The Second Coming of Christ (Part 3)

Good evening, friends.

And if you're thinking not him again, I can only apologise.

There we are.

Now can we look at the last three sides of that set of slides, please?

Just by way of recapping, we thought about what I called the intermediate state.

The period between the can we go back one from there?

Back one or maybe two.

No, on on one from there.

Thank you.

Right.

I talked about the intermediate state, the period between the death of an individual, Christian, and the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we saw that all who have died in the faith from Adam and Eve up until now are dwelling in God's presence in that intermediate state as what Paul calls unclothed spirits.

For some, that period has been thousands of years long.

If they pass away not long before the Lord returns.

Then we thought of the resurrection of the redeemed.

And when Paul spoke about life after death, he was looking beyond the unclothed state to something even greater, the resurrection of the body.

Those who teach that only the soul matters to God are wrong.

He is concerned about the whole person, body, soul, and spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 6.15, he says, Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ.

And in 1 Thessalonians 5.23, he says, I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So in our Christian faith, the human body matters as well as does the soul or spirit.

And in the resurrection, believers will receive glorified bodies like that of the Lord, a body with powers far beyond anything that we know now.

We talked last week about the judgment seat of Christ.

I called it the prize giving, and we talked about the marriage supper of the Lamb, the great wedding feast, which symbolizes the union of Christ and his church.

What will we be doing in our resurrection bodies, do you think?

Well, I would suggest three words can pretty well sum it up.

We will be worshiping, we will be serving, and as we'll see tonight, we will be ruling.

Worshiping, serving, and ruling.

Now, on the screen, I put a little list of the contents of chapters 17, 18, 19, and 20 of the book of the Revelation.

Our age closes with the manifestation of Antichrist and what is called the Great Tribulation.

According to Matthew 24, that period of suffering and persecution will be cut short for the sake of God's people.

Revelation 17 we read of Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, the false church which supports the Antichrist.

When Antichrist is reigning, there will be a church that supports him and backs him and encourages people to worship him.

Now that is not the true church made up of those who have trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but a false church.

And notice that the false church is described as a harlot or a prostitute, because it prostitutes the truth for gain in this world.

The false church is described as a prostitute by comparison with the true church of Jesus Christ, which is made up of true believers, which is called the bride of Christ.

A great difference there.

In Revelation 18, we read of the fall or collapse of Babylon, this great empire established by the Antichrist, this false church that worships him.

It will all come crashing to nothing under the mighty hand of God.

God will move in judgment against this evil.

Then we move on to chapter 19.

And from verse 11 on, we read of Christ's return and the defeat of the Antichrist.

And then from verse 19 onwards, we read of the Antichrist and the false prophet, the leader of the false church, being cast into the lake of fire.

And then we move on to Revelation 20.

And we're not long into that chapter when we read that Satan is going to be taken and he's going to be bound in what the scripture calls the bottomless pit for a thousand years.

When mention is made in that chapter of the binding of Satan, he's referred to by four names.

He's called the dragon, the serpent, Satan, and the devil.

All in the same passage.

Four names.

As if to make sure there is no doubt about his identity.

Satan will be cast into the bottomless pit and chained there for a thousand years.

And then from verse 4 of Revelation 20, we read of the thousand-year reign of Christ and his saints.

This is called the millennium, from two Latin words which simply mean a thousand years.

The age in which we are now living reaches its climax with the manifestation of Antichrist and the great tribulation, which will end with the return of Christ.

When he comes, he will overthrow Antichrist and the false prophet, establish his kingdom on earth, which will last for a thousand years.

When Jesus came the first time, his disciples expected him to set up an earthly kingdom there and then.

That expectation comes across very clearly in the Gospels.

The disciples were sure that Jesus was going to establish an earthly kingdom.

And why did they believe this?

Why would they even think that that might be the case?

Well, the answer is that when we go back to the Old Testament, which for the disciples was their Bible, their scripture, when we go back to the Old Testament, we find that the Old Testament has much to say about an earthly reign of the Messiah centered on Jerusalem.

Many such prophecies speak of a literal kingdom ruled over by a literal king and occupying this present earth.

So it's not surprising that after his resurrection, the disciples asked Jesus, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

Lord, are you going to set up your earthly kingdom now?

Are you going to overthrow the Romans who control and dominate our land and set up your own kingdom?

Now here's the thing.

Jesus didn't say to them, you've got this all wrong.

You're completely mistaken in imagining there's going to be an earthly kingdom.

What on earth gave you such a silly idea?

He doesn't say that.

He accepts what they say.

As if it's perfectly reasonable that they should anticipate an earthly kingdom.

All he says is this it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power.

In other words, Jesus is saying the kingdom will come, but at God's chosen time.

Now in the notes you've got, there are some verses there which refer to that earthly kingdom, and you can look at them and read them if you wish to do so at your own leisure.

But what we see in those verses is that there will be an earthly kingdom, that Jesus will reign on the throne of David, and that the saints, resurrected, raptured saints, including us, will rule and reign with him.

During the thousand-year reign, the millennium, the resurrected saints in their glorified bodies will reign with Christ over this world and its mortal population.

1 Corinthians 6, verse 2, Paul says, Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world?

1 Corinthians 6:2

And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

In Corinth, Christians were falling out with one another in the church.

Now you never heard of Christians disagreeing with each other, did you?

You never heard of such a thing.

Well, in Corinth, the Christians were falling out with each other and arguing with each other, and so angry were they with each other that they were taking each other to court before pagan magistrates or judges.

They were dragging each other off to the courts to be judged by the ungodly.

And Paul is saying, don't you folk understand that in God's purpose, one day you are going to rule over worlds?

Surely then you ought to be capable of sorting out your own differences among yourselves.

Why are you now going to the ungodly to rule over you and decide issues between you?

God has intended that one day you will rule the world.

Revelation 5, verse 10.

Revelation 5:10

God has made us kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.

So during this thousand-year period, the millennium, Jesus will reign as King and Lord over this world.

And his saints will reign with him.

Now, we move on a bit to the next slide.

I called it a world without the devil.

Because the devil's in the bottomless pit.

He's out of the picture for now.

Although he reappears.

He's out of the picture for now.

So we're talking of a world without the devil, a world ruled over by Jesus Christ.

What are conditions like in a world of that sort?

Well, I've used uh descriptive phrases that I found in a little book by a pastor called Ian McPherson, now himself quite a number of years in heaven.

And you may find some of the phrases a bit peculiar.

I think some of them are a bit peculiar, but they make the point.

And he tries to make them all sound sort of alliterated in some way.

He says there'll be global sovereignty.

In other words, Jesus will reign as king over the whole earth.

There'll be agricultural productivity.

We're told in Amos 9.13, Isaiah 35.1, and Isaiah 55.13 that during that period the world will blossom agriculturally.

There'll be no shortage of food because there'll be no more deserts.

The world will be productive.

There will be material prosperity.

There will be animal amicability.

Isn't that a wonderful phrase?

Animal, I can hardly say it.

Animal amicability.

What does the Bible say?

In that day the lion will lie down with the lamb.

You'll be able to go up and pat the lion.

Now you'd hardly pat a dog.

You'd go up and pat a lion.

Animals will will no longer be savage.

This is a world where Jesus is reigning.

Universal tranquility, no war.

Personal longevity.

Now you say, wait a minute, I thought we were immortal.

How can age come into it?

Yes, friends, in the millennium, we who are God's people who have been resurrected or raptured will be immortal.

We won't be touched by death.

But we will be ruling over a population of mortal people.

People who have lived through the second coming of Christ and lived on into the age beyond.

This might surprise you, I think.

But it's perfectly scriptural.

Where have these people come from?

It seems that the whole unconverted population of the world will not be destroyed at the second coming.

We're told that those who take up arms and fight in the armies of Antichrist will be destroyed, will be killed.

But nothing is said about death for the rest of the human population.

They will live on through these events, through the resurrection, through the rapture.

They'll know nothing, I think, of the judgment seat of Christ or the marriage supper of the Lamb that we spoke about last week, which take place in heaven.

They'll live on on earth.

And they will live on into the reign of Jesus Christ here upon earth as mortals.

But because conditions on the earth will be so wonderful during this time, they will have greatly extended lifespans.

We're told in Isaiah 65 and 20, there shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days.

For the child shall die a hundred years old.

Now what does that mean?

It means that because of the greatly extended human lifespan in an ideal world, if someone dies at the age of a hundred, it will be as if a child had died.

He was only a hundred?

Goodness me, how sad to die so young.

So there will still be death in the millennium, and there will still be sin.

Because there will be some in that world who will bow the knee to Jesus Christ reluctantly.

There will be a huge population, I think.

A near-perfect world will be able to support vastly more people than it can today.

There'll be no deserts.

We're told the desert will blossom as the rose.

Now, somebody might say, I can understand resurrection, I can understand the rapture of living saints, I can understand going to heaven, I can understand all these things.

But what's the point of a millennium?

Surely everything's going to last forever beyond this life.

Well, let me try and answer the question.

I believe the millennium is a period in which Jesus demonstrates his total victory over Satan and sin in this world.

Satan is called the God of this world, who blinds the eyes of men and women to the truth of the gospel.

He wants us to believe that he is the rightful ruler of this world, but he's not.

He's a usurper.

This is God's world.

And it will not be left in Satan's hands.

He will not be allowed to determine its fate.

And during the millennium, all will see that God is in sovereign control of this world.

And God will run this world as it should have been from the very beginning if there had been no fall.

During the millennium, we all will see that God is all in control.

And all will also see how this world should have been run from the start.

The great Baptist preacher of the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon, put it this way: He said, In this very earth where superstition has set up its idols, Jesus Christ will be adored.

The scripture is clear and specific on the great doctrine of the future triumph of Christ over the whole world.

Another Baptist pastor and Bible teacher, also no longer with us here on earth, David Pawson, wrote this.

He said, The world is generally disappointed with Jesus.

He has failed to live up to the expectations of Jew and Gentile alike.

When I read those words, I thought, that's a pretty strange thing for a Baptist pastor to be saying.

But let me read on, or at least speak on, because I'm not now quoting his words precisely.

He was too long winded, so I've condensed it.

He says the world doesn't feel that Jesus has done what he said he would do.

Failure number one.

The Jews expected Jesus to free them from the domination of the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom there and then.

But Jesus didn't do that.

Instead, he died upon a cross.

No earthly kingdom as yet.

Failure number two.

The Gentiles, that is the rest of the world, thought that if Jesus was all that the Bible claimed him to be, the world ought to be a better place by now.

After all, two thousand plus years have passed.

And the world seems as bad as ever.

There hasn't been a massive improvement in the moral and spiritual standards of this world.

So as far as the Jews are concerned, no earthly kingdom.

As far as the Gentiles at large are concerned, no improvement in this world.

And David Pawson suggests failure number three.

Even some Christians are disappointed.

They feel this world is a mess and will never get any better.

So they're putting all their expectations on the next world.

Satan is still in power down here.

So no defeat of the devil.

The earthly kingdom hasn't been established.

The moral and spiritual standards of this world haven't been elevated.

And Satan still is active and busy and powerful.

Now we are used to people making great promises that they don't keep.

We take an interest in politics.

We see it all the time, don't we?

No matter who's in power.

But friends, we know that Jesus is not like that.

When he makes a promise, he keeps his promise.

And the millennium, this reign of Christ over the earth for a thousand years, is necessary so that we can see that Jesus has kept his word.

There will be an earthly kingdom.

There will be an unbelievable improvement in every sort of way in this world.

And the devil will be defeated.

I believe that the millennium is God's answer to the critics who say things haven't worked out the way that we expected.

And when Jesus reigns as King over this earth, everything will be truly wonderful.

Let me move on.

We can move on to another slide, I think.

Revelation 20.

And we read that at the end of the thousand years.

Verse 7, when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.

As the thousand years draw to an end, Satan will be briefly loosed from his imprisonment.

And you might ask why?

Having got him chained up so that he can no longer deceive the nations, why on earth let him out of prison?

Those who have lived as mortals through into the millennium, and those who have been born to them during the millennium, have lived in a Satan-free world.

And they must be tested to see if their submission to God is real or not.

Here are people, natural, physical, mortal people like us, but living in a perfect, ideal, glorious world.

A world where there's no suffering and sickness and all of these other things that we associate with life as it is now.

Living in a I say a near-perfect world, because as I said, sin is still there as we'll see in a moment.

They're living in a near-perfect world.

Satan hasn't been around to test them, to tempt them.

So he's released.

And when he's released, what does he do?

He goes straight out to get on with the business that he'd been engaged in before.

Deceiving the nations of the world, lying about God, accusing God of all sorts of things, just as he did to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

He will gather a vast army together to lead a rebellion against God.

And amazingly, many who have lived in an ideal world all their lives and have known nothing but peace and prosperity will choose to follow Satan and rebel against God.

They had submitted to God's rule outwardly, but inwardly, inwardly, they loved sin and seized the first opportunity to turn against the Almighty.

It seems terrible that millions of the mortal population of earth will make such a choice.

According to Revelation 20 and verse 8, these rebels are as numerous as the sand of the sea.

I think, friends, this shows us the true corruption of the human heart.

One of the Christian doctrines that non-Christians find most objectionable is the teaching in the Bible about hell and eternal judgment.

And they take the line: well, if God was really as kind and good and loving as you Christians claim he is, he would forgive these people.

And maybe after a short period of some kind of punishment, he would let them all into heaven.

And such an idea can be made to sound reasonable and nice and sensible.

But friends, when we look at this last rebellion of Satan at the end of the millennium, we see how much against God the human heart often is.

And even people living in an almost perfect world under the direct rule and reign of Jesus Christ are eager to rebel when they get the opportunity.

The heart of man is wicked above all things, says the Bible.

And the reason why hell is and the lake of fire are eternal is simply because the human heart, in many cases, is absolutely and fixedly opposed to God.

And no matter what is done or said, no matter what blessings or privileges are poured out upon them, they remain opposed to God.

So Satan leads this, his final rebellion.

But God brings it to a sudden end.

Verse 9, and they went, this is the army of Satan, they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city, that's Jerusalem, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

So ends Satan's last rebellion.

And Satan and his armies are defeated.

And Satan himself is cast into the lake of fire.

Eternal judgment upon Satan.

The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Terrifying words.

But friends, we need to recognize that these are God's truth.

Satan is defeated.

And you know, friends, even now, Satan, he can read the Bible too, you know.

Even now, Satan knows this is his fate.

He knows that he is a defeated enemy.

He knows this lies before him.

And in this present age, he is working as hard as he can to drag as many down with him as he can.

He is deceiving the nations of the world now, lying about God, lying about the gospel, lying about the future, but he knows that his doom is sealed.

What follows?

There follows the final judgment.

Now, I told already about the judgment seat of Christ, and I called it the award ceremony, when the Lord gives rewards to his people.

But there is another judgment.

We've not thought about people who died without Jesus so far in these studies.

Resurrection and rapture relate to God's people, to believers.

What about the rest?

Well, friends, the truth is this: when a person dies without Christ, their destination is hell.

And they remain there through all the events we've been describing, through the return of Christ, through the resurrection of believers, through the rapture of living saints, through the millennium of a thousand years, they remain in hell.

And only at the very end, after Satan's final rebellion is brought to an end, is there the great white throne judgment?

That's how Revelation describes it.

And at that point, all those who have died without the mercy and grace of God in Christ are resurrected.

Not to live in heaven, not to live in some glorified, wonderful world, but to hear the sentence of condemnation.

And they stand before God as a vast multitude of condemned, God-rejecting sinners, to hear their final judgment.

We read, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.

The books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up its dead, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

This is the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

This is the last judgment.

No believer will be there.

Our sin has been dealt with at Calvary.

We are redeemed through the precious blood of the Lamb.

We've been resurrected, or if still living on earth, when Jesus comes, raptured to meet the Lord in the air, and the scripture says we will ever be with the Lord and we will not come into this judgment.

The scriptures are explicit on that.

But the question might be asked: are there any in that vast multitude who will not be condemned?

And the answer is yes.

All those who truly yielded to the rule of Christ during the millennium must also be there.

Not the ones who seized the opportunity to rebel when Satan was released for a little while, but those who continued faithful to the Lord, they will be there.

The very phrasing of the description suggests that there are some, a majority perhaps, who will be condemned, but there will be some in that multitude who will receive commendation and welcome into the eternal kingdom.

By this time, the Bible says heaven and earth will have fled away.

They're not in sight.

Where does this great white throne judgment take place?

I've absolutely no idea, friends.

The Bible doesn't say.

I can only assume somewhere in space.

Not on earth, not in heaven.

We can rule those out.

The language used indicates that.

But somewhere of God's choosing, this great judgment will take place.

And friends, I'm glad I don't have to be there.

Because my sin has been dealt with by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what next?

Well, what next is what we'll look at next week.

The new heaven and the new earth.

If you look at chapter 21, the first verse, John says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.

A new heaven and a new earth.

And that will be the eternal state where we will dwell in the presence of God, in the presence of our Savior Jesus Christ.

And with all the redeemed of every age of human history, we'll dwell forever and ever in the presence of the Lord.

And I think we can we can stop there.