a thousand years that they've had a continuing government under a monarch, and most people don't think that the UK was a terrible place to live.
Of course, this weekend, we think that it's better not to be under the UK, right? A friend of mine was traveling, he had the opportunity to go speak at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. The current pastor there asked him to come and preach on music. My friend has a doctor's degree in church music and he was asked to go speak there. But while he was there over the weekend, it was over the July 4th weekend, and he was doing one of those double-decker bus tours of London. And while they're going around, there was a statue that was pointed out of King George III. And it was this July 4th, and the British bus driver, doing his narration, said, "Does anybody know why this isn't a great day for that statue?" And this friend of mine who's American said, "July 4th, American Independence." And the guy said, "That's right." And he said, "Does anybody know why the Americans wanted independence?" My friend said, "Taxation without representation." And the British bus driver said, "Yes, tax evasion." So obviously it depends on which side of the Atlantic you are to view it from.
But the fact is that, especially in modern history, especially post-American Revolution, until fairly recently when during COVID they got kind of silly about things, England had been a fairly free country. And people didn't view monarchy as terrible then.
And even if you had a different form of government... right now, in El Salvador, they have a president, Bukele. He basically rid the country of MS-13. Like, they're all in prison now. MS-13 was running the country. It is now a livable country. Even to the point that after he got elected, he cracked down on them, and then—could you imagine this happening in the United States?—literally a gang of people attacked the presidential mansion and tried to kill him and his family. They barely didn't succeed. And then he really cracked down on them further. Now, if you look at some of the things he's done, he's gone way beyond their constitution and he's taken extra powers that the President isn't supposed to have, but everybody in the country loves him. Before, you couldn't walk the street without being worried that you'd be robbed or killed, or kidnapped. And today, you can just live your life in your country, and nobody's really bothering you. The government's not bothering you, unless you're part of that MS-13 gang. And then you're in trouble. So they look at this guy and they go, "Give him all the power he wants if he'll make life livable for us." That doesn't necessarily mean that's best, but you can see where, if you have somebody in power who's doing some righteous things, that people will live with whatever form of government there is.
But the best form of government, biblically, is a monarchy if Jesus is ruling, because a monarchy gives the ability to swiftly make decisions. A king can just make a decision like that. And if you have a perfect king who has perfect wisdom, then certainly he's never going to make the wrong decision, then that's the best way to do it.
You know, one of the drawbacks of our form of government is it takes a while to get things done. Now that's good when you have sinners who are arguing with each other over things. I always find it funny, whoever's in charge, the other party always complains about that person. Anytime the president does anything recreational, the other party complains. So, you know, President Trump travels down to Palm Beach, down to Mar-a-Lago, and the Democrats throw out, "He's wasting our taxpayer dollars! Do you know what it costs for him to travel down there?" Yeah, because we've got this stupid situation now where it takes a thousand people for the president to go anywhere. I'm all for Secret Service protection, but you know, when he goes, there's this whole press corps that follows him everywhere he goes, and the government basically lets them get on Air Force One with him and everything else, so he can't, you know, go to the drive-thru at McDonald's without it costing a million dollars. It's just the way it is. I'm exaggerating on that a little bit, but it really is. If he travels from D.C. to Mar-a-Lago, it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it costs us for him to travel that distance.
Same thing was true if President Biden traveled to Delaware, or if President Obama traveled to Hawaii. It costs a lot of money. And the other party was just, "How much is this costing us taxpayers?" and they get upset about it. But one of the things I always appreciated was if President Obama was golfing in Hawaii, he wasn't signing executive orders in D.C. I was good with that. Right? Go golfing more. I'm not looking for my money's worth in this one. And so, you know, there's a certain place at which not getting things done in Washington doesn't always bother me. Because, hey, then they're not intervening in my life.
But the problem is when you have sinners. The same thing is true, for example, in church government. There are various forms of church government. I think biblically, what you see is leadership by pastors, elders, etc. I'm using those words interchangeably for the same office. Who's supposed to lead the church? We believe in congregational church government, but is the congregation led? Now, that wouldn't make any sense. You feel what I'm saying? How could a group lead itself? That doesn't make sense. In fact, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says to submit to those who have the rule over you. Elders that rule well are to be counted worthy of double honor. It's supposed to be the pastors, the elders, etc.
But who chooses the pastors and elders? The congregation. Who chooses the deacons? The congregation. We see that in Acts chapter 6, when they choose the deacons, "Look ye out from among you men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom." So the congregation chooses. Who decides who is a member and who's not? If somebody sins, you go to that person. If they don't hear you, you take two or three. If they don't hear the two or three, tell it to the church. If they don't hear the church, then you treat them like an unbeliever. You remove them from the membership of the church. You remove them, not the pastor, not the deacons, the congregation. The final decision on who's in and who's out. When somebody wants to become a member, we say, "Yes, we understand that they profess faith in Christ, and that they've been baptized," and so we vote and say, "We want them to be a part of our church."
And if it ever came to the day that we put somebody before you who was clearly an unbeliever and we said, "Hey, do we have a motion and a second to make this person a member?" and they said, "I'm an atheist and I hate God," you should vote no. We don't believe in an unregenerate church membership. So the congregation is to say who's in and who's out, who leads. They choose their leaders. That's what congregationalism is. That's a good thing. It's the biblical model. That's what we find in the Bible. We don't find the congregation coming to Peter and James and going, "What brand of pencil did you buy for your sermon notes?" Right? I mean, it's not their job to micromanage these sorts of things. It's the congregation's job to choose leadership and decide who's in and out.
So I do think that's biblical, but you can have another form of church government—I don't think it's as biblical—but a church could still function because if you have sound leaders, it works. And we've all seen it, if you've been in churches long enough, you've probably had the experience of seeing where you could have a form of church government that is a biblical form of church government, in a Baptist church meeting, but you've got evil people in the congregation driving things. Maybe you've seen this situation where you get a couple of men who are not exactly godly, who are making a lot of decisions, and they have a lot of power. Maybe they're big givers, and everyone's always afraid to offend them because they might leave the church. And the things they want to do are not biblical, but they get their way. You can have congregational government in a church, but if you have the wrong kind of leaders and they're not godly, then you're not going to go the right direction. That's why it's very important in congregational governments like ours, that we not vote in people who are unbelievers. Because then you're giving them a say, you're giving unbelievers a say in the future leadership of the church. The next time we choose deacons, or the next time we choose an assistant pastor, or if something were to happen to me, and you had to find a new pastor, that person is going to have a say. Do you want the unsaved person to say, "Hey, this should be the next pastor"? They're not going to make biblical decisions that way. They're going to do what they want.
And so any form of government, if it has ungodly people in it, doesn't work right. Now, if you have a perfect leader in Jesus, that's a different story, right? So a perfect form of government is a king, ruling and reigning, when that king is Jesus.
Alright, we've looked at Revelation 20:1-7, we just read that a minute ago. Let's look at Luke 21:31. Luke 21:31 says, "So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." "These things," it's talking about verse 29, "And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand." In other words, when you see the buds on the trees. "So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." When the tribulation is going on, know that the kingdom is coming. That's the point.
Matthew 3:2. In other words, what we're saying here is it follows the tribulation. Matthew 3:2. There are some systems that put the tribulation at the end of the millennium, not before it. Matthew 3:2 says, "And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Now, I'm going to contend that Matthew uses the word "kingdom of heaven," and the other gospels use the term "kingdom of God," but they use them in the same way. I believe the Scofield Reference Bible makes a distinction between the kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God, but there are verses that... I have a book in my library called a gospel harmony. And what that is is it puts all the gospel passages in columns next to each other, and you can see, here's Matthew's account, here's Luke's account, there's Mark's account, John's account, etc., and you can see them next to each other. You can see what details are in this account, and in this account. In some cases, you only have John, and in some cases... there are very few accounts that are only in one gospel, but occasionally that's the case. Mark has some things that aren't in the other gospels. Matthew has some things that aren't in the other gospels. Luke has some things that aren't in the other gospels. In that case, you just have one column and the other ones are blank.
But in a gospel harmony like that, there are many times where you have Jesus saying something and you read it down, and Matthew says this, Mark says something very similar, and Luke says something very similar. But as you compare them, Matthew was saying "Kingdom of heaven," and the other two are saying "kingdom of God" in the exact same sermon or preaching of Jesus. The reason Matthew uses the term "kingdom of heaven" is because he has a Jewish audience. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience, and in order for their sensibilities not to be offended, you never say "God," you never say "Yahweh," you never say God's name. So they use "heaven" as a euphemism to avoid ever speaking the name of God, because if you never speak God's name, you can't take it in vain. That was the way that Jewish people approached it. And so therefore, because he has a Jewish audience in mind, he doesn't say "kingdom of God." He says "kingdom of heaven" throughout his work.
And if you compare 2 Timothy 4:18... It says, "And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Alright? The heavenly kingdom. In other words, here he is, end of his life, Paul's about to be martyred. This is the last book that Paul writes. He says, "The Lord's going to deliver me from every evil work." There are evil people working against him, but the Lord will eventually deliver him from that, "and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever." In other words, God's going to preserve him, he'll be faithful, even if he dies, he's going to be in that heavenly kingdom. So here, Paul calls it a heavenly kingdom, but in other places, it's called the reign of Christ, the Messianic kingdom, etc. We'll look at some of these as well. But here, Kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, that's the millennium. That's the Messianic kingdom, the rule of Christ, Christ ruling and reigning.
Three Aspects in the Definition of the Millennial Kingdom
First, it is the rule of God through a divinely chosen representative. Who is that divinely chosen representative? It's Jesus in the perfect kingdom. But in the Old Testament when God ruled, he had representatives, didn't he? Moses. When Moses couldn't handle the whole load, what did God do? He gave him 70 elders to help him, right? When Moses passed, who did the mediatorial office go to? Joshua. Alright, after Joshua, who did it go to? Various judges. After the judges, the last of the judges is the one man who's a prophet named Samuel. After Samuel, the nation asks for a king. God allows them to have a king, Saul is chosen. Saul forgets that he's the mediator, and he thinks he's just a king like the kings around them, and he's not a man after God's own heart. He doesn't remember that God is the ultimate king. He's just the representative. And so he disobeys God on multiple counts, fails to kill King Agag, spares some of the livestock as spoils of war. God rejects him from being king and eventually chooses David. David is a man after God's own heart and God promises to David that he won't lack a man, that eventually a son of David will rule forever on the throne of his father David. That's Solomon, then Rehoboam, etc. And you go through this series, not all of them are good or godly, of people that are mediators. And eventually God tells the kingdom of Israel and Judah, that you've disobeyed God, you've gone after idols. And so God is going to destroy this kingdom. He's going to send you into exile, and they do. They go into exile. And just before they go into exile, the glory, the glory cloud, the Shekinah, leaves the temple and goes east toward the Mount of Olives and departs. And it never comes back. In the days of Jesus, there was no glory cloud on the temple like there was in the days of Solomon. Why? Because it had gone. We're in the era of Gentile power. And so now we're waiting for that kingdom to come back, and this time, it's going to have a perfect mediator. It's not going to have a lunkhead like Rehoboam. There's going to be a perfect mediator, and that's going to be Jesus.
Two, a rule that has reference specifically to the Earth. This is a rule on Earth. Jesus is coming back to Earth to reign, right? Amen. There are some people who view the kingdom of God as completely spiritual. The kingdom of God certainly has spiritual aspects to it, I wouldn't deny that. But the idea is just Jesus ruling in your heart right now. And that's the kingdom of God. That's not how the Bible uses that concept of the kingdom. It's not just the rule of Christ in your heart. In other words, this is the mediatorial rule, Jesus ruling on the throne of his father, David. And some people will go to the passage that says, "the kingdom of God is within you." The King James does translate it that way. But in that verse, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees. Was the kingdom of God in their hearts when they were unbelievers rejecting the Messiah? No. So we could translate that verse, "the kingdom of God is among you." How was the kingdom of God among them? Jesus was standing right there. He's the king. Did they want the king? No, they ended up rejecting him and crucifying him. But eventually he's coming back and he is going to set up that kingdom.
And so the idea that it's merely some kind of spiritual thing, that actually became popular around the time of Augustine. St. Augustine, the city in Florida is named after him. Augustine was a Christian, a man of the Lord, but he was a Neoplatonist. What that means is he followed the teachings of Plato before he was saved. And Plato thought of the spiritual world as good and the material world as evil. That's Greek philosophy. So if the physical world is evil, how could Jesus come back and set up a physical kingdom? That doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? So it's got to be a spiritual rule. And Augustine popularized that kind of amillennialism. We can go a little further back, if you go back to Origen and his teacher Clement of Alexandria, they were both from Alexandria. You'll find some of that amillennialism with them as well. But they were a little wacky in some of the things they taught.
So when the Latin Vulgate was translated by a man named Jerome, he translated the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek into Latin, when Latin became the common language of the Western Roman Empire. When Jerome made that translation of the Bible into Latin, he was familiar with Origen. He lived a century or so after Origen, and had read several of Origen's writings. And I believe it was Jerome who said of Origen, "When Origen is good, nobody's better." In other words, Origen wrote some things that were very deep. "But when Origen is bad, nobody's worse." Origen had this view called the apokatastasis, which means "stand back up," and he believed that in the end, everyone would be saved. Nobody would be in the lake of fire. Even Satan in the end would be redeemed to be a good angel again. Now, does that seem like what we just read in Revelation 20? That he's going to go to the lake of fire and be tormented forever and ever? That's what it clearly says in Revelation, right? So this idea that even Satan's going to be saved and all the fallen angels and everything... it's a great philosophical idea, but it's not a biblical idea. Now, I'm not an enemy of philosophy per se. But when philosophy is pitted against scripture, then I am. And so this idea that it was just merely a spiritual reign is not what the common belief of the teaching is. It comes more out of Platonic thinking than anything else, at least in its roots.
Three, a rule that has as its mediatorial ruler one who is always a member of the human race. When God chose a mediator for his kingdom, and that's Moses, Joshua, the judges, Samuel, Saul, David, etc. Which of them were human? How many of them were angels? None, they're always human, right? Because God has decided that in his kingdom, he's going to rule through a human being. So here's the beauty of the incarnation of Christ. You can now have God ruling, and the mediator is now going to be God and man. And he's going to be sinless. And so you have this mediatorial rule perfectly in Jesus, because he's the God-man. Now, you can't have that in any other human being. And so Jesus, again, not only perfectly fulfills it because he fulfills all the prophecies, not only perfectly fulfills it because he's sinless, but he perfectly fulfills it because of both his natures: God and man. How is God going to rule through a human being, but rule perfectly? Because that human being is God in hand, Jesus Christ. Alright? So a rule that has this mediatorial ruler, who is always a member of the human race.
So that's the definition of the kingdom.
2. The Time of the Millennial Kingdom
Alright? So what's the time of it? The millennium will come after the tribulation. Daniel 2:44 says, "And 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 for ever." This is that image that Nebuchadnezzar sees with the head of gold, silver, bronze, iron, iron and clay. And those kingdoms get destroyed and what does God replace them with? He replaces them with that stone, which is cut without hands. And what do we see? The kingdom shall not be left to other people. The God of heaven will set up a kingdom. So we see a kingdom will be set up, but it comes after the tribulation period. It comes after the time of Gentile rule.
The millennium will come after the tribulation. Luke 21:31. We read that already, but we'll look at it again. Luke 21:31 says, "So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." But the things are tribulational.
Alright? Now, we're going to look at Daniel chapter 12. We were just in Daniel. Look at Daniel chapter 12. Daniel describes 75 extra days after the tribulation. Daniel 12, 11 and 12, says... let's go back to verse 9. "And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate is set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." Okay? So if you have 1,290 days... 1,260 days equals 42 months. Remember, in Old Testament times, they had a 30-day month. They had a lunar calendar. The moon goes through its phases from new moon to full moon to waning, and then it goes back to new moon again. That takes 30 days, always. So their months were based on the moon, they were 30 days.
So that means that if you have a year, you have 360 days in it. Three and a half years gets you... that's 42 months, gets you 1,260 days. So the abomination of desolation, when the Antichrist is going to go into the temple in Israel, is going to defile it, say, "God's not going to be worshipped here anymore. I am." When he demands that he be worshipped, probably sets up an image or some kind of shrine to himself there, that's the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, that Jesus mentions as well in the Olivet Discourse. That from the time of that, there will be 1,290 days. Well, that's 43 months [correction: it's 3.5 years + 30 days]. So if you've got a seven-year tribulation here, the first half of it, that's 3.5 years, then you have the second half of it, which begins with the abomination of desolation and ends with the return of Christ. Well, we got an extra 30 days there.
And then he goes on further, and it says, "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." 1,335. How long is that? That's three and a half years plus 30 days plus 45 days. So what we see here in Daniel's prophecy is you have a three and a half year span, that's the second half of the tribulation, then you have a 30-day period, then a 45-day period. So there's an extra 75 days after the tribulation. What are those for?
Well, think about it. Jesus just destroyed the armies of the Antichrist, cast the Antichrist and the false prophet into the lake of fire. There's going to be a massive cleanup for Jesus to set up his kingdom, for God to set things right. We also mentioned the fact that, okay, here are people that come through the tribulation. Some have come to faith in Christ, but others have not. They get through the tribulation. Can they go into the kingdom? You survive the tribulation, you're still alive, but you're not a believer. Do you get to go into the millennial kingdom? No. John 3:7, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." So you can't enter the kingdom of God without being born again. So Jesus is going to have a judgment, have to judge and decide who who's alive on earth gets to go into the kingdom. So there will be some who go into the kingdom because they are believers, they're born again, and there will be others who are judged and do not. We'll get into the judgments, I have a whole lesson on the judgments. So that 75 days is for those judgments, to set up things, etc. The marriage supper of the Lamb, the marriage of the Lamb is taking place, the marriage supper is going to take place. There's going to be resurrections, because is Abraham going to go into that kingdom? Is David going to go into that kingdom? They have to be raised up. They have to be resurrected. So that's all going to take place in these 75 days. And so these numbers, when you come to them in the end of Daniel, this is talking about that 75-day period in which everything is going to be sorted out.
The purpose of the 75 days between the tribulation and the millennium seems to be for the purpose of cleaning up after the tribulation, judging the nations (Matthew 25), and preparing the earth for the millennial reign.
Matthew 25, we'll look there. You're in the Olivet Discourse. It's called that because he sits down on the Mount of Olives and teaches them. Matthew 25, starting in verse 31: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." Okay? Some are sheep, some are goats. If you go to the Middle East... when we think sheep, many times, we think of those woolly, white, soft, fluffy things, right? But when you go to, like Israel, the sheep and goats don't look a lot different from each other. There is a way to tell them apart, but they don't look a lot different. A shepherd can tell them apart. "And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." In other words, when the Antichrist is persecuting the Jews, those who were righteous and protected the Jews and did these good things for them, that's evidence of the fact that they know the Lord.
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not... Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."
Alright, so Jesus is going to make a distinction. After he returns, before his kingdom, there's got to be some time for that judgment to take place. He's going to make a distinction between those who survive the tribulation period—they didn't die. Who gets to enter the millennium? Only if you're born again. And those who aren't, they're sent to, I believe, the lake of fire here based on this passage.
B. The millennium comes with Christ and the church descending from heaven at the end of the tribulation. Revelation 19:11. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."
So here's the return of Christ to set up his kingdom, and we can see the saints with him in white linen. Matthew 24, go back to the Olivet Discourse, where we were just a moment ago. Matthew 24, verse 27. "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be... For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
But what we see here is him returning at the end of the tribulation of those days to set up his kingdom. And Luke 21:31, we've seen before, says, "Hey, when you see the signs of these things, know that the kingdom is at hand."
So that's the timing of the kingdom. The millennium will come after the tribulation, and it comes when Christ descends from heaven at the end of the tribulation. That's when Christ returns to set it up.
We'll have another sermon on the millennium here going forward, but I just wanted to establish this timing. It's a little complicated, especially with the 75 days from Daniel, but I wanted to lay that before us.
Now, this is our hope, right? This is what we're looking forward to. We say with the apostle John, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus," because these things are true, because this is really going to happen, that changes everything for us. This is why in Hebrews 11, it says, why did Abraham go out from the land of his fathers to go to a land that God had shown him? Because he was seeking for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Does that exist right now? No. Is that coming? Yeah, Jesus is going to rule and reign, and he's going to set up his kingdom. And that time is coming, but that's not yet. And so we're looking forward to it.
You see, if you're only living for here and now, it's a different story, right? But if this is true, that Jesus is coming back, then how will you live here and now? What do you do with Jesus? Whether you come to faith in him, that matters. See, like I said this morning, there are some people who are materialists. They just think, you just live, you die, you become worm food, and that's it. Everything's just physical. But the fact is that nobody really lives fully that way because we live like things matter that don't matter if you're really a materialist. Why does it matter that all the horrific things that have happened in human history, all the terrible stuff that Genghis Khan did? It doesn't matter. That's all gone. Anybody who was affected by it is gone. It doesn't matter today. But we would say, well, wait, isn't there an eternal reckoning for that? Yes. See, we're not materialists. In fact, if it's just materialism, there's no God, there's no one to judge you. Nobody lives that way. Everybody acts like, "Oh, that's so wrong!" Even people who are materialists, they get in the streets and protest for things they care about. Why? Why does that matter? If bad things are happening, just make sure they don't happen to you. Why does it matter? Because you're acting like there's good and evil, because there is, because you're made in the image of God, you know there is. It's just in many cases, those people don't recognize God's valuations of good and evil. They have their own system for valuing good and evil.
But we're not just materialists. We don't say we just live here and now. We're living for another time and another place when Jesus rules and reigns. My life here, I mean, what's the scripture say? Maybe 70 years is a full life? Eighty if by reason of strength? Some people live longer than that, and they're blessed with 100 years. But even if you live 100 years, which we consider a pretty long time... if you live 110 years, that's only one-tenth of the millennium. It wouldn't make sense to live for this 70 years and not for the thousand in the future. That matters more. And then the eternity after that, right?
And so that's what we're saying here, is that we're looking for another time and another place. It's eternal. It's the millennial reign of Christ, which eventually turns into a new heaven and a new earth and an eternal reign forever and ever. And so this is a motivating thing for us. This isn't just theoretical, hypothetical about what's going to happen in the future. This is real and we're living for it. We're looking forward to it. It's what we're living for. Let's pray.