Day 40: 40 Days Through The New Testament

Ishmael LaBiosa: Welcome to 40 Days Through the New Testament. This podcast is led by Pastor Rusty Small at Liberty Baptist Church in Appomattox, Listen as he guides you through all 27 books of the New Testament in preparation for Easter. Get your Bible ready. Here's today's message. Well, we come today to our final reading. Congratulations, you have made it to the end of the New Testament. This is an exhilarating journey. to see what the Bible has to say in the second half of the Bible, the New Testament. Well, Revelation 20 has a few key things we ought to note. I told you at the beginning, what did you need to know about? Christ's return. We saw that. Christ in the book of Revelation clearly returns at the end of the tribulation. The second thing you need to know about is the tribulation itself. I think it's a literal thing. It's something, a seven year period of distress where God pours out His judgment on the earth progressively with calls to mercy as we have seen in Revelation 6 through 19 and at the end of the tribulation the world system falls, the world mourns, they like their sin and their stuff but heaven rejoices because the kingdom is come. Jesus appears on a white horse and so you got the first two. You got Christ's return. You got tribulation, and we got three more. And you only have three chapters. You have millennium, final judgment, and new heavens, new earth. Now I want to point out that Revelation 20, one through six, yes I said it, Revelation 20 chapters one, two, three, four, five, six. You only have in the book of Revelation six verses on the millennium. And for that reason, I'd like to be humble about it. I don't want to make too many definitive statements like everything. If you're going to get a robust understanding of the Millennium, you've got to appeal to more than the book of Revelation. You have to appeal to text in the Old Testament and not that that's illegitimate. But you say, Rusty, what does Millennium mean? One thousand. That's what it means. And so it seems that there's a one thousand year period of peace. but not a complete end of sin. You say, well, wow, Rusty, that's strange. Well, let me read it to you. Revelation 20, let me just say this. The millennium is like an intermediate period between the tribulation and the eternal state or new heavens, new earth. It's an intermediate period. Revelation 20 verse one, then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key to the abyss, a great chain in his hand. He sees the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss, closed it and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time. And then after that, verse four, then I saw thrones and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. And I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because... of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God who had not worshiped the beast or his image. And then they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Simply put, two things happen in the millennium as far as I can tell it in Revelation 1-6. Number one, Satan is bound with the result. And this is the reason that I don't affirm a spiritual interpretation of the millennium. The result of Satan being bound is he no longer deceives the nations. And excuse me. the nations are currently being deceived. Satan walks around like a roaring lion, Simon Peter says, seeking whom he may devour. And so yes, I agree, Satan has been defeated on the cross, but he has not yet been put down to the degree that he no longer deceives the nations. He is functionally defeated or positionally defeated, but not actually defeated. That actual defeat comes at the end of human history where Christ comes and puts down the antichrist and the false prophet and Satan himself. And ultimately here we'll see in final judgment, that he's cast into the lake of fire. So the reason I would see this is the binding of Satan results in no longer deceiving the nation. And then there's a partial resurrection of those who have been martyred during the tribulation are raised. You say, Rusty, I a of questions. Well, so do I, but let's just point out what's there. And then at the end of this 1,000 year period, strangely enough, Satan is released. You're like, what? Yeah, he's released for a short season and evidently deceased some more people. It's like Christ is ruling and reigning on the earth. He has come to the earth. He is reigning. There are people with resurrected bodies. There are people without resurrected bodies in the millennium. This is a strange and intermediate time indeed. You would think in the presence of Christ, the world's not fully redeemed, sin is not completely destroyed, but Satan is bound. He's not deceiving. And then he's released at the end and people still follow Satan. shows us once again the darkness of the human heart. But once we get to Revelation, the end of chapter 20, you get to verse 11, you get the great white throne judgment, and this is it, it's over. Judgment is final, there's no more intermediate transitions, final, final, final judgment. The great white throne and those whose name is not found in the book of life are cast into the lake of fire. and others who are new creation. Now, I just want to point out the end of the Bible is not us going to heaven, but heaven coming to earth. John says, then I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven. The tabernacle of God is among men. We will be his people. God himself will be our God. He'll wipe away every tear from our eyes. Grief, crying, and pain will be no more. and all things are made new. I just want you to read Revelation 21 and 22. This is our future and I'm just gonna share some thoughts here as we wrap up the New Testament. When it is all said and done and the kingdom of God has come, this is how it will be. Resurrected bodies, you say what does that mean? Well Jesus is the only prototype of a resurrected body. ⁓ resurrected body like Jesus. Listen, you don't know experience apart from a body, but the body you have is broken, the emotions you have are fallen, you were born spiritually dead one day, the full restoration of the image of God. You won't be less human in eternity, you'll be more fully human. You'll be all that Christ wants you to be. And then, let's talk about the world. At present, the heavens declare the glory of God, but Romans chapter eight says, for the creation itself will be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God's children. A lot of people come to me as a pastor and they say, know Rusty, I can't envision what eternity will be like. And I so profoundly disagree with that. I understand on one level while it's beyond our imagination, but some people say, you know Rusty, I can't envision a world that God would make. And I say, you can't? Have you looked outside? Do you see the glory and goodness of God's world even now set under sin? Do you see the beauty of people made in the image of God right now? And here's the vision of eternity. Imagine the world as it should be. When some people tell me they can't imagine what eternity will be, I say you can precisely imagine it. God has written eternity on your hearts. Many of you wake up in the morning wanting the world to be a better place, hoping that your little this or that that you're doing is making the world more beautiful, more full of truth, more full of goodness. And one day when King Jesus comes, the world as you want it to be in all of its beauty, in all of its justice, in all of its truth will be. And there, heaven and earth, God and man will live together in beautiful unity on the world as it should be and in a body that functions as it should function. And all I can say to that is if Christ has come to redeem the world, to defeat sin and death, and my future is to live with God in His redeemed creation, in a resurrected body, to have the full experience of all that I want. all that my desires could imagine and more than that. A lot of people say, you know what, Rusty, I'm just gonna die with so many unfulfilled desires. That's true. But may I tell you this, I have not seen or ear heard what God has in store for those who love Him. And the beauty and wonder of eternity is something that should make our hearts cry as the end of the Bible cries. Even so come. Lord Jesus, thank you for taking this wonderful journey through the New Testament with me. Thank you for listening to this podcast, A Ministry of Liberty Baptist Church. We pray that this is an encouragement to study God's Word and that you will join us for the next episode.