What will the Millennial Reign look like? ?

Matthew 25:32

Matthew 25:31-33, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

The disciples knew where history was headed. They were Jews so they understood Jewish history.

• They understood Jewish anticipation.
• They understood the Old Testament prophecies.
• They knew that history was headed toward the glorious visible earthly kingdom of the Messiah.
• They knew history would climax in a time the prophets called the times of refreshing or the times of restitution of all things. The time world would be the way God wanted it to be.
• The world would cease from war and know peace.
• All monarchs would be set aside for one reigning Monarch.

• The Lord’s anointed would rule the world from the throne of David.
• They looked forward to the fulfilment of the prophecy of Malachi.

Malachi 1:11, From the rising of the sun unto its setting shall My name be glorious among the peoples. And in every place shall incense and a pure meal offering be offered to My name for My name shall become glorious among the peoples,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

They wanted to see the day when the glory due to the Lord came to Him. They looked forward to the day that Ezekiel 40 to 48 of his great prophecy, when he described a kingdom. In that kingdom there would be built a glorious temple. A temple similar and yet distinct from any other temple the Jews had ever known. That kingdom temple would have priests, offerings feasts, and Sabbath celebrations.

The Jews then looked forward to the day when the kingdom would come and this glorious kingdom temple would be built. They knew there was one very great distinction, because different than any other temple in their history, the temple of Ezekiel would have no ark of the covenant.

Because the Ark of the Covenant was the representation of the presence of God, and in that temple, there wouldn’t need to

be a representation, because God would be there in His presence. They looked forward to that glorious kingdom, temple, and the presence of the living God. Jesus taught and educated His disciples in the things that were unfolding to them from His truth about the kingdom, they began to be excited. They began to anticipate that at any moment the kingdom might come.

Jesus might establish His kingdom. In Matthew 24:3, in the very last week before His death, they find a moment of privacy with Him on the Mount of Olives and they say to Him, “When shall these things be? What shall be the sign of Your coming and the end of the age?”

We want to know about Your coming in glory. We want to know about the establishment of Your kingdom.

When are You going to take charge?

When are You going to reign? When are You going to establish the kingdom of peace? When are You going to knock down the old, defiled temple and put up the new and glorious one of which Ezekiel spoke? Jesus answers them in Mtthew 24 & 25 in which He discusses the signs of His coming and the time of His coming.

He gives them very detailed signs that will mark out that it is the era of His kingdom. But as to the exact day and the exact hour, He says no one knows. That is a secret. Because no one knows, everyone must always be prepared.

Everyone must be prepared at any moment to face God. Most people obviously have faced and will face God in death rather than in His coming glory. All men and women of all time need to be ready at any moment to face God. Be it in death, brought into His presence for judgment, or be it at His coming.

• Both are unexpected.
• Both are sudden.
• Both are final.

After which there can be no alteration of course. That is determined before Christ comes, before one face Him in death. The sermon goes through a series of signs and then discusses that no one knows the day nor the hour.

Then it ends up with a warning passage. Matthew 25 is warning.

The parables intended to warn that you must be ready when the King comes.

• The virgins who weren’t ready were shut out.
• The parable of the servants and the servant who wasn’t ready was thrown out.

Then comes the very judgment itself in Matthew 25:31- 46. Jesus concludes why we should be warned and ready, because we face judgment at the coming of Jesus Christ. Apostle John thought about the second coming it was sweet, because he could see the glory of Christ and the fulfilment of prophecy and the glories of the kingdom.

But it was bitter because he knew it meant the damnation of those who were without God. Jesus is warning.

• On the one hand it’s greatly exciting to the believer to know that Jesus is going to come.
• On the other hand, it’s greatly fearful because we know the finality of His coming.

Men must be prepared.

V 31, “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then He shall sit on the throne of His glory.” Son of Man is the judge. He comes as King but not only as King. He comes also as judge. Because He comes as King to establish His kingdom, He must make a decision and a determination as to who goes into His kingdom.

It is His kingdom. He is sovereign. He is King. But He also must make judgments about who enters in.

John 5:22, “All judgment is committed to the Son.” Being King He is also judge, and He will come to determine who goes into the kingdom and who does not. He is the judge.

The time of the judgment. V 31, “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, When He comes with all the holy angels. When He comes with the ten thousand of His saints, as it tells us in Jude 14.

When He comes with all the redeemed host in heaven, as Revelation 19 describes Him riding out of heaven on a white horse accompanied by others on white horses, clothed in white linen which represents the purity of the saints.

When the Lord comes in His glory with all His angels and all His saints, it is then that verse 32 says He gathers all the people and begins the separation process. The time of the judgment spoken of here is at His second coming.

That will be instantaneous and immediate, so that when He comes if you are not ready, as illustrated in the parable of the virgins, you have no time to get ready. By the time they went to get oil and came back the door was shut, and it was over.

Our Lord is saying that when He comes you must be ready because there is no time after that.

The place of judgment

V 31, “When He comes in His glory with His angels, He will sit upon His glory throne.” Where, by the promise of the prophets, is the throne of the Messiah’s glory to be?

In Jerusalem on Mount Zion in the holy city, for it is the throne of David. The prophets said He will sit on the throne of His father David. He will come to Jerusalem.

Zechariah 14:4, how that His feet will touch the Mount of Olives. As He comes to that very holy city of Jerusalem He becomes King over the earth.

The Lord comes back to Jerusalem, right to the nation Israel to reign on the place where David himself once reigned as David’s greater Son, the promised Messiah.

Joel 3:13-18 describe dramatic changes as a valley is created when He comes, into which all the people are gathered to be judged, that great valley of decision. Not that people will make a decision, but that God will make a decision about them as to their eternal destiny.

• The judge is the Lord Jesus Christ.
• The time is His second coming.
• The place is Jerusalem.

The subjects of judgment

V 32, All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Having come to Jerusalem, created this valley that’s described in Joel, bringing all the nations into it multitudes of the people there to be judged.

This is a moment of separation. All people are going to be separated. They are only going to be separated into two classes: Sheep and goats, in this analogy.

• Sheep go into the kingdom,
• Goats go out of the kingdom.

There will only be two classes of people.

• The redeemed,
• The unredeemed
• The saved and
• The lost.

The basic classification into which everybody falls ultimately and eternally.

There are only two destinies

• Heaven and
• Hell.

This division must be made in regard to all people. There is no distinction here about Jew or Gentile. The distinction here has nothing to do with ethnic identity. It has only to do with relationship to Christ. All the people.

Who are these people? They must be people that are alive when Jesus comes again. Jesus Christ is coming back to this earth like He did the first time literally, physically, and bodily. He will be here.

• He will walk here.
• He will talk here.
• He will move around.
• People will go and see Him face to face.
• He will be on this earth.

This is not wishful thinking. This is not some spiritualization. This is not a fantasy. This is not science fiction. This is fact. He will be here physically, literally, on this earth as we know this earth to be. That is what the Bible promises.

When He comes there are going to be some people alive at that time. Those people must be judged as to whether they go into His kingdom, which is immediately to come, or whether they are shut out of His kingdom. When Jesus comes back to set up His glorious kingdom, He must do something with the people that are still alive, the saved and the unsaved.

Keep in mind this, we are living in the age of the church, when God is gathering out His church, His redeemed people in Christ, Jew and Gentile, who are one in the body of Christ. When the fullness of the Gentiles, as it’s called by Paul, when the fullness comes and the church is complete, we are taken out of the world.

Known as the rapture of the church, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. The church is taken out. The living church, that is you and I who are alive, if Christ were to come this afternoon, we would just take off and go. On the way our bodies would be transformed into glorious bodies like His glorious body.

Philippians 3 says we will get rid of these vile bodies and exchange them for a body like unto His glorious body, His post‑ resurrection body.

If Jesus were to call the church out with a trump and the voice of the archangel, He doesn’t come all the way down, we meet Him in the air. We just take off.

What about Christians that have already died? The same question the Thessalonians asked.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

They have six‑feet further to go and if we are all going to meet Him at the same time, they have got to leave a little bit ahead of the rest of us.

Where are their spirits? The believers that have already died, their spirits are with the Lord. What happens in the rapture is they receive a glorified body? What if there is just a pile of dust? Don’t worry about it, God will create it out of nothing anyway.

All of us, if anyone dies now, their body goes into the grave, their spirit goes to be with the Lord.

The spirit does not yet have its glorified body. It doesn’t need its glorified body yet. It only needs a spirit because God is a spirit, and it can commune with God in a spirit. I can communicate with you in a spirit. You don’t need my body to communicate with me. You can talk to me because I can communicate apart from physical presence.

But the Lord promises that the body will rise.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52, Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. In the twinkling of an eye the dead in Christ are going to rise, and the body is going to come up, be joined with that spirit already with the Lord. Gathered with believers who are already alive on the earth, who will be changed on the way up.

We will all have new glorified bodies. Spirit and body will come together in the ones that have already died, it will already be together in the ones that are still alive but transformed, and then we have glorified form.

No more sin, No more of the debilitating effect of sin.

We are now like the resurrected Christ. We will be fit for two worlds.

• We are fit for heaven and
• We are fit for earth.

When Jesus came out of the grave He fit for the earth. He ate, He walked, He talked, and they touched Him. He was able to move in this world in this dimension. He had a body that was fit for this earth. But He also had a body fit for heaven. Because He ascended after the 40 days, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

• Jesus has a body fit for heaven.
• Jesus has a body fit for earth.

Now God is going to do the same for every believer. What would be the point in giving us bodies that could be fit for heaven and fit for earth if there wasn’t to be a restored earth? The Lord then takes the church up, we all get glorified bodies, and we are in heaven in our glorified bodies just experimenting for seven years, having a great time. The

marriage supper of the Lamb, time of rewards, time of entering into the eternal bliss of being transformed to be like Jesus Christ. We are up there having a marvellous time. Down on the earth, the tribulation is going on. Antichrist is running rampant all over the earth. Hell has loosed some bound demons have been cast to the earth along with Satan.

God is judging, Antichrist is moving, hell is doing its thing, sin is running rampant, the church is taken out, the Holy Spirit stops restraining evil, and you have seven years of the whole idea of sin just running through its last gasp and God judging.

At the same time, we are going to have people being saved. Romans 11 says so all Israel shall be saved during that time. Revelation 7 says a multitude of Gentiles, innumerable, will be saved. It’s going to be an interesting seven years.

Israel’s redemption and many from all over the globe as well as all the judgments and all the holocausts and all the sin running wild and so forth. The Lord is getting ready to come back. But before He can come back and set up His earthly kingdom, He is got to take care of are Old Testament saints and tribulation saints.

What about all the Old Testament saints who died?

Where are their bodies? They are still in the grave. There has never been a resurrection of Old Testament saints’ bodies. Their spirits are with the Lord. Jesus took them to heaven in His death. He led captivity captive, as Ephesians 4 said it.

When Jesus was dying on the cross, His body was dead, His Spirit alive went in, took all the souls of the Old Testament saints who were in a waiting place, a place of bliss and blessedness, and carried them to glory. All the spirits of the Old Testament saints are up there. They are all there.

But they haven’t yet had their body. They must wait for the tribulation saints who are really a sort of an addendum to the Old Testament era. It is the 70th week of Daniel. The Lord was working with Israel and then Israel was unbelieving, so the Lord took the church, works through the church, takes the church, redeems the church out and then goes back to finish His work with Israel and other nations as well.

The Old Testament saints and Tribulation saints then who believe their spirit will go to heaven. Their body stays in the grave. Then at the end of the tribulation, there will be a resurrection of the bodies of Old Testament and tribulation saints.

We can understand this from Daniel 12.

Daniel 12:1, “At that time Michael shall stand up, The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; And there shall be a time of trouble, Such as never was since there was a nation, Even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, Every one who is found written in the book.

This has to do with Old Testament saints. Obviously, Daniel writing in the Old Testament. It is at the time when Michael delivers the people from the onslaught of Satan in the time of the tribulation that a resurrection occurs for Old Testament saints.

We have our glorified bodies. If they are going to go into the kingdom, they also must have a glorified body. Because the kingdom is on earth. If they are to receive the full benefit of a glorified, restored, refreshed, renewed, reconstituted, and regenerated earth, they will have to have a form fit for the earth. They will be raised out of the grave as well, new bodies joining with their spirits.

How to describe those new bodies?

It is a body of resurrection we can’t describe it. It’s like Christ’s resurrection body. We don’t understand the physiology of it or the supernaturalness of it. The Old Testament saints in their glorified bodies along with the redeemed church is there. Now we have got all the redeemed of all the ages – Old Testament, church, and tribulation saints, all there in glorified bodies.

The Lord comes with myriads of His saints and myriads of His angels out of heaven to set up His earthly kingdom. Then those who are fit for heaven with the glorified body are also fit for earth. Now we can exist on the earth and in heaven.

We will have a marvellous time going any place we want to go. No more airports! Anywhere we want to go, no more baggage problems. Just take our white robe and go. The glorified form is fit for heaven and for earth. In Revelation the descent of the glory of the new city of new Jerusalem hovering over the earth and we will be ascending and descending in and out of that glorious thing. We will be fit for the earth, much as angels in the Old Testament could converse with men, be seen by men, walk with men and yet ascend to the very throne of the presence of God.

We will be in that glorified form. The kingdom then will be populated by the glorified redeemed of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the tribulation period. They are already there. Anybody who has already died as a believer, they are going to receive a glorified form to go in.

Now that leaves us with those people who are alive on the earth. But those that are still alive and are to be brought in, those who are true believers, have survived the Tribulation, they will be brought in in their physical form only.

In other words, they will just go right into the kingdom living in their physical form. There is no reason to believe anything else other than that. It is an earthly kingdom. One of the proofs of that is that the prophets tell us there will be reproduction in the kingdom. The Bible says that at the end of the thousand‑year kingdom, there will be a rebellion take place and multitudes all over the earth will come to fight against Christ. This couldn’t be the glorified redeemed and it couldn’t be the unglorified redeemed. Then it is got to be the children of the unglorified redeemed who didn’t believe.

How could people be born in that kingdom with Christ ruling in that perfect time of the world with all the glory reject Jesus Christ?

When Christ is there and they can see Him, and they can touch Him, and they can watch His power still reject Him?

How could they reject?

How did they do it the first time? You will have your own answer. The sinfulness of sin. If you don’t think men are depraved, then you haven’t looked at the fact that they will reject even when Jesus Christ rules the whole world with perfect wisdom, perfect love, and perfect power.

When we come then to the second coming of Christ, the glorified saints into the kingdom, they will be coming down from heaven into it. But the ones already on earth are just going to see a change of rule. They may live in the same neighbourhood.

• They will have their same wardrobe.
• They will have the same scars on their face.
• They will wear glasses.
• They will have hearing aids.
• They will do whatever people do.
• They will probably jog.
• They will have to eat meals, plant crops, cook, depend on the services. Public service will have to take place.

You are going to have to have certain things that make life possible. It is going to be a world of humans unglorified. Mingling in and out of them and ruling over them will be the glorified redeemed of all the ages. How can a glorified person have fellowship with an unglorified person?

How could Christ have fellowship with His disciples after His resurrection? How could people in the Old Testament have fellowship with an angel? Have a meal with an angel, such as Abraham and Sarah. There will be that mingling. The people then who are allowed to go in in physical bodies will be the sheep, the believers.

The ones who don’t believe will be destroyed on the spot. They will be killed on the spot. There will be instantaneous judgment and the destruction of unbelievers. The kingdom will be populated only by the redeemed on the earth and the redeemed that are glorified.

People say that they don’t believe in an actual, physical, earthly, visible kingdom of Christ. They think that it is a spiritual kingdom. There is not going to be an actual earthly kingdom but there’s the kingdom of the Lord in our hearts.

The amillennial view.

What is the purpose of God creating glorified human creatures who can live on this earth and in heaven as it is if there isn’t ever to be an earth as it is? The resurrected Christ is a perfect illustration of kingdom living because He could live on this earth and in heaven. He had capacities for both dimensions. That tells us that we will need the same capacities.

The only way that a person can deny the earthly visible millennial kingdom of Christ. He is actually going to come back. He is actually going to live on the earth. He is actually going to reign here in Jerusalem. He is going to control the whole world.

We are going to be here with Him, glorified saints, and there will be here non-glorified saints. The only way you can deny that is to do of these three things. One, confuse Israel and the church. If you do that, then you can eliminate the actual kingdom. Just make the church Israel and say we are now Israel, therefore nothing for Israel is really for Israel, so we can just cancel all those things. You can do that.

Secondly, make present what is clearly future. Take prophecies that are clearly future and back them all the way

up into the present so that they are already fulfilled and you don’t need a kingdom. Thirdly, spiritualize Old Testament prophecies. Instead of a place meaning a place, it means some spiritual thing. Instead of an actual event meaning an actual event, it means some spiritual thing. It is some vague foggy idea about something or other that you must determine.

But unless you confuse Israel and the church, Unless you make present, what is future, and Unless you spiritualize prophecy, you are stuck with an actual literal physical earthly millennial kingdom of Christ. He is going to come back to this earth, just as He did the first time. Not for 33 years, but for 1000 years.

Little bit of theology. We will separate the sheep from the goats in terms of thinking through this thought. There are five things that you want to kind of register in your mind and let them leave an impression. 1. Confirmation of Promises of God.

The earthly visible actual millennial kingdom of Christ is the only adequate confirmation of the faithfulness and the truthfulness of the promises of God.

God said He was going to give a kingdom. If He didn’t, we have got a question about His faithfulness. We have got a question about His truthfulness.

Romans 11:29, For the gifts and the calling of

God are irrevocable. Paul says the gifts and callings of God are without repentance and that is in direct reference to Israel. In the Old Testament, Genesis 12, God gave an unconditional promise to Abraham. It was not based on law but on promise.

Romans 4:13-15, For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

It cannot be annulled by Israel’s unbelief. The promise was to bless him, to give him a kingdom, to give him a nation and so forth. God says that He will keep that promise for the honour and glory of Himself for the sake of His truthfulness.

Genesis 26:25, So he built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord, and he pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well. For the sake of Abraham, His friend.

When Scripture talks about the promise of God for a future kingdom, it says it is as firm as the mountains.

Isaiah 54:10, For the mountains shall depart And the hills be removed, But My kindness shall not depart from you, Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,” Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

It is as secure as the order of nature.

Isaiah 54:9, “For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; For as I have sworn That the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, So have I sworn That I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.

It is as true as the course of day and night.

Jeremiah 33:20-21, “Thus says the Lord: ‘If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, 21 then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levites, the priests, My ministers.

Jeremiah 33:25-26, “Thus says the Lord: ‘If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, 26 then I will cast away the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his descendants to be rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will cause their captives to return, and will have mercy on them.’ ”

It is as stable as the laws of sun, moon, and stars.

Jeremiah 31:35-37, Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day, The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, And its waves roar (The Lord of hosts is His name): 36 “If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the Lord, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease From being a nation before Me forever.” 37 Thus says the Lord: “If heaven above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel For all that they have done, says the Lord.

It is as permanent as the new heaven and the new earth.

Isaiah 66:22, “For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the Lord, “So shall your descendants and your name remain. In other words, God bound Himself, using those kinds of figure of speech to affirm His promise.

God says I will not change My promise to Israel. Spiritualizing these things, wishing them away, it can only be done if you make the church Israel, if you make the future the present, and if you spiritualize the prophecies. Then you have disallowed God’s single greatest way to prove His faithfulness and His promises.

2. The teaching of Jesus. The earthly visible millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ is the only explanation of the history of the end which correlates with the teaching of Jesus.

Matthew 23:37-39, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” Until you see Me, Jesus says. Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord which was a way to describe the Messiah.

Matthew 19:28, So Jesus said to them, “Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Very literal. Literal Israel, literal twelve tribes, twelve thrones, twelve disciples judging them, and Christ having come and established His kingdom. Jesus taught a kingdom on earth, a kingdom over Israel, that Israel would believe, desolation would be turned to glory. If you deny the teaching of Jesus regarding His kingdom, you have no other explanation for how it will be in the end which agrees with anything He taught. He said history would culminate in Israel seeing their Messiah, crying out on His behalf, believing in Him. Jesus saw that as the finish, the culmination, the end of history. Exactly what the Scripture says. 3. Logical Interpretation of Old Testament.

The earthly visible millennial kingdom of Christ is the only logical interpretation of Messianic prophecy. If you do not have a literal earthly kingdom.

Then there is no way to logically interpret Old Testament prophecy. When we look at prophecy in the Old Testament, we see prophecy about the Messiah. There are over 300 different prophecies. We look at those prophecies and we start out with a basic principle, that we are going to interpret them literally.

Christ came out of Bethlehem.

What does that mean?

Micah 5:2, He came out of Bethlehem, and we know that, and it is literal. He rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, Zechariah 9:9.

What does that mean? Jesus rode a donkey. He was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, Zechariah 11:12.

What do those 30 pieces mean? They don’t mean anything other than 30 pieces of silver. His hands and feet were pierced on a cross, Psalm 22:16. His bones were not broken, Psalm 34:20. His side was literally pierced by a spear, Zechariah 12:10.

He died literally, buried literally, Isaiah 53:8, 9, and 12. He rose again the third day, Psalm 16:10, literally. We don’t argue any of that.

Nobody comes along and says that let me tell you about the mystical wound in His side. Let me tell you what those 30 pieces really are talking about. No! We all say that is just exactly what happened. That is history. We don’t say that Jesus only died metaphorically. He was only drunk on spiritual vinegar. He only drunk spiritual vinegar on the cross.

Lots were only thrown for His spiritual garment, as Psalm 22 predicted. No, we don’t believe that. We interpret it all literally. Who has the right to come back to all the prophecies regarding Christ’s second coming and spiritualize them all?

When it says Jesus is going to come down and touch the Mount of Olives? No, not the real Mount of Olives. When it says that Jesus is going to make a valley there and He is going to reign a thousand years on the earth? No, not a real valley.

No, not the earth, not a real kingdom, not a thousand years.

Do you see what we have just done?

We have created a monster. Because who is going to tell us, if these don’t mean what they say, what in the world they do mean? Why is it that all the prophecies we have learned to bank on as being literal are no use to us in understanding how we are supposed to bank on future prophecies?

The whole idea is ludicrous. Who gave us the right to turn Christians into Jews?

To turn Jerusalem into the church?

To make Canaan in heaven? Who gave us the right to spiritualize all of this? Who gave us the right to put the throne of David in heaven? It has always been on earth. Who told us that the land which Israel will inherit is up there not down here?

The only land they ever knew about was down here. When it says He will reestablish and replant His people, who told us that the land in which He is going to replant His people is a heavenly land when it tells us it’s here?

It is literal. We are literally at sea if we spiritualize Scripture. There is just no way to know what we are talking about except in fancy.

4. To prove Jesus as Supreme Ruler. The earthly visible kingdom of Christ is the best possible way for Jesus Christ to demonstrate that He is the supreme ruler over His creation. It is the best possible way for Him to demonstrate that He is a supreme ruler over His creation.

How can Jesus prove that He can supremely rule this world? How can He prove that He can supremely rule man? How can He prove that He can control the earth if He is not given the opportunity to do that? If history just ends, He comes, wipes out the earth, and everything is a glorious eternity from then but there is no restored earth, there is no kingdom of Christ on the earth, when does He prove that He truly was the ruler of this world?

When does He show what could have been done with creation? When does He demonstrate how happy men could have been under His rule? When does He demonstrate that the world could have been a place of peace, joy, righteousness reigned, ruled, and where evil was instantly punished?

When is that going to be proven? When does Christ get His moment in the sun?

Jesus the supreme law giver, judge, King and ruler, the one who perfectly understands how to control all the diverse elements of the world whether they are redeemed or unredeemed. He who will control everything by the majesty of His own mind and His own power is going to have that opportunity to do just that.

To deprive Him of that opportunity with some mystical reinvention of figures doesn’t get it done in my mind. Are we to believe that this earth is going to come to an end and all it will ever experience is its seduction of Satan, is that it?

Will this earth not know what its existence could be? Are we saying then in Romans chapter 8 that when the creation longs for the great and glorious manifestation of the sons of God that the creation won’t ever experience that?

Is that mystical? Or are we really believing that God is going to put Christ on this earth to show the universe and the holy angels and all the redeemed and all the unredeemed what a world should be like if Jesus Christ had ruled it?

Sure, He will.

In that kingdom there are even going to be unbelievers. We know because there is a rebellion at the end of the thousand years from those that are born of the saints that go in in physical bodies. It tells us that Christ can rule this kingdom even as a sinful kingdom.

How long has man resisted the rule of Christ?

How does man fight against that? How do the nations fight against the rule of God? They do it all the time. They need to see what a world is like when Christ is ruling it and how stupid and silly man is at trying to bring together the diverse elements of his own world.

This will be a testimony to all eternity and to all beings in heaven and earth that Jesus Christ is the supreme King, the supreme ruler, the supreme authority who alone can bring the diversity of this created world into harmony even when sin does exist.

5. Bridge to Eternity. The earthly visible millennial kingdom of is the only and necessary bridge for human history into eternal glory. The kingdom of Christ on earth is the bridge into eternity.

1 Corinthians 15:24-25, Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.

What kingdom is Jesus going to deliver to God? Jesus is going to do is it is going to be a kingdom where nobody else is in control or in power. Jesus is going to deliver a kingdom to God. When this earth fell, God set out to redeem this earth. God desired to redeem this earth and then have it presented back to Him.

It is that millennial kingdom in which Christ regathers the earth, reconstitutes it and offers it to the Father. He puts down all other rulers, all other authority, all other power. He reigns, subjects all His enemies, finally the enemy of death is destroyed. He puts all things under Christ’s feet and when it’s all done.

1 Corinthians 15:26-28, The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. 27 For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. 28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

The kingdom is the necessary bridge from the kingdom of Satan into the eternal kingdom of God. It is the time when the Lord takes back, restores, rejuvenates, regenerates the earth, collects it back as a kingdom fit to offer up to God.

The last act in the thousand-year millennium is Satan loosed for a little while. Satan runs all over the earth, deceives people, a final rebellion. Christ destroys all the ungodly at the end of the thousand years, and all that’s left in the kingdom are the righteous.

Then Jesus offers it up to God. That earthly kingdom is the necessary bridge to fulfil the anticipated purpose of Jesus Christ who came into the world. As Revelation pictures Him, holding in His hand the title deed to the earth, unfolding it seal by seal to take back the earth, to cleanse it, to purify it, to take control of it, to bring all its discordant members into harmony, to pull the whole thing together, to rule and reign as supreme monarch.

When it’s all put together and finally all enemies are destroyed and all rebels are wiped out and everything is God’s, He will then take the kingdom and present it to God. God then becomes all in all.

Matthew 13:43, “The righteous will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

All things will resolve in the Father. Believe in an earthly literal millennial kingdom. That’s what I believe Scripture teaches. Now when Jesus comes, He is got to decide who is allowed to go into the kingdom. That is the judgment of the sheep and the goats.

We are going to see who the sheep are and who the goats are in our next service.