Tonight, I'm going to cover a
couple of things. I want to cover some views of
eschatology, and I talked about what that meant last night. I'll
reiterate it last night, last week. I'll reiterate it tonight.
And then I want to look at a specific area of text, which is probably
one of the most debated issues in the book of Revelation, which
is the millennium and talking about the thousand years. So
tonight we're going to look at the different views of eschatology,
and then we're going to look at the different views of the
millennium. And so you'll see how this works. Like next week,
we'll get into talking about some of the ideas of the beast,
and then we'll talk about some numbers, because we can't preach
through it, but we can go through it in that way systematically.
And so, as we get started, you can find in your Bible Revelation
chapter 20, and I want to read pretty much the chapter. So let's
go together in the Lord's Word tonight. Then I saw an angel
coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless
pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that
ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for
a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and
sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations
any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that
he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and
seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was
committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded
for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those
who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received
its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life
and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did
not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the
first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who
shares in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has
no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they
will reign with Him for a thousand years. And when the thousand
years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and
will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four
corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand
of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the
earth and surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved
city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And
the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire
and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were. and they
were to be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then
I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it, from
his presence the earth and sky fled away, and no place was found
for them. And I saw the dead, great and
small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another
book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were
judged by that which was written in these books according to what
they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death
and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. and they were judged,
each one of them, according to what they had done. Then death
and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second
death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not
found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the
lake of fire." Wow. It's a lot there to think
about. There's a lot there for us to
glory in. But from this text of Scripture, comes a large majority
of end times. I don't want to use the word
theology, because that's not proper. Even if it was true,
that's not the proper word for it. End times philosophy. Because people read this, and
they've read it one way for thousands of years, and then, lo and behold,
in the 19th century, they begin to read it another way. And the
rays that people then begin to read this, they begin to divide
over, and then this division multiplied like cells, and then
one thing led to another, and ultimately people have come to
conclude that there are about 25 end-time possibilities for
revelation. There are about several dozen
different millennial views. There are views of dispensationalism,
and I'll explain all these in a minute, premillennialism, amillennialism,
of which has probably seven different views. And if you wrap it all
together, what you get is a divided church. You get people who don't
know what they believe or why they believe it, except that
someone else told them this is what it means and they've received
it. And that's why I think a class
like this is very important. Why? Because we will not this
night land our planes on what we believe about this chapter
20 of Revelation. You will not know, oh, this is
what I believe. You will not say that. You may,
but chances are you might not. It's highly probably you will
not come to a conclusion. But I start here because ultimately
this is where we start to see the rub in the Evangelical Church,
our fellowship, the Protestant Church of Jesus Christ, non-Catholic,
the Protestants, as we know, who were birthed out of the Protestant
Reformation. These are things that I think
are very important. But they're not so important
as to divide us. There are churches in this city
who stand on a specific millennial position and in doing so state
that to be a member of their church and you not stand for
this position, you are not welcome. Now I think that those are very,
very crude and unbiblical expectations. For me to expect any of you to
stand in the field where I stand as far as my millennial view, or else, what's the word for
it? It's arrogant. It's prideful. Because for me to say that the
Bible just, yes, says this, when it actually does not say this,
even the position that I hold, the Bible does not teach it in
that context very clearly, and I believe the reason that it's
not taught is because it was not intended to be considered.
Have you ever thought about that? If the Bible doesn't speak to
an issue explicitly, nor does it answer an issue peripherally,
then it shouldn't be an issue to be considered. Period. But
we in our free thought and our autonomous hearts, we love to
consider all things whether they are useful or not useful. And
so as we get started tonight, I want you to know that a lot
of problems that come out of chapter 20 have become a very
big fight amongst the evangelical church. And it's usually gone
down denominational lines. Southern Baptists believe this.
General Baptists believe this. Free will Baptists believe this. Reform Baptists believe this.
These Baptists believe that. Just in Baptists, see that right
there? I've got six, seven, eight. I've got about eight different
types of Baptists and I think that for the most part there's
probably five or six different views of the millennium. Or what
it means when it talks about the thousand years. Millennium. Thousand years. And so let's
look to start with about Four views. It says three, but there
are four here. So, pardon me on that. Four views,
and one of them has about three views in it. So, four, five,
six, seven views of end times. End time theology. And what this
is dealing with is, like I said last week, eschatology, the study
of last things, eschatological views, the study of last things,
how we look at them, how we see the end times, and what we think
the Bible teaches about these things, for the most part, is
what we think the book of Revelation is saying about the prophecies
that are contained there. So when we're looking at prophecies,
We are asking ourselves, is this a prophecy that has been fulfilled?
Is this a prophecy that is being fulfilled? Or is this a prophecy
that will be fulfilled? Am I making sense? A prophecy
is, well, from the sense of the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah
prophesied, he foresaw and spoke of the coming of Messiah. Messiah
came, he fulfilled the prophecy. So, in this views of eschatology,
we're going to go through four main views. The first one is
preterism. Preterism, meaning past in a
general sense, pastime. And so, preterism means pastime. And people who are preterists
believe that all of the prophecies of the entire Bible have already
all been fulfilled and answered. So someone who's a preterist
believes that the prophecies of Jesus in Matthew 24, the prophecies
of Daniel, the prophecies of Revelation, the things that we
see that we as Christians may be waiting on depending on what
we believe, like the second coming, like the resurrection of the
dead, a preterist believes that's all taken place. Now, it begs
a lot of head scratching, doesn't it? How are we raised from the
dead if we're still alive? Well, they would say a full preterist,
someone who believes fully. I say that because there's partial
preterists. There's people who say, yeah, everything but. I
believe every prophecy but. And then in that partial preterist
camp, there's a lot of the, well, I believe in everything but this
one and this one, and I believe in these four, and I believe
in everything but this. And some of them would say, well, Jesus
has already come at the destruction of the temple. That's why the
writing of Revelation is early. That's what He was talking about.
The Second Coming has happened. The resurrection of the dead
took place. The Bractor has taken place. And we now who are in
this world, according to Revelation 20, Blessed and holy, verse 6,
are those who shares in the first resurrection. Ever such, the
second death has no power. They'll be priests of God. They'll
help Him rule. They think, a full Prentice thinks
there's a spiritual world that's been created and that no one
but Christ has a physical body. We all are not worthy of physical
bodies. They believe that. And that bothers me. You know?
It should bother you. I don't want to be a spirit baby
flying around like a butterfly the rest of my life. I don't
like that idea. I don't want to be a vapor. But
does it matter? The Bible doesn't really give
us that information, but the Bible does teach us things that
make us question whether preterism is right. Partial preterists,
someone that believes partially that all the pastimes have been
fulfilled, they say that the prophecy has been fulfilled,
but the second coming of Christ has not yet been seen. Partial
preterists, as a matter of dialogue, consider full preterists heretics. So amongst that camp and those
two positions, a partial preterist thinks that a full preterist
is not just wrong, but he's heretical. That he's just out there, left
eyeball, turned around the backside of his hair, looking out of his
ear. He is looking in the wrong direction and there's nothing
but freak to label this guy with. What a partial preterist would
believe as far as the prophecy concerning the fall of Jerusalem
and the temple and the fall of Rome, that they were given in
revelation. And that's what it stood for
and it's all been fulfilled except for the second coming. A full
preterist believes, as I've already said, that we are already in
the new kingdom, in the new heaven, and in the new earth, but that
we then, as we die in this body, go to a metaphysical eternal
state to see it and it being revealed to us. And I'm not going
to make jokes about it because I know people this way. Right
now. I can call them, they can come
down here and hey, they can tell us and they can persuade you
even that their position is correct. That's what's so amazing about
some of this scholarship. A full preterist believes in
the destruction of Satan, the second coming of Christ. They
believe that the new heaven is symbolic of the covenant. It
has nothing to do with the person, place, or time. They believe
the final victory is over all evil and it has already been
done and that we that exist in this world just await death in
the flesh so that we can then start the new life. Preterists
believe that a lot of Scripture, a lot of Revelation is imagery
and that it has to be either fulfilled or it has to be imagery. Just painting a picture for us.
And there's a lot of imagery in Revelation. But that's the
first thing, the first view of eschatology, a preterist. Preterism,
someone who believes that the prophecies have been passed,
fulfilled, and it's over. In one camp, other camp, everything's
fulfilled but the second coming. Another view of eschatology is
idealism. Idealism. And this is a legitimate
camp. The idealist says, listen, you
can't take a literal approach to reading this letter. I mean,
John was out there in a little smoky land, like Puff the Magic
Dragon or whatever his name is, and he's out there doing something
and talking about things that are completely spiritual, completely
allegorical, They have no basis in reality. The idealist believes
that Revelation and other apocalyptic writings are completely figurative
and mysterious. And they have no bearing and
no reality in the world past, present, or future. It's just
like a really neat poem from a psychedelic point of view.
That's what an idealist would say. Others will say the above. And even in idealism, others
say, well, all this is like this, except the second coming. That's
real. And they'll hold to that. Yes,
sir? Can you take a question? I can. Would an idealist believe
that Revelation still should be part of the canon, or would
they say, eh, it really shouldn't be there? I don't know how to
answer that. I've never even looked enough into what they
would say about the canonicity of John. They probably would, but they
would say that it would be something sort of like Proverbs. It would
be something for the good of giving us some kind of a spiritual
sense of things, but it has no bearing in reality. The third view is the historicist. Historicism. Let me get the word
there. History-ism. the person that
believes that all of Revelation, all of Revelation, and all the
prophecy in Revelation has actual and literal historical significance
in the world past, present, and future. Martin Luther was a historicist. He believed that everything written
in Revelation, even understanding what we talked about last week,
the literary Gosh, my brain just went dead.
Devices that we see, the literary devices, even in their understanding
of them, they relate to either past, present, or future prophecy. I would say I'm more in a historical
mindset. I'm more of a historicist than
an idealist for sure, and I'm certainly not a preterist, even
in a partial sense, on everything. But there's a fourth thing to
look at, and that's a futurist. Futurism sees that all prophecy
is literal, all prophecy is physical, and all prophecy is global, and
none of it has come to pass. That's what a futurist would
believe. So you see what I'm, see what we're up against? We got
people who think it's, we got people who think that it's all
happened, and we got people on the other end of the spectrum,
nothing's happened. We got people that think nothing's gonna happen.
It's just, it's just cool. And we got people that think
that it does happen, but it has a historical basis, that it has
happened, it is happening, and some things will happen. Where
do we fall? Where do you fall? I don't know.
That's for you to decide as we learn to read this letter. The
millennium, then, in regard to these types of views, or these
positions, or views of eschatology, the millennium is probably, like
I've said already, is just, what's the word? It brings with it,
the idea of the thousand year reign, brings with it a lot of
funny stuff. A lot of funny stuff. We'll talk
about some of those things real quick that we know are incorrect
and cannot work. For example, we know that the
temple cannot be rebuilt for Jesus to sit in because He Himself
has said in John 4, it's an impossibility to worship in the temple. There
will come a day, and the day is now, where those who worship
the Father will not worship either on this mountain or on Mount
Jerusalem, Mount Gerizim, but that all worshipers will worship
in spirit and in truth. So we know that Jesus will never
sit on a throne in a temple because He forbids it. In Hebrews chapter
1, it teaches us that He's finished the work of the temple. It's
over. It even says, the blood of goats
and bulls, you do not want God. It was just a shadow. So we understand
that's why the temple's gone, that's why the Ark of the Covenant
cannot be found, and that's why all the prophets and the apostles
are gone. Because God has finished the
shadow and He's fulfilled the real in Jesus Christ. And so,
a dispensationalist, someone who believes in a different times,
and how God, and I'll talk about this more in depth in just a
minute, but a dispensationalist would say, well there are different
ways in which God redeemed different peoples in different times of
history. But what does Paul say? Paul says, all who are in Christ
are what? Are the seed of Abraham. If you're
not in Christ, you're not Abraham. You're not the child of Abraham.
If you're not the child of Abraham, you're not the child of promise.
If you're not the child of promise, you're going to hell. I mean,
that's it. If you're not in the promise of God's covenant in the Gospel,
you're going to hell. There's no help for you. So,
we know that that's not true because of our genealogy or anything
else. A dispensationalist at a root
would say that God saved people in different ways. And a dispensationalist
who believes that Jesus will sit in the temple and that sacrifices
of bulls and goats will be poured before the King of kings actually
believes that those sacrifices will appease Jesus Christ and
He will save Israel then based on their obedience to the Law
of Moses. That's what they believe. So that's where that comes from.
Oh, this is what He... He's going to make them do the sacrificial
system again. We know that it's done. Hebrews 1, among other
places, tell us that it is. So the millennial view is one
of these most talked about things. It is that thousand years that
we just read in chapter 20 of Revelation where Christ is thought
to reign on this earth, this present earth. There are many
views. There are dozens and dozens and
dozens and dozens of views. But there are only, I would say,
what we'll talk, three main views tonight. that warrant biblical
observation. These other views, I believe,
are irrelevant because they are so far out there that they add
to and take away from scripture and they violate the very nature
of the covenant of the gospel. So, I mean, they might be neat
to look at, but in this sense, we'll look at them. The first
one is premillennialism. Premillennialism. This is the
view that the thousand years of Christ's return will be before,
pre, the thousand years of peace on earth. Well, let me tell you
what I mean by peace on earth. People believe that the millennium,
a lot of people, most people believe that the millennium is
a literal thousand years where Jesus Christ will reign on the
earth. I know I've said that, but I
wanted to reemphasize that so that when I talk about the thousand
year reign, that's what I'm talking about. After the thousand years,
a pre-millennium, Christ will come back and then the thousand
years will start and after the thousand years the church will
be gathered from past deaths from heaven who have been waiting
to be with Christ for a thousand years. That's what we just read.
That's what it sounds like. It sounds like a good position.
But is it correct? We'll find out as time goes on.
The new kingdom will then and only then be eternal after the
thousand years. The standard premillennial views
are considered historic premillennialism. And as we understand that, let
me put all this in a nutshell, Jesus will come back, he will
sit on the throne of David, there will be a thousand years he'll
rule on the earth with saints and sinners. Everybody's still
dying and being buried. Nobody has eternal life yet in
the sense of their bodies, but Jesus is here after a thousand
years. I don't know what's going to
happen, but somewhere everybody then is raised from death to
sit with Christ and then after then there's, some people would
say, a great battle. Jesus fights, He wins, and then
He recreates the heaven and the earth. Inside premillennialism is the
views of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism, in the sense
of premillennialism, means that, or believes that God uses different
time periods, as I've already said, to bring about salvation
to different groups of people. Let me be clear on this particular
view. It does not mean that there are
other methods of salvation for some. So someone to say I'm a
dispensationalist, and we have some of you may be dispensationalists.
John Piper's a dispensationalist. John MacArthur's a dispensationalist.
Charles Spurgeon. All millennials. Trying to think. Most of the people you love and
adore are dispensationalists. Most of them aren't. Why? Because they don't study it.
It's what they were taught. It's what they do. If you are,
that's great. We don't divide over it. Because
most people who are dispensationalists in the evangelical camp, in the
Baptist camp, in the Presbyterian camp, don't believe that there's
different methods of salvation. But they do believe that it is
all through Christ, but that Christ in some sense will deliver
salvation through a different means of revelation. Let me break
it down. For example, people that believe
that Christ will sit in the temple don't believe salvation comes
through sacrifice, but believes that through sacrifice people
then will see that that sacrifice points to Christ. But what does
the Bible teach about revelation? What does the Bible teach about
how salvation is given? What does the Jew of all Jews,
perfect before God and man, teach us about how salvation comes?
Faith comes through hearing, hearing through the words of
Christ. Period. Period. So the Jew of all Jews, perfect
before God and man. That's Paul's claim. You realize
that, don't you? Paul said that according to the
precepts of Moses, he walked perfectly in those precepts without
fail and that God would see him perfectly in that way. But these
things did not warrant him eternal life. They warranted him death.
So therefore, he would give it all up for the sake of Christ.
That's a hard claim. That means with zeal, Paul walked
with no outward sin in his life according to the law of Moses.
Wow! But he did talk about covetousness. And he said that covetousness,
O wretched man that I am, what hope is there? because this little
tiny seed of covetousness in my heart has burdened me to the
death of damnation. And I'm worthy of the wrath of
God's justice because in my heart I wish I had something like that
guy over there. Oh, woe is me! What's going to
happen? What does he say? Christ. Christ
alone. Paul says the only way for anyone
to have salvation is to hear the words of Christ. And that
through hearing the words of Christ, hearing comes through
Christ. So there we ask the question,
is then this position of Jesus sitting on the throne to bring
salvation to another group through a different means of revelation
or attraction, is it actually taught in Scripture? Dispensationalism was introduced
to North America. And before 18, actually 18, I
don't even know when it was. It was in the latter part of
the 1860s. By a man by the name of John
English. And John English piggybacked
on the teaching of John Darby, who was European. And John Darby
began to contemplate dispensationalism in the mid-1850s. And before
that, and I said this last week, before that there had never been
the term created in the English language. There had never been
the theology given in the world. It had never been contemplated
in the far depths of the ancient writ of any historical volume.
It had never been dialogued in the philosophers' tongues. Ever,
ever, ever has anybody ever even considered the idea of a time
period differentiation when it comes to redemption or that Jesus
would ever come back to earth to rule in humanity until the 1850s. Period. Something new under the
sun. Can't believe it. Solomon lied. And how did he make it so popular? Well, because he published a
magazine called Waymarks in the Wilderness. And John English
published his thoughts and said, in the tradition of Darby, Darby
said this, that there is a secret, mysterious, secret, mysterious
coming of Jesus that the Bible speaks not about. But that we can uncover this
mystery through uncovering the mystery of the apocalypse. That
was Darby. There's something there to read
between the lines. Ooh, maybe it's this. Well, let
me tell you something. If I ask you right now to go
to the Bible and prove to me through passages of Scripture
that you must be baptized in order to go to heaven, could
you do it? Yes, you could. You could. You could take passages
of Scripture and you could use them to warrant your belief system. But you can't take them in context.
You have to find them in pretext. If I ask you to go and find Scripture
that showed that you must follow the Law of Gnosis in order to
be saved, could you do it? Yes. You could find it. You could
start with James. You could even usurp the Old
Testament altogether and start with James who says, faith without
works is dead. And you could say, see? See? And we could go from there
to our little tiny notes in the bottom of our Bible and find
another passage on works. And we could find another passage.
We could go to Hebrews 10. We could say, he who keeps on sinning
after coming to the knowledge of the truth. Oh no! Oh my gosh! I could actually ask you guys
to go and find passages that show that you can continue to
sin and still have eternal life. 1 John 2. These things are written, beloved,
that you may not sin, but if you sin, you have an abode with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. I can ask you to go and say,
prove this in Scripture, that every human being who has ever
breathed will go to heaven. You can do it. You can do it.
For God desires all men to come to the knowledge of faith. For
God is the Lord of the world. The world is not only our propitiation,
but propitiation for the whole world. The atonement comes to
the whole world. All aposts, as we'd say in the
Greek. We can take it out of context and make it work for
what we theorize. That's what happens in these
types of things. Now you might be saying, well
what is the right answer? The right answer is read Revelation. and read Revelation in the way
it should be read, and quit thinking about these things as you read
it, and you might actually learn something. That's the deal. Because teaching
dispensationalism is teaching Antichrist. I'm saying that very
humbly. Teaching dispensationalism is
teaching Antichrist. I didn't say teaching as the
Antichrist, and I didn't say promoting the Antichrist. I said
it's teaching against Christ. Because certain aspects of certain
divisions of dispensationalism teach against the gospel. You
see what I'm saying? That's why there are so many camps. What
does it matter? It doesn't really matter if Jesus
comes back for a thousand years, or comes back for five minutes,
or comes back to bowl, or comes back to shoot laser tag, or comes
back to barbecue in our backyard. It doesn't matter what Jesus
does when He comes back. The Bible hasn't told us what
He's going to do. The Bible has told the recipients
of this letter, and then I saw, and then I saw, and then I saw,
and then I saw, and then I saw. And in chapter 19, there's a
rejoicing of the people of God in all of eternity. And this
rejoicing gives hope for the people of God who are suffering
and being martyred for their faith. This rejoicing shows that
God has established control over the enemy. This rejoicing delivers
us from the chains of hopelessness and despair. And that Christ,
when He comes back, those who suffer and die in the martyrdom
of their faith will rejoice with Christ and rule with Christ.
Is that not true for you and I also, even if we're not martyred?
Isn't it true that we all rule with Christ? Yes. There's not
a special selection of Christians and a second-class Christian.
Jesus doesn't love His left hand more than He loves His right.
He didn't die really, really hard for the shoulders and not
for the toes. Jesus loves His people equally. There is no such thing as someone
who would be a better Christian in eternity than someone else.
So the hope that is true for these, just because it explicitly
details that, doesn't make it mutually exclusive for the rest
of us. You see the point? So no matter what John is actually
trying to convey to his original hearers, for me and you, it gives
us hope in our suffering that if we die, We are going to live
with Christ and reign with Him. Though the governments may take
over our lives and ruin us and destroy us and put us in prison,
we will reign with the King of kings who will smite the governments. Not the governments. He will
smite those who govern. He will destroy them. And the
smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever and ever
with Satan, with hell, and with death. With the grave. It's complete
victory. That's the point of it. Dispensationalism came about
and it started to help people make sense of things. And I'm
not saying it's completely wrong, but friends, to teach it is to
not teach Scripture. Because to teach it is to take
out of Scripture. I mean, it's to put into Scripture,
not take out of Scripture. Does that make sense? What's the answer? Let's get
what we're supposed to get from the text. If we were supposed
to know the details of Revelation as it relates to future details,
then Jesus would not have said, don't look for details. Jesus
would not have said, don't look for signs. Jesus would not have
said, don't make predictions. Jesus would not have said, watch
out for antichrists who say, here comes me. You realize everyone
who says that Jesus is coming is the Antichrist? If they give
a date, or a season, or a time? Many will come in my name. Many
will come. Many Antichrists are coming.
The Antichrist is already here and many are here. who are the
Antichrist, those who do not confess Me as Lord, as Christ,
as the One come from God in the flesh, those who do not believe
I've been raised to life, those who do not believe who I am,
I am, I am. Oh, there's a tongue twister. Remember in our first week, and
I said that at the end of reading the letter of Revelation or the
book of Revelation, we ought to rejoice and be comforted and
have peace and have understanding. Is that really what we get today
in our churches? No, we get confusion, division,
misunderstanding, fear, worry, fret. I literally had someone
very educated tell me just last week, the storm is a prediction
and the rapture will happen before the end of the year. To which
I said, brother, hell will not hold the fury of God's wrath
against you if you keep predicting lies. He probably won't talk to me
anymore. I was tired of it. It's the third time he's told me something like that. 2012, Jesus was coming back.
He swore it. Sold some property. You cannot know. You cannot know.
No one can know. Jesus so emphatically, hyperbolically
says that the Son of Man does not know. That He does not know.
Of course He knows. He's God. Dispensationalism. Dispensational
pre-millennialism. That's what we're on, pre-millennialism.
That's that Jesus comes before. The second view of the millennium
is amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism.
Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism.
Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism.
Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amillennialism.
Amillennialism. Amillennialism. Amill No thousand years. Oh, and it says
it right there in the text. Remember those views of eschatology
we talked about? Well, this is one of those views.
This is how they answer the millennium question. Amillennialism means
a thousand years is in the context of the apocalyptic writing and
that the second coming of Jesus Christ is taught in Scripture
as His final coming. Jesus is coming back one more
time and everything's straight. Ephesians 1, 10, Ephesians 3,
all that. Jesus comes to set everything
under His feet. One final thing. He's the King of kings. It's
over. In a twinkle of an eye, as Paul would say, we're all
transformed. Boom! We are dead. We'll be raised
to life. Join the medium in the air. We transform in a twinkle
of an eye, like a thief in the night. No one will know. It'll just come quick. You're
not going to be ready. And it's over. This is the oldest
theological view of the millennium in Christendom. We're going to
figure that out. Not tonight, but we are going
to figure that out. What do we do? This view holds to a final
coming, not a third coming, not a second, mysterious coming,
and then a final coming, or even if this, what happens in the
millennium? If Jesus comes back in the second coming, well, He's
already come back. Secretly and took the church
and then a third coming and he sits around for a thousand years
When does he come back again to make judgment? See how we
have to then start what what do we have to do in that to answer
those questions? We have to start writing the narrative and when
we write the narrative then we got to go to scripture to make
it work We got to find texts that look like that and try to
make it work. I The Amillennial view views that all believers,
once dead, will be with Christ for all of eternity, even when
He returns a second time and final time. Christ's final coming
will bring final judgment and eternal physical reign in a new
creation. Amillennial view believes that
Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand
of God the Father, and that Jesus also is and will remain with
the church until the end of the world, as He promised when? When
did Jesus promise that? Huh? When He left, at the ascension. Jesus says, go make disciples
by teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you and baptizing
them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
and surely I will be with thee until the end of the age. When's
the end of the age? Forever. Jesus didn't say, I'll see you
around sometime in a couple of thousand years and until then,
You're on your own. I mean, there's just a lot of
things that we've got to question about what we believe. The Amillennial
view believes that at Pentecost, the millennium began in the context
of what the Scripture teaches in Revelation as shown by Peter
using the prophecies of Joel to talk about the coming of the
kingdom to explain what was truly happening. And that, therefore,
the church and its spread of the gospel is Christ's kingdom.
So the amillennial view is the position, if you want to know,
that all of the reformers held. It's the position that from all
of history of, and it wasn't called that because nobody had
to actually create a name for the view because there was no
opposing view. It is the view that the millennium
had actual understandable implications to its original heroes. Yes,
ma'am. No, no, no, he was a historicist. No, not a full preface. He'd
be a heretic by the partial preface, right? Martin Luther was a heretic
by a lot of people's eyes. He surely was a nasty guy. Another
view, third view, post-millennial. So the first one is pre-millennial.
Jesus comes back before the thousand years. The second view is all
millennial. There is no literal thousand
years. And the third view is post-millennial. Believes that
Jesus is going to come back after a thousand years. But when does
it begin? I've got a brother. He's a hip-hop artist. I love
him. I love him to death. He is a
post-millennial theonomy guy. He believes that during the millennium,
that there's going to be a golden age of revival. There's going
to be a golden age of righteousness in the world that everybody's
going to start getting kinder and sweeter. Marriage is going
to start staying together. Sexual sin is going to disappear.
Murder and violence and all is going to... And when everything
gets right, a thousand years will begin and for a thousand
years there'll be absolute, holy, righteous, beautiful peace on
earth. And then after that, get this, they really believe this,
Jesus is going to watch for a thousand years that after the thousand
years of good righteousness, He says, Now I can go take my
people. Boom! I'm coming down and there we
go. Discouraged. Discouraged is the
word. When you counsel with that brother,
he's discouraged. I mean, he even says, guys, we've
got to stop this killing. People, please stop shooting
black people. Please stop aborting people. Jesus is never coming
until y'all get this together. I mean, you know, that's a desperate
place. I don't know. It could be. No, that's post-meal. That's right. And there's even
some different views than post-millennial views, but they look at the thousand years
in some sense as figurative until Jesus sees a long time of good
righteousness. There's something called revivalist
post-millennialism, and this means that those, as I've already
said, the people that see a worldwide successful evangelistic efforts,
and that every people group, for the majority, are going to
be Christian. Christianity is going to be like a world religion.
And then everything's going to come back. There's the idea of
probably what you're talking about called Reconstructionalists,
Post-Millennialists. And they're the ones who think
that as the church increases its influence on government and
on society and on culture, that then culture will turn around
and create a theocratic world, that everybody will go back to
this theocratic kingdom, and that when it gets there, some
of them literal thousand years, some of them figurative a long
time, then Jesus Christ will return. Yes? Where did that idea
come from? I don't know. I've never really studied it
because until two years ago, I've never even met anybody who
was post-meal. And this brother's got a really large stage. So,
in this millennial view, there's also
something in the middle there called the tribulation. And in
this tribulation mindset, there's a tribulation, the second coming,
and millennium, and last judgment. And that is the post-trib, pre-millennial
view. You see where we're getting now?
You know what I'm saying? Listen guys, you think about
a family tree and George is just straight down. I mean, a family
tree and the millennial views, it goes on forever. And then
in the post, then there's the mid-trib premillennial, the post-trib
premillennial, and then there's these sarcastic funny guys called
the pan-trib premillennial. You know what I'm talking about?
It's going to pan out however God wants it to be. And then
you've got your pre-tribulational, dispensational, post-premillennial,
amillennialist, and all this stuff. Well, not amillennial.
But the pre-tribulation, dispensational, premillennial view says that
there's a second coming for the church, and then there's a tribulation
of three and a half years, and then there's a second coming
with the church, and then a thousand year reign, and then the judgment.
That's what I've always believed. I've always heard that. that
there is a second coming of Jesus to take the church, the rapture,
and three and a half years of tribulation, and then Jesus comes
back, and then He brings everybody back with Him, and then there's
a thousand-year reign, and then after a thousand-year reign,
the judgment. Yeah, left behind. Tim LaHaye. What's the guy that starred in
those? Huh? Kirk Cameron. There you go. And
what view is that? That is the... That is the pre-tribulational,
dispensational, pre-millennial. Isn't that crazy? Pop quiz or pop trivia question.
How many of you know the first seminary in North America to
ever teach this? In what time frame? New Orleans. Absolutely. You know what time? 1930s. New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary is the first seminary in this land, in the North American
continent, to teach dispensationalism in the 1930s. It had never been
taught. He's talking about- Isn't that
pretty much what- I mean everybody. I mean Church
of God, PH, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist Apostle,
I don't care who you are. I mean, yeah. It's there. And if you want to
read a good commentary on Revelation from a reform perspective, a
historical reform perspective, Donald Johnson. Johnson. I think it's Donald. I know it's
Johnson. Donald Johnson may be a saxophone player, but if he
is, he'll just play to Jesus until the second coming. So the
post-millennial view then, just as a recap, there's a thousand
year reign after everybody's gotten a thousand year, excuse
me, millennium, figurative or literally, when everything's
going good, then Jesus comes back and it's all done. Second
coming to judgment's all one thing. And the amillennial view
is, there is, here we are, we understand what it means, we're
in the second, we're in the millennium, whatever that stands for, we
don't really know. Either way, we're ready for Jesus Christ,
we're encouraged, and the second coming and the judgment comes
at one time. Yes? What millennial view is John
II? He is an amillennial view. It's
a reformed tradition, so you would look at, you're not gonna
find a Presbyterian church with a post-pre or dispensational
millennial view. Holistically. So, Baptist, yes,
we believe that, and we hold to that. I mean, I never thought
of anything different. And let me go ahead and tell
you, it's always pre-tribulational dispensational, Pre-millennial,
yeah, yeah. No. Not to my knowledge, but he could
have, but I don't know it. I don't know it. So with all
of that, these are the confusing, what do you call it? It's a,
I don't know, thingamabob, swimmer diggy, whatever you want to call
it. It's a big bag of stuff. And for us to figure out who's
right, and I'm just going to confess to you, I don't hold
to either of these positions. I don't hold to them. I don't
believe that we ought to hold. I mean, as a Christian, somebody
says, oh, there was your end time view. Christ wins, and I'm
thrilled. I mean, that's what I tell people.
Because it's very easy. What if they're all wrong? What
if one of them is right? What does it matter? This is
the point. What does it matter? Nothing. unless they teach it
as though it does. You see? It doesn't matter if
we believe Jesus moonwalks backwards with Michael Jackson. Yes, it
does. But you know what I'm saying.
I'm being absurd. It doesn't matter what we believe in these
things, but when we teach as though it does matter and say,
this is what Scripture teaches, we've done a great inservice,
injustice to the text. Could it be? Listen carefully. And this is the last thing I'll
say. Could it very well be that when John says these words, I
warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book,
if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described
in this book. And if anyone takes away from
the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share
in the tree of life and in the holy city which are described
in this book. Could it be that propagating
these views to such a necessity is adding to and taking away
from the very writing of the letter? I think we better shut
her in our shoes. That's why I'm not going to stand
up here and preach amillennialism. I'm not going to preach postmillennialism.
I'm not going to preach these things. I'm going to share them
all with you. I pray that brother that left tonight didn't get
frustrated because I was sharing a contradictory view. He should
have stayed and heard it all. It shows you the injustice of
the wickedness of purveying unbiblical things as if they are absolute. Does that make sense? We can
argue the omnipotence of God. What does it look like? We don't
know what it looks like. We can frustrate ourselves with
the sovereignty of God. But we can say, oh, God sent
Matthew up the coast? Oh, wow. And we can work through
that. Why do we not divide on it? Because
we know. that we are absent-minded in
the context of fully understanding these things. But when it comes
to these idols of eschatology, the devil uses them to divide. Why? Because the devil would
rather us read left behind than the Word of God. The devil would
rather us sit around the house during a Christmas vacation and
talk with our family for three days about the tribulation than
the Gospel. The devil would rather us Focus
our time on prepping for a post-millennial, beautiful coming of Jesus and
being engaged in culture and social justice rather than preaching
the gospel that changes hearts and turns a murderer into a majestic
lover. That's why. So that's why we
have to be careful. That's why reading this letter
is so important. Over the next four weeks, we're
going to look at Three things. Four things. We're
going to look at the rapture. We're going to look at the seven
seals and their corresponding bowls and trumpets. We're going
to look at the final judgment and we're going to unpack the
beast topically from this letter. We've unpacked, we haven't really
unpacked, we've just talked about millennial views and end time
views tonight. We're going to talk about those
things, and then we're going to do an exposition on a couple
of verses and a couple of chapters as we've learned some things
to see, as we've heard these things, where does it really
fit in the context of understanding Scripture. Remember? Remember
the things we learned last week? And by the way, I didn't give
you the acrostic. The acrostic is lights. L-I-G-H-T. The L is the literal principle.
The I is the illumination principle. The G is the grammatical principle.
The H is the historical principle. The T is the topological principle.
And the S is the scriptural synergy principle. Remember those last
week? I didn't tell you the word that
it spelled, but that's it. When we're reading literature,
we read the literature of Scripture in this way, so that we understand
it. So, any thoughts or questions? We're out of time. I want to
be faithful. Yes, ma'am? Could you remind
us why then it isn't important to study if we're not really
supposed to take a position and get militant on it? Oh, yes, they do and that's one
reason we should study in times number one is it's in the scripture
Last things are on the hearts of minds. All of the letters
to the Thessalonians is dealing with last things, end times.
What's happening? When's Jesus coming? Jesus teaches
it explicitly in several places. He is coming back. It's the hope
of the believer, not in death and heaven, but in the second
coming that everything's made right and the resurrection of
the dead. So, the latter parts of all of the world, the latter
parts of Christianity, the culmination of the Gospel is in the last
time. It's the day of judgment. So it's important to understand
what the Bible teaches about these things. The problem is
we've gone from reading the Scripture in light of Scripture to reading
into Scripture that which we've heard exterior or from outside
sources. Does that make sense? It's why
the Jehovah's Witness can take my Bible and prove their theology
with it. Because they've taken what they
believe as sound, Mormonism as well, and they can actually take
it and use my scripture to prove their points. Because they can
come in and go... The Greek New Testament that... What is it called? Watchtower
Society? Yeah. It's the Nestle-Alan 32nd
edition, which is the same Greek text that we use. It's a perfect
text. This Bible would translate word
for word by it, just about, minus maybe a hundred exceptions on
words. So, but yet their New World Translation. As a matter
of fact, I don't think now, I think the Jehovah's Witnesses used
the King James when they witnessed door to door now, as of two,
three years ago. They don't even use their translation
anymore. So see, you can take your position. So that's why
it's important to see what the Bible teaches. But because these
things are in our world, I think in a class like this, it's okay
to say, here are these views that the world holds. Let's look
and see what the Bible actually teaches about these things. Does
that answer your question? You're welcome. Alright, let's
pray. We thank you, Father, for the
time we've had, Lord, for the walk we do in this letter. God,
every time I teach this book, every time I teach out of the
context of this book, people are offended and frustrated and
hurt and confused. And so, Lord, I pray desperately
and deeply, Lord, that You would protect our hearts and minds.
That You would show us, at the minimum, that our love for our
own views of theological positions and our own eschatological views,
Lord, are really idols. Because we're not worshipping
You through them, we're worshipping them. We're worshipping our knowledge. We're worshipping our understanding
rather than being fools for Christ. having knowing nothing but Him
and Him crucified, that we might rob the cross its power. We rob
the cross its power, Lord, when we put before men things that
the Bible is not clear upon, thinking that the fear of such
terror might bring them to repentance. When You teach us that Your affection
toward us in Christ Jesus, Lord, that the words of the Good News
that You've brought brings people to salvation, not fear. Not fear
of judgment. not fear of terror, not fear
of hail. So we thank you, Father, that
you've given us a gospel that we can take to every place in
this world, that we can take to every ear that could ever
hear it. So, Lord, give us that heart
to do so. to rejoice and to stand on these things. Father, that
we would stand as a church united in that which is clearly taught
in Scripture, that Jesus Christ is returning, and He will take
us with Him, and He will set all things right, and He will
restore the cosmos to its perfect future glory, and He will put
all wickedness under the feet of His judgment. Come quickly,
Lord Jesus. But until that day, let us be
passionate. about sharing the faith. Let
us be passionate about praying for the lost. Let us be passionate
about forgiving each other and loving one another and bringing
discipline to each other as we sharpen and grow and carry each
other's burdens, Father. Let us be patient with those
who doubt. Let us stand and be a people who shine for the sake
of Your name and by the power of Your grace that the world
may hate us, Lord, but in looking with hate, Father, they would
hear the truth and You would change that heart from murder
to love, from dead to life, from hopeless to heaven bound. And we pray these things in the
name of Christ, Amen.