Category: Bible studies

She got out of bed and pulled on the bathroom door – but the handle came off in her hand. Without her glasses (which were inside the bathroom on the back of the sink), she tried hard to get the long spine of the door handle back into the little hole so that she could turn the handle carefully, and get the door open. An impending sense of urgency welled up inside her, the kind that can only truly be understood by someone who has been urged to drink large amounts of water, and then found the nearby bathroom “out of order”. Without panic, she kept at her task until the door was opened, and she was safely inside. Looking down at her glasses, now no longer so desperately needed, she thought, “One of these days things are going to start out right for me, I just know it.” The funny thing is, she is right. As a believer, we are facing a WHOLE NEW DAY sometime soon! Human history began in a garden paradise – the Garden of Eden. Someday, time will stand still in a new paradise – a garden park of the New Jerusalem.

Key Principle: God didn’t just promise a new day – He explained what kind of future He has planned for us.

We have all seen way too much demise of morality. We have been fed fear on the news and despair in the movies. This generation seems transfixed with a “Zombie Apocalypse”, or some other form of destruction coming soon to a town near you. Facebook rages, day after day, with Obamacare and impending tax cliffs and the demise of the middle class. Politicians look for someone else to blame and another pot of gold to tap to keep themselves in office – so they have more time to blame and search for yet more cash. The country is run by millionaires that want to tell us why rich people are bad. None of it makes sense…. Aren’t you ready for something NEW? Don’t you really want to get this cleaned up and hit the RESET button? I know there are times I really do – and I LOVE life and have great and positive people that fill my days with laughter and joy!

The end of the Bible is about the NEW DAY that God has prepared for us. I love this story, and maybe it can help set the mood of this passage for us:

A Sunday School teacher asked her class of children, “Tell me what you think heaven will be like.” She got all kinds of answers, but I especially like this one from a third grade boy who said, “Heaven is going to be the happiest part of my dead life.”

Yes, it is true. The best of my life, and your life as a believer hasn’t even been seen yet. We need to spend time here, because our world is NEGATIVE but our future is VERY POSITIVE. The story that God began in a beautiful garden – the story that God pronounced “Redeemed” in another garden  – will, one day soon, be completed in yet a third garden. Revelation 21 sums it all up in words like: 21:5 “And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” …and 21:6 “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end…”

I don’t usually like “The End” screens. They bring a story to conclusion, and then I feel let down. This one is different… really different! The Bible unfolds the tale: All judgment was past. All sin, with its deep and wretched stains, fades into mere memory. The Great White Throne was swept into the shadow of past things. Hades was swallowed in the Molten Lake of forever. Satan and His evil hoards were consumed and perpetually blocked out of God’s land of incessant celebration. God saw that it was time to tear it all away and rebuild the new land of Promise.  When the END comes, the beginning of the NEW DAY of ETERNITY will not bring sadness – but JOY. God describes exactly what the NEW DAY looks like, with no less than ten descriptions…

Our eternity is in a NEW place.

Revelation 21:1 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.”

On author wrote: “Most of my life I’ve lived in older houses where somebody else has lived before. They’ve been nice enough, I suppose, but I’ve always thought that it would be a lot nicer to live in a brand new house, my house, a special place that belongs to me. … this passage says is that a we’re going to have a new home in a new city, with a new heaven & a new earth. It’s all going to be brand new. Unfortunately, heaven has met with bad press by those who do not understand what God has prepared for those who love him. People see heaven as sitting on a cloud wearing a halo, while little angels play harps as they float through the heavens. Others see it as an unending church service, or singing hymns for all eternity. Some think of it as a sort of a celestial retirement city. It all seems like an apparition — so unreal. No wonder so many people see heaven as a place of numbing boredom, or secretly say to themselves, “Is that all there is?”

The fact found in the scriptural glimpse is this: Eternity is something NEW. There is nothing you have ever lived that compares to it. There are words that will completely lose their meaning – like  watches, like historians. There is no time and there is no story to tell – it has been told. God has spoken and we will all know Who He is – and that was the point of human history. We are living in a movie that illustrates to all the cosmos Who God is in all His glory and what God is like in all His nature.

Think about that place with me. Every stain of sin, every evidence of evil will be vanquished! The old order and the old earth will be completely obliterated! The physical quality of our planet will be profoundly changed; the bodies we experience it in will be unfailing! The unimpaired souls – no longer inflicted with sin nature – will shine. Our spiritual investments, stored up for us in this life will be opened for us to enjoy. God revealed it all, and you can’t make up stuff this good! John saw a new heaven and earth – the old atmospheric heaven was replaced. Terra firma was recreated and the physical properties of the new were very different than the old. In our time, we live on a planet dominated by the sea – but the new one is not like the old one. That one feature is a HINT of how different things are going to be in the future.

Even lost men have dreamed of an afterlife. The archaeology of ancient Egypt can demonstrate the reality that Egyptians spent years building the pyramids – a  monument to the afterlife. They used hundreds of thousands of slave laborers, and great families buried their loved ones beneath these ancient monuments with supplies of food, clothing, & other treasured articles  – all in the hope of life after this one. In every culture on the planet, men have shown they love life and thirst for more beyond the short 100 year stint on planet earth. Only recently has a shift been detected…

The unparalleled prosperity and relative security of our time has yielded in modernity a new phenomenon – those who want to make this life into a Heaven existence. The focus on the afterlife has waned in the prosperity of the modern western culture. Some have tried to focus life on the material – an “I want it all. I want it now. Grab for all the gusto you can get. He who has the most toys when he dies, wins” mentality. This gave rise to the need to fix all of life’s disappointments this side of heaven ideology. It has affected even the western church. People are increasingly walking in the door wanting answers to THIS LIFE – with less focus on the next life. They want more counsel on easing today’s pain than encouragement to look to tomorrow’s reward. We are thinking too short and too small – we are not thinking as those historic Christians who paved the road before our time thought.

When Jesus said that He came that we “might have life, and have it more abundantly”, He surely had the joy that I have experienced in my life in mind. He wanted us to see life as more than the medieval “veil of tears” through which one longed for Heaven to put a salve on the open wound of daily horrible life. A healthy view of Heaven isn’t about ignoring earth – it is about perspective. It nags us with the happy question: “What will all this mean in 100 billion years?” We cannot make all decisions based solely on that criteria, or we would not care for many mundane aspects of life in a godly way. Yet it is worth recalling to help put ourselves in perspective. Not everything we stress about is worth the anxiety we are putting into it. Old things will pass away… new things are coming. The same Jesus also reminded: “What profit is there to a man who gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” Christianity is about BOTH this world and the next – for they are tied together in the God that made both –and gave both as a gift to us!

Here’s the great news – eternity will be a NEW PLACE. No sense in asking too many questions about: “Will it be like this?” or “Will it be like that?” – since the newness implies we don’t have anything that can really compare to it. The food doesn’t taste like “chicken”. 🙂

Our eternity is in a PREPARED place.

Revelation 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband…9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

When Jesus said in John 14: “I go to prepare a place for you.” He didn’t simply say He would prepare an IDEA – He said it was a PLACE that was being prepared. Look at the text for a description of the completion of the work, and you will find four incredible features:

First, it was HOLY. The term HOLY is the term DISTINCT. It is the word for “something that exists specifically for a purpose, and used properly only for that purpose. It is used in the Scripture for God – Who is absolutely unique and cannot be shaped to be anything other than what He is. It is used for the Sabbath of the Jewish people. It is used of sacrifices. It is used for the believer’s body and the believer’s use of sexuality. This is a city that was made for exactly one purpose – and its unveiling in the future has been foretold in elegant anticipation!

It was a CITY. It was built for cohabitation, relationship, sharing and activity. Eternity is not somber, still, passive and always serenely pastoral. There is a bustling city planned in the midst of the countryside. There will be beauty, but there will be activity. The story doesn’t end on the farm – but in the engaging place of a city.

It was carefully ADORNED. The description of the city was as an “adorned” bride. The gasp of the crowd that is familiar with the first appearance of the bride should be anticipated when God lowers the city into view. The sheer creative genius of the Almighty will again astound us. I remember seeing my bride in her beautiful dress at the back of the church – what a magnificent sight! She was adorned for the day – and so will that city be.

It was made IN ANTICIPATION. The bride dresses for a planned event – and the city is prepared in that same way. It came from the preparation bays of Heaven and was “launched” with every anticipation that those who gaze on it will be overwhelmed. Every part was hand chosen – in the mind of the preparing Savior.

Don’t feel badly about anticipating a new body and a new city. The Bible reminds us: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21). All creation is waiting for this – and we should be too! Remember to thank Jesus today for the preparations He is making for the world to come!

Our eternity is in a SHARED place.

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,

I have some good news and bad news for you. Which do you want first? OK, the bad news – your place in eternity is a shared one. You won’t live alone! The good news – Jesus is your roommate!

The feature of eternity that will occupy us most fully is the company we will keep. It will be great to see, sit and chat with, discuss and inquire from great believers of the ages. Family, friends, and fellow worshipers will amaze us. We will laugh and we will love the ages together. We have never felt so accepted and so complete at any time on this earth. At the same time – we will be transfixed with the sight of the Creator, and the sight of the Redeemer.

At last we say, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for [us], who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5).

• There is no need to scrape to gain what is needed – God has made, offered and protected it all.
• There is no need to protect what we have left over – to tuck it in “Heavenly Tupperware” and refrigerate – for there is no spoiling and no fermenting.
• There is no need to repaint – for the colors never fade.

At the end of the day, we will find a NEW DAY in which our Savior will dwell in our ranks, eat together with us, and share life. We were created for a day like this – and in such a day we will joy and revel without end. He will be there – that is all we need remember!

Our eternity is in a COMFORTING place.

Revelation 21:4 “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

Think of that place!

• We will live with no more crying, no more sighing, no more dying!
• Funding health care will be a moot point – there will be no hospitals and no grave yards!
• Death will not only lose its sting, but the word will lose its meaning!
• Satan will not be able to get a passport. He will be forever destroyed in the bottomless pit.
• The fallen and rebellious angels will be shattered.
• There will be no need for cosmetics beyond a single balm – words for aging, sagging, wrinkles and blemishes will slip from our vocabulary!
• The water of life will quench our thirst!
• Nothing will ruin, rot, or rust.
• There will be no itching, no blindness, no deafness, no diabetes, no cancer, no heart attacks, no pain.
• We will be together. There will be no divorce, no child abductions, no trgic accidents
• There will be no more bills!

One Pastor told me: There was a five year old girl who was on her first night away from home – she had never stayed the night at a friend’s house before. She found herself a bit nervous, but wanted to give the experience a try. In the daytime, she was fine. As night fell, she began to show her nervousness. Her friend’s mother saw what was happening and asked: “Honey, are you getting homesick?” With beautiful childlike innocence she replied, “No ma’am, I’m getting here sick!”

Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever get “earth sick”? It is a sign of the times if you know Jesus but really don’t think that way… and some of us need to grow to “long for His appearing” more than we long for another car or TV set.

I love the reminder of Paul in Romans 8:18: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.“

If you follow Jesus, there is coming a NEW DAY for you. Every wrong done to you in this life will be made right. Each injustice will meet face to face with absolute justice. Every sorrow will be reversed, and joy will wash over you like a thundering waterfall pressing against your deepest parts. Today seems so powerful, but it will fade away….Isaiah long ago foretold: “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17). He goes on to say, “They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.” (Isaiah 65:23-25). Our eternity is a COMFORTING place.

Our eternity is in a FREE place.

Revelation 21:5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.

God built our future home for us, and invited us into it at His cost. His only requirement is that we trust that He is able to do exactly what He said. Failure to trust His Word about this leads to failure to live inside His Word in every other area. If I trust God about what I cannot see, I will learn to trust God about what I can see.

The old preacher, R.G. Lee, used to say: “Heaven is the most marvelous place the wisdom of God could conceive and that the power of God could prepare.”

Notice that verse 6 uses FREE WATER as the illustration of God meeting the need.. Have you ever been in a desert during the heat of the day. In the Near Eastern deserts, where I have spent considerable time – the mid day heat is so intense that an egg would quickly fry on a rock in the open sun. The sound of “sizzle” is all about. God will open up the water hydrant of refreshment – and it will all be FREE to us. It was expensive for Him – but offered freely to us. Our eternity is a FREE place.

Our eternity is in a FAMILY place.

Revelation 21:7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. 8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Look at the terms in the passage for the plans of our future experience. Terms like “inheritance” and “son” unmask the relationship of the future – we will be in a FAMILY place. It is worth noting that even today, being is a family is a daily choice. People choose to come together to build a family, and others make the choice to walk out on one another almost every day in our world – but God illustrated His relationship as one of family. We are related by a CHOICE we made.

Relationship is what makes Heaven… well, Heaven! If the streets were gravel and not gold, if the walls were particle board and not jasper, if mud was knee deep and weeds over our heads, it will still be heaven because we are SONS of the Creator and family with the Savior!

In 1991. British singer Eric Clapton lost his five-year-old son named Conner, after the boy fell from the window of their forty-ninth floor Manhattan apartment. Clapton sequestered himself in agony and finally poured out his grief in song and wrote “Tears in Heaven.” In the song he asks the question: “Would you know my name – If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same – If I saw you in heaven?

That’s a good question! Will we KNOW one another? In the text there is every reason to believe that we will know ourselves and each other. Our relationships will not be lost, but rather renewed. As John wrote long ago: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Imagine that! Like Jesus! The stench of our fallen nature will be cleansed so thoroughly that we will be capable of intimacy in relationships without stain of selfishness. Even our love and commitment to God will cease to be compromised by ego and evil desire. Our relationships will be unspoiled – because our eternity is in a FAMILY place.

Our eternity is in a BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL place.

Revelation 21:11 having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. 12 It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 15 The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall…. 18 The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. 19 The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; 20 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

Heaven is filled with beauty beyond our richest earthly experience! That reminds me of a story told by a Christian author:

“A wealthy Christian became obsessed with the notion of taking some accumulated earthly wealth to Heaven. He knew the Bible notes we “can’t take it with us”. He was so transfixed that he continually prayed that God would give him special permission to take some wealth to heaven. After a period of particularly persistent prayer, God said, “Fine, enough all ready! You can take one suitcase with you into heaven.” From that time on the man began to make plans. He began packing his most valuable things. It came about after some years that the man died. Now you know how these stories go… he went to Heaven and met the saint at the gate …. None other than St. Peter, who noted that he was dragging his suitcase behind him. Peter stopped him and said, “Wait a minute. What do you think you’re doing? You’re not allowed to take anything into heaven.” The man replied: “You don’t understand. I have special permission from God Himself to take this suitcase into heaven.” Peter rubbed his beard & said, “Well, that’s very unusual. I can’t imagine God letting you do that. Let me look inside your suitcase & see what’s there.” So the man dragged the suitcase over, and as Peter opened it he was quite puzzled to see that it was filled with gold bars, gold bricks and gold ingots. Peter said, “Well, all right. If God said so, I suppose you can take that in if you want. But why in the world did you go to all this trouble just to bring more pavement into heaven?” (sermon central illustrations, adapted).

Heaven’s wealth scale dwarfs whatever you are thinking! John does the best he can at describing heaven, but he is limited by language and experience. The richness of heaven is so great that they walk on gold, use precious jewels for foundations, and dwell in lavish buildings all made by the Creator of the universe! What a BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL place this will be!

Our eternity is in a HUGE place.

Revelation 21:16 The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. 17 And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements.

Will there be room for everyone? The city alone (which nowhere says it will contain all the inhabitants of the future) was measured as 1,500 miles cubed… room for every human who has ever lived if they had all been saved. Our eternity is in a HUGE place.

Our eternity is in a COMPLETED place.

The record first unfolds what is MISSING in this place, then what the FEATURES of the place are. It is like the vacation brochure that first promises a “break from traffic” and a “place to relax”.

First, what ISN’T THERE? Revelation 21:22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; 26 and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; 27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Nothing needs to be renovated or restored. In fact, many of the things that took up our energy to provide in our old life will slip away – and we won’t need to work to keep it all together.

• We won’t need a temple – because God will live with us.
• We won’t need a celestial light – because God’s glory will shine for us.
• We won’t need a nightlight – for God’s glory never sets.
• We won’t need a key – for closed gates and locks will be meaningless.
• We won’t need a confessor – for sin will have no more place there.
• We won’t need defensiveness – for everyone we meet will be what God intended them to be.

We won’t need these things because God will complete everything He started at the beginning of the first book of the Bible….

• In Genesis 1:1 God created the heavens and the earth; in Revelation 21:1 God will create a new heaven and earth.
• In Genesis 1:16 God created the sun; in Revelation 21:23 there will be no more need for the sun.
• In Genesis 1:5 God established the night; In Revelation 22:5  God abolished night.
• In Genesis 1:10 God created the seas; In Revelation 21:1 God dispensed with the seas (which may have been a comfort to John who was exiled and separated by seas from his family and friends!)
• In Genesis 3:14-17 God announced the curse; In Revelation 22:3 God rescinded it forever. Satan would no longer touch the earth, let alone crawl its surface. The new earth would yield without question the fruits assigned to it.
• In Genesis 3:19 Death entered the world; in Revelation 21:4 death is dismissed forever.
• In Genesis 3:24 man was driven from paradise; In revelation 22:14 he stands in Paradise regained.
• IN Genesis 3:17 Sorrow and pain grew from the rebellion; in Revelation 21:4 Sorrow is cut off forever. Tears and pain are satisfied forever.

Next, what WILL BE THERE? Revelation 22:1 “Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.”

• God’s life will flow as a river from His throne to His people – it will be clear, crisp and refreshing. All of life’s thirsts will be quenched!
• Spanning the river will be a tree of life – with its ever changing, always delicious fruit. All of life’s hungers will be satisfied!
• Covering its branches will be bountiful and beautiful leaves – whose oils will produce a healthy and comforting balm for all to partake. All of life’s discomforts will be settled!
• The ground will yield no weed – for the curse is forever broken. All of life’s disappointments will be contented!
• Distance from God will evaporate – for we will see Him face to face. All of life’s strain will be eased!
• There will be no need to read the story of redemption – for our very salvation will be revealed on the markers upon our heads. All of life’s insecurities will be erased!
• There will be no night for pain to increase and darkness to overcome – for God’s light will shine in unending power. All of life’s anxiousness will be calmed!
• There will be no need for rulers – for each will have his place to reign. All of life’s tension will be relieved!

Our eternity is in a PROMISED place.

Revelation 21:6 And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place. 7 “And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Our faith is not made up – it was revealed by the God that made us. Our destiny is not the stuff of dreams, but the uncovering of truths revealed by a Sovereign who is timeless and already exists in that place. His Word is His bond, and His Word has been made known. The one who believes His promises awaits His appearing. The one who truly trusts in God’s words concerning the hereafter carefully measures his life in the hear and now. Sloppy living comes from slipping belief. He has promised me a future home, and demanded only that I trust Him to provide it as He said! God didn’t just promise a new day – He explained what kind of future He has planned for us. Want to join in? He has paid your way!

Probably one of the earliest memories I have of my father was fear. When I say that, you may be tempted to think of a terrible man who beat his children – but that is not my story. My father has been a great influence in my life, and he has not beaten me nor my mother. Why fear then? Because I knew what it meant to respect him, and to properly fear his response to my bad behavior. Dad knew how to communicate fear. What is funny, is that I have no distinct memory of him ever spanking me at all. I just knew he could, and he WOULD if he had to. I knew where the “Board of Education” hung beside the refrigerator…It was an unspoken fear – unless my mom invoked that terrible phrase: “You wait until your father gets home!” Then it was SPOKEN FEAR.

I want to be clear, because the days we live in are not the days I grew up in. I never advocate harming a child, but rather a controlled form of discipline that a child will deeply desire to avoid in the future. Men need to be very careful when physically dealing with their children. It is possible to exasperate a child – and Scripture warns fathers about that. It is possible to break the fragile spirit of a child by either physical or emotional taxing that is beyond their ability. Yet, equally, we need to say this in our day: It is possible to neglect discipline in a child and think we are being loving, when actually we are acquiescing on a basic parental responsibility. Discipline comes with the package. If you don’t want to do it – please just don’t have children.

Don’t placate them when they want to take control at age two. Don’t look past their cruelty to siblings, house pets and even digital beings. Don’t laugh when they are mean, and shrug your shoulders thinking “Boys will be boys”. If you do, these may become the very children that will beat a young man to death and burn his body – as we have just witnessed locally this past week. If not, they may become the children that will stay out all night drinking and partying, and watch a young man die on the sidewalk – thinking only about using their phone to digitally capture his death – and not call 911. I plead with you – if you don’t want the responsibility of discipline – don’t have children.

Here is a truth worth remembering: Parents who (out of a poorly formed notion of love) refuse to discipline their children, will find their children disciplined by a world that cannot allow them to do everything their own way. It smacks against our common sensibilities today – but part of the job of the father is to create a dread in the child of the penalties of disobedience. It is to act a s a deterrence –  and also to create in the mind of the child a solid line between right and wrong. We have so thoroughly immersed our society in the problems of abuse, we have forgotten Biblical discipline is part of the work of the father. God says so: “He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” (Prov. 13:24). Other verses support the same principle … “The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.” (Proverbs 29:15) and …”Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22: 15). In the Hebrew Scriptures, the term ROD was used two different ways – as a calamity to the disobedient and as a comfort to those who walked with their shepherd (Psalm 23).

Let me be clear on a further point: When there is no penalty – the line between right and wrong blurs. God’s patience is one of the central causes of men’s disbelief in Him. Because He patiently allows them to continue in sin – they don’t think He is engaged, or they don’t believe He is truly powerful. Both conclusions are false. God is engaged. God is powerful… but God is patient. Don’t let His patience fool you into a false conclusion. This was the point of Peter’s warning:

2 Peter 3:3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” … 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Make no mistake, the idea that God will judge has been deliberately and systematically eliminated from our culture. The modern church, with all its psychotherapeutic sensibilities, believes that God not only WON’T JUDGE but SHOULDN’T JUDGE men. Further, many would argue that even raising the threat is damaging. Yet, the Bible and its truth is stubborn.

Here is the point: God is not in a hurry, but He is not overlooking sin. Judgment day is truly coming, and that is the subject of our passage in Revelation. This isn’t rehabilitation – it is judgment. It will sound harsh to some who have been schooled in God’s love more than His righteousness – but it is nevertheless a proper witness of the truth of God’s Word. The reality is that we are waiting until the Father gets home. Those who are choosing to walk in disobedience are dreading His coming – but those who are walking with Him anxiously await His appearing.

We have been studying Revelation, and in the middle of our study, Father’s Day pops up. What do they have in common? At the risk of stretching the text of Scripture, we must remember that the pattern for parenting is God. He is a Dad – and He knows what being a dad is all about. In one sense, He does what all dads do to get us on track – He threatens response if we keep up our nonsense. In another way, He is not only dad – He is the ultimate judge… it is part of His job.

Key Principle: God loves man, but His justice does not allow Him to look past unpaid sin. His role of judge is just as real as His role as Savior.

Look at the record of the judgment called “The Great White Throne” Judgment – a catchy title based on a detail in the description of our passage in Revelation 20:11: “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Here is the scene:

Verse eleven reveals a vast throne, a stern-faced Judge, and people trying to escape His presence. I wonder if God will hold back tears and looked at the rebellious squarely in the face. I wonder if He will sit as a parent of a rebellious and angry teen sits, while their wayward child writhes to get away from the parent’s grasp – and wonder what He could ever have done to create such disdain in their eyes. He loved them, He provided for them – and a jury of their ignorant and rebellious peers had judged Him inadequate.

Verse twelve drew John’s eyes from the throne room to a vista of the earth. Joining those in the courtroom of the damned were those from Hades – the abode of the unrighteous dead. It is a terrible holding place for those not in the Book of Life, but not yet permanently sentenced to the Lake of Fire. Just as believers in the presence of the Savior await their final destination after judgment, so those in Hades hopelessly know what is bad is about to get worse…. They are pushed into the presence of the Judge – those who in life were great, and those who were small. All of them were pulled in together, and shoved in front of the Judge’s bench. The Book of Life was brought out, but their names were not found within. The other books of the deeds of men – the thoughts, the works, the attitudes – every one – were revealed as the Judge made His decision to place them in their final disposition. There was no question of destiny – that was already understood. There was no question of length of term – that was to be eternal. The only question was the specific nature of the torment and terror. Nothing pretty came from that horrible day – except the complete understanding of God as God. Knees bowed in sincerity, but far too late for any kind of reparation.

Verse thirteen says that John’s attention was again pulled away, this time to see those who were drawn from the seas of the earth, and they joined the flow of those who were from the graves of the land and the holding place of the dead who left this life with no effective payment for their sins. The place they were held in was destroyed in the molten lake, according to verse fourteen, and all of them – their names not inscribed in the book that holds record of all those who have had their break and rebellion with God bridged and satisfied in this life – were hurled into their final molten judgment place.

In a world where spanking has become an issue, this message is certain to fall on deaf ears. Love has now been completely redefined by our society as eternal forgiveness – regardless of the egregious nature of the rebellion. So here is the question: Is God bound to OUR sense of fairness and love – a sense that is redefined with each new generation? Here is an even more important question: Are we not bound to God’s terms – since He is the Creator and we are the creature?

I am not selling anything to you. I am simply making this argument: If God is in Heaven, as I wholeheartedly believe He is; If He is the God of the Bible, as I affirm week after week  -then the terms of judgment are HIS TO MAKE. Further, if He opened up His intent for His creation, and explained both the story of the rebellious defection and how to come back into His arms – is He to blame when people choose another path? At what point are we going to admit that the problem isn’t JUST society – it is MY WILL. My stubbornness, my rebellion, my intransigence, my rut is the problem. I don’t WANT a God – because I want to be on His rightful throne in my heart. Even my grammar betrays me. I say “my life” and “my heart” – when the Word reveals that none of those things were made by me or for me. My creation, and your creation was by God’s elaborate design for God’s wonderful purposes. I am His and the plan for my life can be HIS – if I surrender it.

The Bible is not silent on judgment of men and of angels.

In fact, there are no less than SEVEN judgments recorded in the Word. Remember our principle? God loves man, but His justice does not allow Him to look past unpaid sin. His role of judge is just as real as His role as Savior. It is important to note from a thorough study of the Bible, that all men and women who have ever lived must be judged on two bases – one judgment for sin (which determines your destiny) and one judgment for works (which determines our incremental reward or judgment). Both Heaven bound and Hell bound await their appropriate reward or penalty based on their works.

Let’s say it clearly: Judgment after death doesn’t determine destiny – relationship with God before death does. Destiny is determined by prior to death satisfaction of their sin account before God. There are two venues for judgment – one for those who are Heaven bound, and another for those who are Molten Lake bound. People who have a personal and surrendered relationship with God are in the Book of Life and are Heaven bound. They know when they stand before the Judge that He is not going to send them to hell, but rather examine their works and service of Him from this life – in order that He may commend them and reward them. They will come with clear expectations if they have been taught God’s Word.

Those who do not have such a relationship are not in the Book of Life, but they may come with some wrong expectations – but they will not be at a judgment seat for people with relationship.  They made their choice in this life – even if they weren’t making it with a full picture of the eternal consequences. We will see this again in a few minutes…

There are three times God will judge people – and within the three there are no less than seven different groups will be judged.

I. The first is at the beginning of the Tribulation (in Heaven) after the rapture of the church:

The Judgment seat (Bema) of Christ (1 Cor. 3; 2 Cor. 5). The work of Jesus as He deems His Bride fully prepared for the wedding feast in Heaven. This happens after the Rapture, and during the time on earth of Tribulation.

• 1 Cor. 3:13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
• 2 Cor. 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Every believer of this age must understand this truth: Your life is not your own. Jesus bought your salvation. When you surrendered to Him as your rescuer (you cried out to Him to be your Savior), you agreed to let the Rescuer take control to guide you to safe shores. From that moment, every action of your life was either a struggle against the Rescuer’s tug of you to shore – or it was an act of cooperation and submission.

A day is coming when every believer will answer for every act of service, attitude of stubbornness, and point of surrender. We will have the work of our lives measured. Our SIN was cared for in this life by accepting the work of Jesus at Calvary in accordance with God’s Holy Word. We trust Christ alone for salvation. Yet, we will still face a works inspection. How are YOU doing as you face that? Are you ready? The trumpet can sound at any moment.

II. After the seven years of Tribulation, when the Messiah comes to rescue Israel (Armageddon) and rule:

We have seen the rapture and the Bema Seat of Christ, but while that is happening, there is a Great Tribulation on earth. God is carefully exposing to Israel that her “would be suitors” don’t really love her at all – and that He is her true Husband. At the end of three pummeling rounds of judgment over seven years, five groups will stand before the judge.

The Judgment of the Beast, False Prophet and Detention of Satan (Rev. 19:20 – 20:3): The  Antichrist and his Propaganda agent will be permanently disposed of, while Satan will be detained for a thousand years.

• Rev. 19:20 And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet … were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. … 20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven… 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.

The Judgment of Martyred Believers of the Tribulation (Rev. 20:4): Believers from the Tribulation that were martyred for their faith will be raised and stand judgment and be given reward:

• Revelation 20:4 “Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years….”

The Judgment of Jewish Believers Alive at the Second Coming (Daniel 12:1; Ezekiel 20:34-38; Zech. 12:10; Rom. 11:25-27): Jews who survived the wrath of the Tribulation and fell to their knees on the arrival of their rescuer as they received their Messiah will be judged and prepared for the coming Kingdom. Everyone that endured to the end of the Tribulation saw the arrival of the Savior and accepted Him as their Messiah:

• Daniel 12:1 “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.“

• Ezekiel 20:34 “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; 35 and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 36 “As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord GOD. 37 “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; 38 and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.

• Zechariah 12: 9 “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, … 11 “In … Jerusalem, like the mourning …in the plain of Megiddo.

• Romans 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.” 27 “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

The Judgment of Believers of Israel (Daniel 12:1-4): Raised from their placed of death, believers from before the time of Jesus are raised and judged. People with a relationship with God from the time before the Gospel of Jesus was proclaimed had their sin dealt with by abatement of wrath, finally paid for in Messiah. They are resurrected before the 1000 year rule of Messiah in Judah, so that God can fulfill all His literal promises to the Jewish people.

• Daniel 12:1 “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. 2 “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. ….”

The Gentiles Alive at the Second Coming (Matthew 25:31-46): Those who survive the powerful conquest of Jesus from the Heavens – for many of them perished at His appearance and word (Rev. 19)  – the remaining will be subject to judgment for both sin and works. Those who knew Messiah as Savior treated His people with love and respect, because they knew His Word and wanted His will. They will enter the Millennial Kingdom. Those who harshly treated God’s people in the Tribulation showed they were at enmity with God and they will be tossed from the presence of the Messiah into hell.

• Matthew 25:31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; …39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; … 45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Remember, their armies have already been smashed by the Word of God when Jesus came back. This is the record of the people of those nations. This is not the record of how their government treated God’s people – but rather how individuals treated individuals. We hear a lot about God judging our nation for our sin path. We hear far too little about God’s personal standard of righteousness for which each of us will individually be judged. That is a mistake. Our behavior counts, not just our Supreme Court’s behavior! That will be true in the Tribulation as well.

III. After 1000 years, when the final rebellion is quelled by God (Rev. 20:10):

We have seen God’s judgment of believers of the church, believers of the time before the church, and both believers and unbelievers of the Tribulation. The thousand year reign occurs… and at the end a short rebellion is again attempted. God again picks up the gavel of judgment…

Satan and His Rebellious Hoards (Rev. 20:10): The final hell – that Lake of Fire – was not created for men, but for Satan and the angelic followers of the adversary.

• Rev. 20:10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

That brings us back to where we started… the terror of the Great White Throne. Look at it one last time:

The Judgment of those in Hades (Rev. 20:5a,11-15) : Those who died without a relationship with God (unbelievers throughout the ages) were raised from the place of their temporary torment to be sentenced to eternal damnation – a punishment meted out according to their deeds.

• Rev. 20:5a The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed….11 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

There are four words in the Bible that describe the place of the afterlife before resurrection and judgment– In Hebrew, the term “Sheol” simply means the “abode of the dead” and may refer to the place of the body (the grave) or the “State of the dead”. In the Greek Scriptures, “Hades” is the rough equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol, and is translated both “grave” and Death” in the New Testament. The Greek term used only once in 2 Peter 2:4 “Tartarus” is specifically the abode of the angels that were stripped of their place in Genesis 6, referred to in Jude 1:6. The fourth term, used in the Greek Scriptures is “Gehenna”, is used in the Gospels and by Jesus – a term used twelve times as the “eternal place of the damned”.

It doesn’t take long before we can separate the modern church into two distinct groups- solely on the basis of a single idea. There are those who call themselves Christians, but are actually “universalists” – they believe everyone somehow goes to Heaven. You can agree with them if you choose, but you cannot make the argument that their position is based on any serious literal understanding of the Bible and the God of the Bible. God is the judge- and the Word is clear.

At the Great White Throne you can see it clearly. Stop and think about what we see in these few verses about men who died without the proper and acceptable payment for their sin:

1. They were afraid to stand before God – even after they had been in torment since their death (Rev. 20:12).

2. They couldn’t get away from it – even though they wanted to run (Rev. 20:11).

3. They faced two standards – the Book of Life for their ultimate destination and the “Other Books” for a record of their deeds. If they weren’t in the Book of Life – they were excluded from Heaven. Yet, their deeds would determine the level of judgment they ultimately would face.

4. It didn’t matter how or where they died – they faced judgment (Rev. 20:13).

5. It didn’t matter how important or unimportant they seemed in this life – everyone faced God (Rev. 20:12).

Let me say it plainly. It doesn’t matter WHO you are in this life – or who you think you are. It doesn’t matter where you live or what you do for a living. What matters for your eternal destiny is entry into ONE BOOK – the Book of Life.

Those who do not have such a relationship are not in the Book of Life, but it is clear from the record that some of them will appear before God with wrong expectations – but they will not be at a judgment seat for people with relationship because they chose not to have one in this life.  They made their choice in this life – even if they weren’t making it with a full picture of the eternal consequences. They will come in believing they were GOOD PEOPLE and be tossed from God’s courtroom. Why? Because although God loves man, His justice does not allow Him to look past unpaid sin. His role of judge is just as real as His role as Savior.

Is it fair? Yes, because He revealed it all well in advance of any judgment.

Is it just? Yes, because He has paid the full price for anyone who will surrender being their own God and let Him come in and take over your life.

Is it clear? Yes, His Word has volumes on it… but some won’t open it. They don’t think a real dad disciplines… and they are very wrong. They don’t think sin has consequences, and rebellion a terrible end… they are very, very wrong. Don’t be among them.

I remember back in 1990, when Ken Davis put out his best selling book, stealing the title from a Sam Cook song: “Don’t know much about history!” Some of you can probably hum James Taylor’s version of the song in your head. As a student of history, I have always found it fascinating when an author delves into select events of the past and draws out great reflective lessons from the journey.

When I was still in high school, author Will Durant received his Presidential Medal of Freedom. For those who don’t like to read history, you may be unfamiliar with this incredible man and his work. William James Durant lived nearly a century (1885 –1981) and was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He and his wife Ariel, were best known for their 11 volume set called The Story of Civilization, published over forty years between 1935 and 1975. The couple was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. One of their most insightful works, in my opinion, is the little volume entitled simply Lessons from History. This work was nothing less than brilliant for this author’s time. Durant was gifted at pulling together massive amounts of detail of the past, and pulling the salient selection into thoughtful lessons. He was the kind of writer that fired the imagination of students of history the world over. The tough part of such a work is to take the vast material and reduce it to something that impacts us practically.

I mention such works today, because in a way the Apostle John offered the same quality to readers – but of prophecy – not of history! John opened the door to seven simple lessons of a period that has not yet come to be – the Millennium. The Bible was not silent on this time period before Revelation, and in point of fact, Revelation has very little compared to other parts of the Bible concerning this period. There is enough in the Word on the Millennium for any Pastor to teach an entire course on the period – but we simply cannot do it in this one lesson.

J. Dwight Pentecost, in His large work called Things to Come (p. 476) said this: “A larger body of prophetic Scripture is devoted to the subject of the Millennium, developing its character and conditions, than any other one subject. This millennial age, in which the purposes of God are fully realized on earth, demands considerable attention.”

Our study isn’t about the topic of prophecy – rather, it is the study of this one cyclical letter calle the Book of the Revelation. Because of that, I want to point to the Biblical backdrop only briefly, and set the stage for seven important lessons. Without the backdrop, I am not sure we would get as much meat from this text, but with a proper setting, we should understand John’s point in this book. It is incredibly important to understand that all of the lessons sit on one single premise, the key principle of this lesson.

Key Principle: God’s promises are clear and His fulfillment is certain. He is the God of literal clarity, not allegorical hocus-pocus. His Word offers us deep assurance and precise promise.

God has always been in the communication and relationship business. He WANTS us to know Him. The sheer size and detail of the Bible speak volumes on that point (pun intended). Don’t forget that when people start weaving incredible details from prophetic passages and making things bend to fit the modern newspaper. God wanted us to know Jesus through this book, and to have some basic primer on things that would come to pass. To offer it in such allegorical and cryptic language that none of the details keep any significance goes against the nature of a clear and relational God. He isn’t playing games with our lives or our destiny as a race. He speaks straight to the point.

Before we ever look at the details of the Millennium, we need to establish that the Bible offers a specific reason why this 1000 year Kingdom comes to the world. After all, why not just get it over with – boot Satan into the abyss and be done with it. Well, that is a good question. From the standpoint of the Church Age, that would be fine – but God is also working with Israel in a specific way.

Don’t forget, God made specific promises to the people of Israel in the form of COVENANTS:

He made the Abrahamic Covenant: That God would title a specific piece of land for Abraham and his sons, and that they would always own it – but only get to have domicile in it if they obeyed Him. The size and shape of that land was revealed at larger borders than Israel has ever to this day occupied, and lest we wander, the promise was given to “sons of your loins” and reaffirmed to Isaac and Jacob later in Genesis. God hasn’t yet given them all the land promised them – and the Millennium will check that off of God’s list.

He made the Davidic Covenant: That God would put on the throne of Judah one from the line of David that would judge righteously before the whole world – but the world would still harbor rebellion. Though Jesus spiritually reigns in the hearts of men, the rule over Israel has still not come, and the nations cannot truly see Him as Righteous Judge and Ruler. The Millennium begins with the Savior of Israel coming in the clouds, as we saw at the end of Revelation 19.

He made the New Covenant: Despite the many churches that treat that covenant as completely about the church age, any clear reading of Isaiah 59 and Jeremiah 31, where the term NEW COVENANT comes from in the Bible shows the point of it is about Israel’s final redemption:

Jeremiah 31:31 says it ever so clearly: “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Paul later shared with the Corinthians that believers in the Church Age have a foretaste of the New Covenant, because we have the indwelling of God’s Spirit – but that doesn’t mean the terms of God’s New Covenant are complete in the church. In fact, when Jesus said in the Upper Room: “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.” He was elegantly describing the only means possible to get the Spirit of God’s indwelling power – the taking inside of one’s self the Savior. The New Covenant then is fulfilled in the Millennium, after all “Israel is saved” as Paul said in Romans 11:26 because they “looked on Him they had pierced” (Zechariah 12:10) and they repented of their sin. We saw that in our last lesson. Israel will one day see Messiah and accept His salvation – and the Millennium will follow that time.

The Millennium isn’t essential for the believers of the Church Age, accept for the fact that God keeps His Word literally – just as He did when Messiah came the first time in Bethlehem of Judah, to a young woman that did not know a man. The Millennium is essential for God to wrap up the literal promises with Israel, made in eternal covenants that God said He would NEVER BREAK as long as the sun, moon and stars were in the heavens (see the end of Jeremiah 31).

The biggest problem with understanding the Kingdom of the Millennium as a literal and earthly kingdom, as it clearly appears to be in Revelation 20, is that the Bible uses the word KINGDOM in many different ways.

While it is true that God is not trying to make it overly complicated, it is also true that there are differing dimensions to the way some terms are used. Sometimes the Kingdom of God is used to denote God’s work in people. Sometimes it is His providential work in nature and the world. You see this often:

• Psalm 10:16 “The Lord is King forever and ever.”
• Jeremiah 10:10 “But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.”
• Prov. 21:1 “The King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.”

Other times KINGDOM refers to His work in Heaven, among the angels. Sometimes Jesus used it to describe His saving work in the lives of lost people. And yet, sometimes, like here in Revelation, it sounds very physical a literal throne of a real King in Jerusalem during a specific period of time in the future.

If God is trying to be clear, why is the term complicated? Because God’s Kingdom is ALL of those things we have described – and more.

When it is used “spiritually” the term KINGDOM is used in a specific context of the ongoing spiritual battle between God and His Adversary that ends in a physical battle – as it is used here in Revelation. In this sense, the word KINGDOM is used to describe the REALM of God. This is what Satan objected to in the beginning, before the earth was formed as the great illustration of Who God is.

Take a minute and go back to that ancient scene, recorded in the poetry of two Hebrew prophets: Ezekiel 28:11-19 and Isaiah 14:12-17. A closer look at the Isaiah 14 account offers insight to the original objection to God’s rule:

Isaiah 14:12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! 13 “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ 15 “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit. 16 “Those who see you will gaze at you, They will ponder over you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms, 17 Who made the world like a wilderness And overthrew its cities, Who did not allow his prisoners to go home?’

Look at Satan’s challenge to God’s right as King! He made five statements:

• I will ascend to Heaven. Satan wanted God’s third Heaven, where God and the redeemed are to live (2 Cor. 12). Characteristically, Satan DOES live in that place for now, until Michael is given permission in the middle of the Tribulation to throw him out (Revelation 12:7ff).
• I will raise my throne above the stars of God. Satan wanted to rule over the angelic beings of God’s first kingdom – sometimes referred to in Scripture as stars. One third of the angelic world apparently rebelled in the initial fight, and God’s Word appears to teach that angels are still susceptible to rebellion. Paul cautioned believers to watch their behavior because angels were watching.
• I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north. Ancient Jerusalem’s Temple sat on the heights of the Ophel Ridge to the north of the city. Satan wanted the mountain of God’s temple – and during the “times of the Gentiles” God has let him have it – for a time.
• I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. This one can be tough to pick out without help. Of the more than 150 references to clouds in the Bible, two thirds of them, more than 100, refer to God’s glory and manifest presence. It looks like this was a poetic way of saying, “I want to steal some of God’s glory!”
• I will be like the Most High. This isn’t a statement that Satan desired to be LIKE GOD – for his character couldn’t be more opposite if that were his goal. Here he used a specific title of God – THE MOST HIGH (Elyon). This is a Biblical title for God as “possessor of Heaven and Earth” and “ruler of armies” in the Bible, taken originally from Genesis 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. 19 He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” He gave him a tenth of all.”

We need to grasp what God’s word teaches us about the Kingdom of God. We serve a Sovereign King. We are not His equal, and though He extends His powerful kingly grasp to pull us to Himself, we are not His peers. He is the High King of Heaven. The angels march in vast array at His call. The stars hear His voice and turn on their axes. The clouds above us move at His design. The birds follow His thoughts. The earth groans before Him awaiting His redemption – in a language He alone can fully grasp. Before anything was – He is eternal, the God Creator, the King Supreme. His immortal span and His immeasurable power stun all those who see Him in His holy abode. He is the King, not the servant—and His people must learn to think of Him as such. Failure to do so has already led the angelic rebels to the edge of the pit of the abyss.

In Revelation 19and 20, the battle between God and the Adversary that was for generations (as in our day) largely a masked spiritual fight, becomes a physical reality. You cannot get more physical than the terminology of Revelation 20:1-2:

20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.

Revelation 20:1-10 offers two important pictures sketched out in words. The first is at the beginning and end of these verses, where we can clearly observe a frame around the Millennium – describing Satan as bound and a temporary rest for the earth. The second picture, tucked into a few verses in the center, offer a snapshot of life in the Millennial Kingdom. We have but moments together, but look at the important lessons of this Kingdom from John’s record:

Lesson One: All of history is controlled from Heaven.

Revelation 20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him…

What a great comfort that God is able to lift His hand to command the enemy in His time. The enemy has such power and commanding influence over our world right now, it is hard to imagine Isaiah 14:16-17, when the nations will see Satan stripped of his deceptive princely garb and marvel that they sacrificed to him and followed his commands. They will ask, “Is this the one who made us all tremble? Is this the one who shook Kingdoms of the earth? Is this the one who destroyed our planet and made it uninhabitable? Is this the one who took prisoners forever – never to release them?

1 Peter warned the believers of the first century about the trickery and fierceness of the enemy in our day: 1 Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. 11 To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Do you see it? Peter said God works in those who are humbled before Him – recognizing His greatness and Sovereign right to rule over them. He is big enough to take on His shoulders all their cares. At the same time, they are not to be lax or lazy – but watchful. The enemy is on the prowl. He doesn’t want to harm you – he wants to destroy you. He wants to devour every good thing you have. What must be done? Resistance. Suffering sometimes. But the day will come, when the key will be brought down and the door will be slammed shut. The enemy is on a short leash – even if he seems so powerful and supreme today.

• He may control our schools – but one day truth will silence his lies.
• He may control our courts – but one day judgment will be meted out against him.
• He may control our brothels, our porn industry, and even our religious world – but one day his relationship with men will be snatched from his hands – and they will be amazed they let him lead at all.

Lesson Two: Nations are coaxed into deceit by the Enemy.

Revelation 20:3b…so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time….

If there is anything about the allegorical position of John Calvin and Martin Luther that makes me crazy it is this: When men like these who did not believe in an actual Millennium were asked about the binding of Satan, they replied that Satan “cannot hinder the Gospel as it goes forward, and in that way he is BOUND spiritually right now.” Harold Camping of Family Radio held that view. Many others do today. Here is my problem… If Satan is bound now – are you telling me that he isn’t seeking to devour believers? If he is limited by the power of the Gospel, can someone please tell me why Paul thought otherwise? Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

The bottom line is this: Don’t be surprised when all things related to God and His Word are violently swept aside in our culture. Don’t look for LOGIC in the way people are making decisions. Satan blinds men. He deceives them into ruining themselves and the world around them. Anyone who has been tempted and succumbed knows that is the truth. He whisper: “No one will know!” Immediately after you sin his voice changes: “Everyone will find out!” Liars lie – news at eleven.

Now here is the good news… His days of coaxing the nations will be cut short, and someday men who have proudly followed him will be ashamed of what he is, and what they did.

Lesson Three: God has a plan for us that is thrilling.

Revelation 20:4 Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them.

One of the neat aspects of God’s future plan for believers is that we will be given opportunity to use God’s righteous principles from His Word and judge many who are brought before us. Much about this judgment is not fully disclosed in Scripture, but there are a few details:

Paul told the Corinthian church not to take brothers to court in the world system, because of the high position of believers in the time to come in judgment: 1 Cor. 6:1 Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 4 So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, 6but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?

Someday, we will use the learning of God’s Word, and the careful study of God’s character, to act on God’s behalf and serve as judges. What an esteemed position for any of us who know ourselves so well – that God would entrust any mission to a sinner such as I is beyond comprehension. It is both humbling and exciting!

Lesson Four: God remembers those who paid for truth.

Revelation 20:4b …And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

God is the Ever in the Present One… the “Ancient of Days”. All the pain of the sins committed against you were not forgotten or washed away by time. God remembers like you were just hurt today. God brings to the judgment all of the weight of the sin, losing nothing in the patience of time passages. Time doesn’t heal all wounds – God does. His memory is perfect and no abused person will walk the streets of gold complaining that God forgot to make right things that happened to them. He hurts when you hurt, but He remembers even more than we do.

Look at what God gives to those who gave their lives for Him – they become priests and princes. God doesn’t forget those who put their life on the line for the truth. He doesn’t pencil in a “Memorial Day” – it is always on His mind.

Lesson Five: The nations don’t need Satan to raise a huge number of rebellious children.

Revelation 20:7 When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, 8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.

When I was a kid, the comedian Flip Wilson used to say: “The devil made me do it!” Lots of people believe that every evil thing that happens to them is the enemy’s fault. The millennium will clearly show one important fact: what is broke is inside the heart of men. The devil need not be involved to raise a rebellion – because we are, deep within, rebellious. Our children don’t have to have direct contact with Satan to become hellions. The poison in the blood of fallen mankind is enough to kill truth within them. Even after a thousand years of a Righteous King modeling truth, after one thousand years of Satan’s deceptions being a mere memory, even after men are convinced that Satan was never worth following – the sick and rebellious heart of man will rise in rebellion once more. Children of the Millennium will turn back to war.

Lesson Six: The world system abhors God and His people.

Revelation 20:9 And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

Over and over again, the answer of the world is the same. Kill the followers of God. Run them off. Silence them. Call them bigots when they won’t let us kill our inconvenient children or sell moral sewage as education. Call them ignorant when they won’t believe we are all nothing more than chance made evolving viruses. Call them intolerant when they won’t embrace any lie we feed them. Here is the truth – the world thinks those who follow God are the problem because they won’t be bought with trinkets of this world, and they won’t be taught by those who don’t know Who made them or why they are here.

Lesson Seven : Hell is real, eternal and terrible.

Revelation 20:10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

If you have followed this whole lesson, and you have never committed your life to Jesus Christ – don’t miss this last point. Anyone who tells you the Bible is not crystal clear on the issue of eternal punishment in hell hasn’t taken seriously Revelation 20:10. I cannot read it without shuddering. The devil will be tormented forever. The beast will be endless tortured. The false prophet will beg and find no mercy – forever. Why is that important? Because by the end of the passage – the lake of fire will get more occupants:

20:15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If there was ever a book you wanted your name in – it is the one God will read on that day. The book is not inscribed with the names of good people. It is inscribed with the names of surrendered people – those who know they cannot earn Heaven, but God gave it as a free gift.

In the end, the story is this: God Keeps His Word – just as it was delivered. God’s promises are clear and His fulfillment is certain. He is the God of literal clarity, not allegorical hocus-pocus. His Word offers us deep assurance and precise promise.

Every Christmas, I have to watch one of the many versions of “A Christmas Carol” at least one time – or it doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. For the unenlightened, the made for TV movies all follow, more or less, the story line of Charles Dickens classic novella. The story was first published by Chapman & Hall in 1843, when early Victorian era Brits were experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions. This was the time when Christmas trees and greeting cards were just being introduced into the home experience to recall the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. The greed of some amid the rising industrial revolution was the backdrop for the visit of three ghosts – the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present, and the ghost of Christmas future. In the novella, each of these ghosts helped Ebenezer Scrooge find his kinder and gentler self from the calloused old miser he had become. It was a tale of redemption.

What does that have to do with Revelation 19? Good question! If Jesus’ coming as a servant and a sacrifice to Bethlehem long ago was “Christmas past” – His coming as the Victorious Prince and Mighty Ruler is “Christmas future”! He is, however, no ghost – if that word implies a spirit with no corporeal elements – He is very much a real and discernible body. He is the Risen Christ.

Key Principle: Jesus will come again. He will be real, visible, powerful and princely. He will establish a reign on the earth to fulfill all that God promised to Abraham and his descendants long ago. He is the “omega” of God’s promises to His ancient people. It is central to the message of Christianity.

Before you think to yourself, well duh! Of course His coming is a central part of our message, you should know that this is no longer a self evident statement – even among Christian groups. Many today have been drawn into one of the modern cultural statements of Christianity. They see Christ as a symbolic liberator – as in Liberation theology preached in many parts of Christendom. Still others, in an adaptation to our modern tolerance based culture, see the teaching concerning Jesus as an aside to the real purpose of Christianity, which is to lead people to peace, prosperity and human unity. For them, the Christian message is not so much about Christ, as it is about US – our needs, our desires, our fulfillment.

I want deliberately to challenge any view of Christianity that is not chiefly about the exaltation of Christ. If our message is not that we exist to bring our Maker honor and glory by submission to Him and praise for Him – it is NOT Biblical Christianity. If our message is NOT that we exist to glorify Him and place every other desire behind that – it is NOT the historic faith that the Apostles delivered. So we come today with the message that Christianity savors the glory and exaltation of Jesus Christ – the Son of the Living God. We are in good company today, for the angels of Heaven have long rejoiced over Him.

In our study together, the Tribulation was completed, and marked the end of the punishing time of the ages of humanity with the coming of the Great Prince. Even the names of the period of judgment bear the weight of that time. its descriptions in the Word are hard for those who have lived under such a period of grace such as ours:

1. It is called “tribulation”  by Jesus, who said there “has never been a time like this one!” (Matthew 24:21).
2. It was frequently called out in the Hebrew Scriptures by such references as “the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa. 61:2).
3. It was cited as a time focused on Israel and called “the time of Jacob’s trouble” in Jeremiah 30:7 – specifically in reference to its Divine purpose to bring Israel to her knees of worship.
4. It was considered God’s “strange work” in Isaiah 28:21, and a “time of trouble” in Daniel 12:1.
5. Writers of the Christian Scriptures used terminology like “day of wrath” in Romans 2:5 and Colossians 3:6, 1 Thessalonians 1:10.

It is next to impossible to mistake the nature of the period – it is one that is not like our day. We seek God after a lifetime of sinful behavior, and God pulls us from darkness into light. We cry out, and God hears us. The time of the Tribulation will be a time when God holds back His merciful hand until the threshing of the harvest is complete. From the standpoint of the grapes, the making of wine is a crushing and painful process – but that is the language God uses in His Word of the Tribulation Period.

In Revelation 19, the transition from that time is made complete with the Entry of the Victorious Prince. God is always gracious, and will not trouble earth forever. In fact, lest we fail to make the connection, much of God’s mercy was seen even in that terrible period. How?

1. God sent His Holy Spirit in profound ways during the last days to move men and women toward Him (Joel 2:28-32 Acts 2:41).
2. God commission two special and powerful sign bearing witnesses to point to His power and draw men to God (Revelation 11:3).
3. God will release 144,000 bond servant evangelists to spread the message of God’s redemption (Revelation 7 and 14) with all Heaven cheering them on! (Revelation 7:9).
4. God will put His hand over Israel to protect her in spite of every sign that she is about to be annihilated (Revelation 12:6ff).
5. God will make sure that Heaven is marshaled to make the Gospel clear (Revelation 14:6).

The Victorious Prince returns to earth with His Bride in tow. He comes to rescue the woman that bore Him. It is the climax of the book, and the climax of the fallen world.

Before marching to the Revelation narrative, we should set it in the Biblical context. Lest anyone think the New Testament or the Book of Revelation is presenting something God had not long before revealed in His Word, we should pause to recall the visions of Zechariah, son of Iddo, that told the same story long before. The exaltation of the Prince that followed the Great Tribulation was not a NEW THEME – but one that God revealed five hundred years before John was ever born.

Zechariah said it all before!

The Prophecies of Zechariah are found in an ancient Hebrew book that can be easily divided into two parts. Chapters 1-8 were visions and messages contemporary to Zechariah’s present situation in the sixth century BCE. Chapters 9-14 contain prophecies of a time after Zechariah. In that second half, the “future” prophetically presents stages of the Coming of God’s Redeemer. In Zechariah 9-11, the story of Israel’s re-gathering appears  – as the scattered Jewish people move back to their ancient homeland. In the last part of the book, Zechariah 12-14, the story of Israel’s redemption appears – the coming of the Victorious Prince is unfolded.

You see, the story was very old and followed a pattern that is essential to understand, even for one watching today’s news:

Scattered Jews would one day be re-gathered to their ancestral home, yet they would not yet be walking with God. Her restoration was not because of HER, but by God’s mercy to her fathers (Zechariah 9 and 10). This was after the return from Babylon – so another return was foreseen.

• From Zechariah 9:11 “As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12 Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; This very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you.”

• From Zechariah 10, it sounds like this: Zechariah 10:5 “They will be as mighty men…6 “I will strengthen the house of Judah, And I will save the house of Joseph, And I will bring them back, Because I have had compassion on them; And they will be as though I had not rejected them, For I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.”

If these were mere statements of returning Jews from the exile, they were offered AFTER those Jews had already come. With Zerubbabel, nearly 50,000 returned under the decree of Cyrus years BEFORE this prophecy. No, this was a FUTURE re-gathering brought on by God Himself.

Beside the re-gathering, God took time to explain the reasons for the severity of the judgment against them. The chief reason was God’s disgust with their poor and stubborn hearted leaders that led them FROM God, not to God. The most profound act of disobedience was the betrayal of God’s redeeming emissary – traded away for mere shekels in Zechariah 11:

• Zechariah 11:11 So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD. 12 I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. 13 Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.”

What a picture! God called them to give themselves to Him as His rightful duty, and they offered 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave’s redemption in place of their hearts. This all hearkened to the coming of the Redeemer that was rejected by the nation’s leaders. Was He not traded for 30 pieces of silver, and that money used to buy a potter’s field? Was that money not tossed at the leaders by Judas himself in the Temple? Once again, when the Bible prophet spoke, it wasn’t all flower and allegory. In so many cases – what happened was just as it was long before described!

If you kept pursuing Zechariah’s prophecy, you would see that God was going to re-gather His people after a severe judgment, but it would lead – not to their destruction – but to their NATIONAL SALVATION. God turned to their redemption, but even this was preceded by devastation, just as it would be told in Revelation. Jews and their homeland became the problem for the whole world. After her return to the land, for a time – Jerusalem specifically would become a problem to the nations of the world. It would become the “heavy stone” for ALL THE WORLD. (Zech 12:1-4), causing all people of the world to turn against it.

• Zechariah 12:2 “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. 3 “It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.

At some point, when the nations first attempted to squash Jerusalem, God protected her for Himself, and Jews around the world pay attention to God’s goodness – the beginning of the end (Zech. 12:4-9):

• Zechariah 12:4 “In that day,” declares the LORD, “I will strike every horse with bewilderment and his rider with madness. But I will watch over the house of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. 5 “Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘A strong support for us are the inhabitants of Jerusalem through the LORD of hosts, their God.’…7 “The LORD also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be magnified above Judah. … 9 “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem….

Following the story, then – we have a painful re-gathering, followed by a stubborn world-wide perception that Jews and Jerusalem once again need a “final solution”. In order to complete this, the nations gather at Armageddon and try to solve, once and for all. This time, the nation of Israel will be SAVED both physically and spiritually – drawing the whole populace of the survivors of the woes of recent days to the Lord. They will recognize the Prince they once rejected.

• Zechariah 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. 11 “In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, … in the plain of Megiddo. 12 “The land will mourn, every family by itself…

God will provide salvation, cleansing and restoration:

• 13:1 “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. 2 “It will come about in that day,” declares the LORD of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land…8 “It will come about in all the land,” Declares the LORD, “That two parts in it will be cut off and perish; But the third will be left in it. 9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’” …

In final analysis, God made the whole promise of the Coming Prince long before the Suffering Servant arrived. Jesus was promised to come both as a crucified servant, and then later as a Reigning Prince. He would come to pay the price of sin as a Lamb, and later to defend the estranged wife of His Father as a Lion:

• Zechariah 14:1 Behold, a day is coming for the LORD when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. 4 In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. …9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one.

This was the story revealed long before John beheld Heaven revealed in the Book of Revelation. This is the great climax – the Prince comes to liberate those who have been under the bondage of a hateful world and an unparalleled time of judgment.

John said it in three parts:

The Coming of the Prince

Revelation 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

The Call of the Vultures

Revelation 19:17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in mid-heaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.”

The Culmination of the War

Revelation 19:19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.

In the quick view, Jesus’ coming ended the war. The Living Word of God spoke the verbal Word of God and destroyed the enemies of God. What a powerful scene. Yet, the war is not the great moment – but rather the appearance of the GREAT WARRIOR PRINCE.

Take a moment today, surrounded by the physical things of this world, overcome by some of your earthly troubles, to gaze into the Heavens. Take a moment to LEAVE HERE and look behind the curtain of the Alpha and Omega of human history. Seize this moment to see the Savior in His glory. Worship Him, and you will grow hungry for MORE of Him. Look at the description up close when Heaven opened in verse 11. Organize the list of thirteen descriptions and you will see three clear truths about the Coming Prince:

First, His LOOK explains His character!

• Eyes: His eyes are a flame of fire (12)

The “Coming Prince” is One who has seen it all. His eyes are piercing, and His power refining. He will not be tricked by our manipulative words. He will know who belongs to Him, and who is playing God games. He can see through works of a religious man and know if what beats within him is the heart of a yielded and surrendered Christian who clings to the work of the Cross alone for salvation. His eyes flame – and they see the truth. Darkness cannot defeat light.

• Head: His head is covered with many diadems (12)

The “Coming Prince” is the designated ruler of the nations. Our world may not see it, nor desire it – but His rule will come. Every knee shall bow. No more talk of modern morality. No more compromising political posturing. All rulers will see themselves as subservient to the One true ruler – the One who spoke for His Father, and created light itself.

• Garment: His robe is dipped in blood (13)

The “Coming Prince” has felt throbbing, neglect, the angry spittle of men, the horrid sting of death and the stench of false religious pomposity. He paid with His blood before men. His robe is soaked with the memory of the result of sin and rebellion. That robe is not draped across a limp body, as the Pieta of Michelangelo recalls, but adorns a living body, full of breath and life and power.

Yes, His look tells His story. But that isn’t all – His NAMES proclaim His power!

• He is called Faithful and True (11)

The “Coming Prince” is known as both Faithful and True. He is both “trustworthy” and “genuine”. He asked for our lives, and He preserved them in eternal salvation. There is nothing fake about Him. No amount of examination of Him will reveal a character flaw or imperfection. He was called the Faithful Witness in Revelation 1:5, because His Word is completely reliable. No doubt of His Word is justified – for He meant every word and fulfills every promise.

• He has a private name written on Him (12)

The “Coming Prince” has a personal and private name. It is not that no one could see or recognize His name, but the idea is, that no one could fully understand its import. One  scholar noted: “It involved a depth of meaning, and a degree of sacredness, and a relation to the Father, which he alone could apprehend in its true import.” It is why He has been named “Wonderful” in Isaiah 9:6. The wonder part of wonderful is that there is depth beyond the surface and meaning beyond the obvious. We make a terrible mistake when we see Jesus as ONE OF US. His description here alone should caution us. John knew Him well, but fell at His feet as dead when He saw the WONDERFUL ONE in all His glory. How can we do less?

• His name is called The Word of God (13)

The “Coming Prince” is called the very Word of God, because He is the very expression of all that His Father says and thinks. He is the “expressed image of His person”. He speaks for His Father, as the Very God of the Ages. There is no word from His Father kept from Him. There is no secret that passes His understanding. There is perfect respect for the Father’s controls, but perfect knowledge of all that God has, and will, ever say.

• Etched on His robe and thigh is this name: “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (16)

The “Coming Prince” is the Supreme above all. There is no power that was not originated in Him, and flowing from Him. There is no sovereign that is His equal, and no political structure that can withstand His might. He is above all, reigning Supreme above the earth and the heavens that surround it.

His Works explain His purpose!

• He who sat on a white horse

The “Coming Prince” comes on a white horse. The prototype for a victor of the day of John was none other than Julius Caesar himself. Though he had many horses, scholars note that for propaganda purposes, he bred white ones with a “toe” above its hoof, which was considered lucky. He rode them for triumphs – or public parades of recognition, or used them to draw his chariot. White horses became, for many centuries, synonymous with the transport of conquering heroes. Truly the Coming Prince is every bit the hero of our lives. We were lost, imprisoned and blind – and He came in power to release us and restore our sight. He IS our noble Victorious Prince.

• He judges and wages war and in perfect righteousness

The “Coming Prince” is the Judge. Thayer’s lexicon comments that “the proper meaning of krínō is to pick out or choose by separating”. Jesus did not come to make all ONE. He came to divide those who surrender to Him from those who do not. He said that He would divide families and nations. No one will join what He separates, and no one will contest His absolute right to make judgment – for none are His equal. Complete righteousness is matched with unlimited power and unbridled goodness. His war is the right one, His cause is just, His victory is assured!

• The armies of heaven follow Him

The “Coming Prince” has, at long last, the undivided loyalty of His judged church. They have waffled a wavered, but then stood before His Bema Seat. They have seen what they were to become, and we forever changed by the seeing. They are now His loyal and faithful subjects, having shed their sinful past and donned robes of righteousness. They follow Him for He alone deserves their loyalty and allegiance!

• From His mouth comes the sharp sword that strikes down the nations

The “Coming Prince” speaks words of truth, and those words cut through mockers and rebels like a sharp blade against mere flesh. The end comes when all mouths are stopped. All brilliant arguments and fleshly thoughts are laid down before the One who embodies the absolute Truth of life and the ages.

• He treads the wine press of the Almighty’s fierce wrath

The “Coming Prince” brought salvation on His first coming, and will end the Great Tribulation of God’s wrath on His return. All mankind will know where they stand with the Truth, and those who position themselves in opposition will at once be felled.

• He rules them with a rod of iron

The “Coming Prince” is the Ruler of the Age to Come. He does not come simply to judge and destroy – but to separate out those who will build with Him. A Kingdom follows His entrance.

Jesus will come again. He will be real, visible, powerful and princely. He will establish a reign on the earth to fulfill all that God promised to Abraham and his descendants long ago. He is the “omega” of God’s promises to His ancient people. It is central to the message of Christianity.

Let us speak His Word clearly: Christians live to exalt Christ. He is our judge and our glory. We do not seek a life to honor ourselves.

We follow His very word: “Whoever gives their life to Me, gains their life. It is our highest honor – to live honorably and lovingly for Christ or die and gain. Our focus is not THIS LIFE as an end in itself. We know this life may not right the wrongs we witness. We know this is a mere shadow of the eternal life that awaits us! We trust our COMING PRINCE – It is the heart of all of our message.

Once a day, the two women I have known well in my life – my mom and my wife – are transformed. Let me explain: My mother wasn’t one to raise her voice often. She has always been, more or less, the quiet type. One exception to her normal state was at the point when supper was on the table. Mom believed, as my wife does today, that supper is a family time. In fact, both women worked hard to put food on the table that was hot, ready and well made. (I may be a lot of things, but underfed is not and never was one of them!) Like my mom, my wife is not a fighter, or a loud voice. She is, for the most part, very quiet, except when she is watching someone do something really dumb on America’s Funniest Videos, or watching the “Three Stooges”.

Here is the weird thing: when supper time roles around something happens to these women. Each transforms their normally calm nature to get us to the table. For my wife, she sometimes puts her fingers in her mouth and bellows a whistle that can scare the cat – in my neighbor’s house! She has a distinctive “call to supper” that can be piercing. In a way, Heaven also has such a call, and God’s messenger will do the very same thing one day soon! Revelation 19 opens up the story of two dinners – and two calls. One is a great banquet for believers, the other a supper for birds. One is in Heaven – with tables set for a bride all dressed for the big day. The other is on earth – where a bloody battle leaves the carcasses of rebellious humanity to be the feast for vultures. There couldn’t be two more different scenes!

The Bible says that the Great Tribulation ends when the call from Heaven pronounces the arrival of the Victorious Christ to save His Father’s estranged bride from her sure and certain destruction – and that call will be viewed from two very different vantage points. Zechariah 12-14 describes the view from Jewish believers that see the coming of the “One they had pierced” – and they breathe a sigh of relief that destruction has been averted. From the standpoint of the rebellious men of the world, the battle pits them against an insurmountable foe – their very own Creator! For them, it is “lights out”! Here is the odd thing: it isn’t only important how one views the scene THAT DAY.. it is important how we view it EVEN NOW.

Key Principle: How I view Christ’s return matters – not only in the future – but it matters TODAY. The view a believer takes on these prophetic matters will affect not only his contemporary politics, but his or her view of the Bible itself.

Since chapter 16, we have been using some very graphic terms for God’s final attack and destruction of false religion. It is uncomfortable for a Pastor, who wants to use his mouth to speak truth and not invite loose thinking or ungodly speech, to painstakingly take apart the language that has been otherwise reserved for the dark trades of sleazy back streets. I have done it, because it is what the text demanded. God spoke of false religion as a substitute to a real and intimate relationship with God – and He framed it is his Word in terms of PROSTITUTION. The great harlot of Babylon was the man-made substitute of religion for the marriage relationship of intimacy God wanted to have with each of us. The goal of God’s adversary is to draw us from falling into His arms, and place us in a fake relationship with a god we sculpt – one that is palatable to us. Chapter 16 showed the demise, and chapters 17 and 18 explained the reasons and method of destruction God will use. Chapter 19:1-5 opens with the same theme, before the text moves from that event a new picture.

Revelation 19:1 After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; 2BECAUSE HIS JUDGMENTS ARE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and HE HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER.” 3And a second time they said, “Hallelujah! HER SMOKE RISES UP FOREVER AND EVER.”

In chapter 17, we saw religion as wealthy, deceptive, blasphemous, and Satanically empowered. Whether the symbol of a crescent or star – all false religion achieves the same purpose in the enemy’s plan – it fills men with false hope and robs them of real intimacy with God. Modern man ends up celebrating belief, but not the object of belief.

It was reported that when Prince Charles was recently asked if he was comfortable as the possible next monarch and head of the Church of England, he replied that rather than be called the “Defender of the Faith”, he would simply like “Defender of Faith”. He didn’t like the idea of standing for one truth – that seemed like bigotry to him. He is a personification of the modern ideal: Believe in belief – it doesn’t really matter which one. Just believe in it strongly if it helps you.

By chapter 18, we traced God’s secrets about the harlot. We noted that God took a LONG TIME explaining her destruction. When we open Revelation 19:1-5, where the text shows that God finishes her destruction:

False “Relationship” Destroyed

The voices of Heaven’s choir spoke in unison – “God you are RIGHT!” Salvation belongs to You – or – Rescue is YOUR THING.  The judgment of the false religions of the world that bound and captivated millions and billions showed the power of God to rescue deceived creation and eliminate all other voices claiming to be “god”.

• The harlot’s teachings were FALSE and SLANTED. His justice is TRUE and RIGHTEOUS.
• She CORRUPTED the world with IMMORALITY. He showed FIDELITY to those who trusted Him.
• She TOOK LIFE from those on the earth who trusted their Creator and worked for His message. He GAVE LIFE to those who lost their bodies on account of their testimony for Him.
• She BLOCKED the smoke of sweet sacrifice to the nostrils of God and CUT DOWN those who prayed. He MADE HER A PERMANENT SACRIFICE that wafted up to His throne room.

The response of believers of the church age, and of the Four Living Creatures that guarded the throne was to agree: Revelation 19:4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the call went out to all of Heaven, all who serve God to join in the great chorus of praise. What a relief!

• No child would ever again be drawn away into a false religion or cult and crush a mother’s heart!
• No compromise will ever be allowed to corrupt the truth of God’s message again.
• All the other so called ”holy books” will be abandoned and destroyed.
• All shrines that point to anything but the Most High will be incinerated.

The call goes out: Revelation 19:5 And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.”

The very next event that Revelation unfolds is at the time of the END of the Tribulation Period. Two scenes unfold – the Heavenly marriage banquet, and the return to the earth of the Victorious King. Both of these will occupy us in coming studies. Before we move to them, I want to address the importance of our approach to the events of the Tribulation. I am not selling anything, and you are free to disagree with my analysis. At the same time, I want it to be clear why we have been approaching the text the way we have – and why that makes a difference in more than just our view of the end times.

I believe that those who have trusted Christ in this age will not pass through the Tribulation. I believe the description of 1 Thessalonians 4 is not the same description as that of the Return of the Victorious King we are going to see in Revelation 19, and I want to explain why.

First, it is worth noting that the Bible is not silent that Jesus will return, and it isn’t always clear when reading each place, that Jesus will return twice. In fact, in the Hebrew Scriptures it wasn’t clear that He would come as a servant and die long before He would return as Victorious King. What is clear to anyone that takes the Christian Scriptures serious is that Jesus is going to return. In fact, one scholar claimed the Bible offered 129 prophecies of the first coming, but 329 prophecies regarding the Coming of the Victorious King to reign. If that is true, we have nearly THREE TIMES the promise of His second coming as we did for His first coming!

The Scriptures are replete with the promise of Jesus’ return:

• “I will come again!” said Jesus in John 14:3.
• “This same Jesus that left will return!” said the angel in Acts 1:11.
• Paul promised He would “descend from Heaven” in 1 Thessalonians 4.
• Jude said: “Behold He comes!” in verse 14.
• The writer to the Hebrews affirmed “He will not tarry” in Hebrews 10:37.
• 1 Peter stated “when the Chief Shepherd appears” in 1 Peter 5:4.
• Revelation 1:7 said: “Behold He comes in the clouds!”

Why do we think this is TWO EVENTS, not one. To put it simply, the details of the events don’t appear even reasonably the same

In the Rapture, or “snatching away” recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4 it appears this way: 1 Thessalonians 4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

• The event described in these verses seems to be Jesus COMING FOR HIS OWN, whereas the events of Revelation 19 are Jesus returning WITH HIS OWN, those who have been prepared and dressed for the wedding BEFORE the return to the earth.

• The event of 1 Thessalonians 4 appears to be FOR BELIEVERS, where clearly has first the bodies of the dead who are IN CHRIST and then living believers are snatched UP TO JESUS in the clouds to remain with Him. In the Revelation event there is not a word about believers going to the clouds, though there is a resurrection. The event of Revelation seems angled toward VERY CLEAR JUDGMENT of the earth.

• The event of 1 Thessalonians 4 appears to bring comfort, because believers who are “absent in body but present with the Lord” will gain their bodies BEFORE those of us who are alive at the time of His coming will be with Him. This is the source of the encouragement. The event seems to suggest that believers will hear the trump of God and rise – but the Revelation event has the whole world transfixed on His return.

Why does it matter?

First, how you view the narrative changes how you view the PURPOSE of the Tribulation and Millennium in the story of mankind.

God’s explanation of the Tribulation must be set inside the revealed purposes of the Tribulation period in the Bible. From that context, the period of time has two specific end goals:

1. Get Israel to bow her neck and see that the suitors of the world do not love her, the Father does.
2. Crush the rebellion of religious but deceived men, that started on the plain of Shinar, and will finish in the plain of Jezreel.

Second, how you view the narrative changes how you view an essential PURPOSE of the Church today!

With these two primary goals in mind, the message was entrusted to the church for safe keeping and thorough explanation so that much could be understood before our departure from the scene. In a way, you could say that the role of the church has many aspects of PREPARATION to it. The church of Jesus Christ primarily exists to prepare people. We are to prepare the lost for the darkness ahead, pleading with them to take the small door of Jesus and not the wide gates of religion, works or entrenched agnosticism. We are to prepare people who have trusted Christ, to ready themselves for the coming of the Holy One by preparing their garments of right deeds in response to His love. We are to prepare Israel for her coming final humbling and eventual restoration to her estranged Husband in Heaven.

God purposed that the church would have a positive impact on Israel, and would teach the wandering bride of the Father how to be a bride, while refraining from feeling elevated over the wandering nation (Romans 11). This addresses God’s purpose for the Tribulation in the life of His estranged wife called Israel– and the church’s job in preparation of her. Though we will not reach most of them for Jesus – that will be the ministry of two witnesses and 144,000 bond servants during that time yet to come, we can prepare her by modeling a walk with God and comfort her as God’s people that take His Word literally and seriously.

Third, and MOST IMPORTANT, how you view the narrative changes how you view Scripture itself.

It is no secret that in the church there are other interpretations of the narrative. Yet, on close inspection all of them has one singular trait – they cannot take the text literally.

The preterist view identifies all the prophetic materials of the book as having been completed by the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The view argues that the book is a spiritual tale of the early church and the fall of the Jewish Temple. If you follow that view, you must acknowledge that the three rounds of judgment – seals where one quarter of man is killed in Revelation 6; trumpet judgments where one third of men left are killed in Revelation 8 and 9; an finally bowl or saucer judgments – where all the sea dies are quite an extensive and detailed metaphor for the fall of Jerusalem. You must acknowledge that the fractions have virtually no meaning, and the logic of the progression of chapter 6-18 in the grips of the three rounds of judgment contain tremendous details that could just as easily be omitted with no essential damage to the meaning of the narrative.

The Amillennial view (Latin: a- “no” + millennialism) is named for its rejection of the literal reading of the text of Revelation 20 – that Jesus Christ will have a thousand-year long, physical reign on the earth. This view holds that the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 is a symbolic number, and that it has already begun. In this view the Millennium is identical with the current church age, and Christ’s reign during the millennium is spiritual in nature – not physical. In this view, at the end of the church age, Christ will return in final judgment and establish a permanent physical reign in the glory described as “Heaven” . In this view, Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father, and He will remain with the church until the end of the world, as he promised at the Ascension. The view interprets Peter’s recitation of the prophecies of Joel to demonstrate that the church is Christ’s Kingdom. The view annunciates that reality that Jesus used the words Kingdom of God in spiritual ways, as did the Apostles on occasion (Romans 14:17). One key to this view is that Amillennialism teaches that the binding of Satan described in Revelation has already occurred; he has been prevented from “deceiving the nations” by preventing the spread of the gospel. This view is optimistic –that Satan will be gradually pushed back by the Kingdom of God as history progresses though good and evil will remain mixed in strength even in the church, (as in the Matthew 13 “Parable of the Wheat and Tares”).

• Amillennialism gained ground after Christianity became a “religio licita” (legal religion). It was systematized by St. Augustine in the C4th CE, and became the dominant eschatology of the Medieval and Reformation periods. It was also the dominant view of the Protestant Reformers. Amillennialism is the accepted view of the Orthodox Churches. It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, which generally embraces an Augustinian eschatology and which has deemed that premillennialism “cannot safely be taught.”

• Lutheran Churches that follow the Augsburg Confession— “Art. XVII., condemns the Anabaptists (of Munster — historically most Anabaptist groups were amillenial) and others ’who now scatter Jewish opinions that, before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world… Reject the idea.

• Heinrich Bullinger wrote up the Second Helvetic Confession which reads “We also reject the Jewish dream of a millennium, or golden age on earth, before the last judgment.“[13]

• John Calvin wrote in Institutes that the view I am teaching you is a “fiction” that is “too childish either to need or to be worth a refutation.” He interpreted the thousand year period of Revelation 20 non-literally, applying it to the “various disturbances that awaited the church, while still toiling on earth.”

• Amillennialism is also common among Protestant denominations and is prevalent in most Methodist Churches, the Amish, Old Order Mennonites, Churches of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

If you are a part of any of those groups, you are welcome to study along with us and we love you as brothers and sister in Christ if you have asked Him to be your Savior. It may be, however, that you weren’t aware that we LOVE EACH OTHER, but aren’t on the same page on this study.

I believe what one of the Early Church Fathers, Justin Martyr (who died 165), wrote in his Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 80: “I and many others are of this opinion [premillennialism], and [believe] that such will take place, as you are assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise.“

The issue is NOT SALVIFIC, but not unimportant.

We don’t think that one must believe in the literal Tribulation and literal Millennium to be a real Christian. Knowing Christ is a whole different matter. If this doesn’t matter in one’s salvation, then why do we study it?

• Because only 15% of the Bible is about FINDING GOD, the rest is about FOLLOWING GOD.
• Because our parsing of the book of Revelation reveals our approach to Scripture – whether literal or figurative.
• Because if Israel has no literal future, and we are her replacement – then God’s everlasting love is dependent upon our performance, not His character.

It is because of the view we have of Scripture – literal or allegorical – that most churches are turning away from support of any sense that the Jewish people should have a homeland. The evangelical church is quickly shifting away her support from Israel – and that changes the whole story of the Bible.

What is truly at stake, in my view, is the literal fulfillment of God’s promises. Daniel and Revelation in the literal view promise a full restoration of Israel to an intimate walk with God. Paul saw it as a future even to the church age he was living it.

He said in Romans 11: 11 “I say then, they did (Israel) not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. 12 Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! … 15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? … … 25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.”

In point of fact, the Millennium (whose purpose is to fulfill the land contract to Israel) makes no literal sense to a non-literal reader, and therefore he is forced to allegorize the six times the term “1000 years” are found in the first seven verses of Revelation 20. He has no need of a time for God to fulfill the land covenant promises to Abraham – for the church has taken her place. A literal seven years of Tribulation to get Israel to bow her neck quickly becomes allegories of morality – for Israel is stripped of any special relationship to the future.

I am deeply concerned about the demise of the literal rendering of the text of Scripture – an issue that is worth an open disagreement among loving brothers in Christ.

Here is the bottom line of the importance: Either “everlasting” means everlasting when it comes to God’s love and promise – or it doesn’t (Isaiah 59:21). Either “sons from your loins” means genetic Israel, or it artfully means “people with a spiritual designation of ‘sonship’ that has nothing to do with the gene pool”. Either “one thousand years” of Kingdom on the earth means a literal fulfillment of a land agreement or it is a spiritual marker of a spiritual battle of light and darkness. Either seven years of tribulation is a literal feature of time or some unspecified allegory of judgment.  What is at stake is nothing less than how we read the Bible – literally or allegorically.

If the words of the page after page are nothing more than a fanciful way of saying, indeterminate “bad stuff happens” – then I don’t understand the purpose of the whole letter to the churches. It is confusing and picture laden – but in the end means very little. Fractions like ¼ of the earth destroyed in the seals, and 1/3 in the trumpets aren’t for any particular purpose.

The Call to the Wedding Dressing Room

Though Heaven is not unaware of the pummeling of the Great Tribulation, we need to remember that those who have been taken there already by resurrection – the Raptured church – are also busy doing some things. God doesn’t turn His attention to her dressing for the wedding in the text until He has completely destroyed the prostitutes that beckoned to men in the past. When all other false suitors or men are gone, God turns His complete attention to the bride of the Son.

The church is judged, and the garment of her right and acceptable works is woven into a wedding gown. The description of her call to dress takes into account other passages about her judgment, such as 1 Corinthians 3 and 2 Corinthians 5. She is being judged at what we call Christ’s bema seat, and that judgment is also her opportunity to get the garments of her righteousness fully ready for the coming wedding. John records these words heard in Heaven:

Revelation 19:6 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. 7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” 8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

A close look at the imagery allows us to recall the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, concerning the believer’s judgment. Look at 1 Corinthians 3:14 If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

The context of the passage is to and for believers in Jesus Christ. The works in question are the efforts these believers made to please their Savior after they knew Him as Savior and were already assured of eternity with Him. Even in such a state, some works were done selfishly and in the flesh, while other were performed rightly. The judge in that moment is Jesus alone.

When you look carefully at what Paul says about the day of judgment for believers, you will be reminded that the real test of ministry is not its temporal popularity, but its spiritual endurance at the scrutiny of the Master. The point is simple: If Jesus doesn’t deem it correct and healthy – than it simply isn’t. Heaven isn’t a place where a vote will be cast by the members of a theological academy or angelic choir. We serve a committee of ONE – a Master Who will inspect all of the work that we have done. There is NO OTHER treasure higher than HIS SATISFACTION. At the same time, His satisfaction is often paired by the satisfaction of other godly men and women. People who have a healthy walk with God can “sniff out” teaching and leadership that is healthy – because we have the selfsame Spirit within.

Confusion of John: It is IRONIC THAT EVEN HE WAS CONFUSED BY THE SCENE

Funny, but even John found the end times revelation to be difficult to grasp, and he was the commissioned co-author. Look at his confusion:

Revelation 19:9 Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” 10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

The angel’s words are the key. Let’s finish on something that EVERY BELIEVER can get excited about! Jesus is the real center of the prophecy of what is to come. When the world sees the Savior, they will know the truth about everything God’s Word taught. We will be back here, but I can’t leave without taking a glimpse at the Victorious One!

Glimpse of Savior: WHAT IS CLEAR IS WHO JESUS IS

Revelation 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

How I view the end times matters, but how I view Jesus matters much more than anything else.

My friend, Jesus is coming. He truly is! All theological debate will burn off in an instant. All that matters is that you know Him and that you follow Him. I believe it is best and safest to do so by taking the Bible literally – that these things we have been describing will be as real some day soon as the room you are in right now. How I view Christ’s return matters – not only in the future – but it matters TODAY. The view a believer takes on these prophetic matters will affect not only his contemporary politics, but his or her view of the Bible itself.