Revelation: Part 56

When anyone anywhere responds to this knowledge by having a desire to know this God, God will move heaven and earth to get the message to him.

The only new thing we learn about this kingdom that Jesus is going to set up here in the book of Revelation is how long it’s going to last, do you know that? There’s all kinds of Scripture in the Old Testament about this kingdom. The only thing that wasn’t revealed in the Old Testament was how long it would last. And John had the privilege of telling us.

But here are just a couple of verses that I can read for you from isiah 2:4. And he, the Messiah, will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war. Turn to isiah 11 because it’s kind of a synopsis chapter on this coming kingdom.

Verse 1, then a shoot will spring up from the stem of jesse, and a branch from his roots and will bear fruit. And the spirit of the Lord will rest on him. Now, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord, and he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; and he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

You see, during the Millennium when Jesus is ruling the world and he’s set up the government and everything else, over and over again, it says, he will rule the earth with what? A rod of iron. And capital punishment will be quick and certain. The problem with us today is that so many people are so godless and immoral and amoral, that they want to defend someone who’s on death row because in so doing, they’re kind of defending their own conscience.

There’s no righteousness or a case of righteousness today. And the wolf will dwell with the Lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze; and their young will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox. Isn’t that amazing?

God’s going to change carnivorous animals into grain-eaters. And a little child can lead all of these wild animals. I just really am anxious to see all of this. Verse 8, and the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

What a wonderful thing. You see, that’s what I meant when I said that the world system will be shaped by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Word of God. We won’t be combating all of this rap and stuff that we see on television and all of the things that are all designed to get us involved in the love of money and the love of what money can buy, and a love of what pleases the eye and so forth. It’s interesting that cosmos, the Greek word, kosmos, which is translated, world, it’s really world system, is the word from which we get cosmetics.

Now, you can draw any conclusion you want from that. I like cosmetics. I think that ladies look better with it.

But you have to make sure that that’s not where your focus is. It’s always a great experience to see my daughter spend about four or five hours getting ready for a date.

Then, I mean, a line around the eye so fine that it almost defies eyesight. Verse 11, then it will happen on that day that the Lord will again recover the second time with his hand the remnant of his people, who will remain from Assyria, Egypt, pathros, Cush, which is africa, elam, shinar, hamath, and from the islands of the sea. Whenever you see that word in the Scripture, remember this. When it says islands of the sea, it’s a word that means the continents.

So this is talking about the great continents that they knew about the shores of them, they thought of them as big islands, but it really means continents. And it’s interesting that it says here that the Lord would recover his people the second time. When was the first time? Out of Babylon.

And this is the second time, which is going on right before our eyes today. Now, he says, and he will lift up a standard for the nations, and will assemble the banished ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of judah from the four corners of the earth. And then the jealousy of ephraim will depart, and those who harass judah will be cut off; ephraim will not be jealous of judah, and judah will not harass ephraim. Ephraim is a general word that’s used for the ten northern tribes after they were scattered throughout the world.

And they, you know, there was a civil war, and there was the two kingdoms. There was a kingdom of Israel and a kingdom of judah, ten tribes in the north and three tribes that composed judah. It was benjamin, judah, and levi. But this hostility will no longer be there.

They’ll be one people, all of the tribes there together. And he says, and they will swoop down on the slopes of the palestinians on the west, Philistine. Palestinian is a bastardization of the word, Philistine. The Romans gave that name to the people there because they were the arch enemies of Israel and they wanted to insult Israel after they destroyed the nation in 70 A.D.

So the people today that most harass Israel are descendants of esau and ishmael that are called palestinians. Now, here’s a warning to them. It says they’re going to swoop down on them. And together they will plunder the sons of the east.

The sons of the east means looking over toward saudi arabia and all of the muslim countries today. And it says, they will possess Edom and Moab; and the sons of Ammon and they will be subject to them. And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt. Apparently, there’s not going to be that Red Sea tongue that comes up there.

All of the Sinai peninsula and everything will be one land mass. And he will wave his hand over the river, and with his scorching wind he will strike it into seven streams, and make men walk over dry-shod. And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant of his people who will be left, just as there was for Israel in that day that they came up out of the land of Egypt. Well, this is talking about what Jesus is going to do when he comes back and when he starts that thousand-year kingdom.

So, you know, I could go through, if we had the time, I could go through a hundred passages in all of the prophets that talk about this kingdom. And what we learn from Revelation 20 is how long it’s going to last. Not anything new about it. We see the content, what kind of a kingdom it’s going to be, right here.

Okay. Let’s go back to Revelation 20. Now, in verse 5, it says, the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection.

This is something that will require a lot of thought. Because the first resurrection is the resurrection of life. You know, Jesus, in the Gospel of John, predicted that there would be two different kinds of resurrection. He said, for I say to you that in the last days, the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God.

And there will be a resurrection of the just and the unjust. He said, those who hear my voice will be raised. So there’s a resurrection of the just, there’s a resurrection of the unjust. He defined that.

Now, the important thing here to learn is that the first resurrection, the resurrection of life, has several phases. In other words, the first resurrection doesn’t all happen at once. I can prove that to you very quickly. What was the first phase of the first resurrection?

Jesus. He’s the first phase, right? All right. Now, let me show you something else.

You know, the resurrections are patterned after the celebration of the harvest feast and the Jewish annual calendar. And the -Jesus is called the firstfruits of those who slept. He was the first human being to get a resurrection body. There were others that were resuscitated, but Jesus was the first to get a resurrection body.

Look with me at Matthew 27:50, and Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. This is when he died on the cross. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook; and the rocks were split. And the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

That was the wave sheaf. There was the firstfruits and then there was the wave sheaf in the Jewish harvest. You see, Jesus resurrected a token of people to be the wave sheaf before the Lord. And what’s the wave sheaf?

They would have a celebration just before harvest. They would collect some of the best of the sheaves of wheat or whatever and they would bring it before the Lord and offer a sacrifice, and they would wave this sheaf of grain before the Lord, and that was to show their faith that the complete harvest would be brought in. And that’s what Jesus did here. Most people overlook that.

You ever think about these verses here? They happened. All right. Now, back in…

Revelation 20 again. So the first phase was the resurrection of Jesus, the firstfruits, and the wave sheaf. All right. Phase two of the resurrection of life or the first resurrection, will be very soon, when Jesus says, come up here!

And only you will hear it. The unbelievers will hear something like a horrific roar of thunder. But you will hear his voice. And as Jesus says, those who hear my voice.

The Rapture. That’s the second phase of the resurrection of life. That’s when everyone in the Church age, which started on the day of Pentecost and ends with the Rapture, will be raised from the dead. And those of us who are alive when he comes will be changed into immortality without physical death.

All right. That’s phase two. Phase three is after the Tribulation when Jesus comes back to the earth. That’s when he raises the Old Testament saints.

That is, all those who died before the day of Pentecost. And the Tribulation saints. But they’re not different. Now, if you were with me when we went through God’s outline of history, I showed you that the seven-year Tribulation that follows us immediately, you know, there’s that short interlude when the Antichrist appears and then he takes over ten nations out of the old Roman Empire and uses that as his power base to gain political power.

Then he signs a covenant with Israel guaranteeing their security. The moment he signs that treaty, that seven years that was allotted to the people of Israel to complete God’s will that he created them to do will start clicking down. And when that clock starts clicking down, they’re back under the rules of the Old Testament. You read the book of Revelation.

I hope I brought this out several times as we went through. There’s a different set of rules about how people live and how they’re related to in the book of Revelation than in the gospels and the epistles for us. Because, you see, first of all, the Jews and the Gentiles are segregated again. Today, we’re not.

We’re one in Christ. And it brings back two Old Testament prophets, Moses and Elijah. They talk about the law, they talk about other things. But you can see that this is the completion of the age of Israel.

And so that’s why, at the end of this when Christ comes back, it is the time for the Old Testament saints to be raised, because not all of the Old Testament saints have been saved. Now, that has to happen during the Tribulation. Now, I’m going to read to you from Daniel 12:1. Now at that time when the whole world is enveloped in this catastrophic war, michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, Israel, will arise.

And there will be a time of distress such as has never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. And those who have insight will shine brightly like brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, will shine like the stars forever and ever. Now, those are the soul-winners.

They have a very special reward. That is a verse that talks about the resurrection of the Old Testament saints. And it’s going to be a tremendous thing. Remember what job said in chapter 19:20.

Look at job. Now, you’ve got to remember that job was a contemporary of Abraham. And at that time, there was no written Scripture that we know about. And yet job said, I know my redeemer lives, and in the latter days he will stand upon the earth.

And though my body disintegrates, well, it says though my body is destroyed by worms literally, but it means though my body has completely disintegrated, yet in my flesh shall I see him. Shall I see God, and not another. That was a tremendous insight of faith for men who lived at that time. He said, after my body is gone, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

You know, a lot of people think about resurrection as being spiritual. But God, actually, christianity is the one religion that makes a big deal out of the fact that resurrection is both bodily and spiritual. And that means that even if a shark gobbles you up or you’re burned up or blown to bits or whatever, or all messed up in the morgue see, all these csi things, they’re cutting them all to pieces. I’m sure glad God can fix that.

But no matter what happens to your body, the Lord knows where every micron of it is. And that is going to be raised, and it’ll be you. And, you see, the resurrection isn’t about your spirit. That’s already been resurrected the moment you believed in Jesus Christ and were born again.

Your spirit already has eternal life. It’s already been raised. The only thing the resurrection is about is raising your body into eternal immortal state. And your spirit will be rejoined to this resurrected body.

And, I mean, it’s awesome. You know, when you start thinking about this, and I’ve seen so many people I loved, dead. I’ve seen so much of death. But it’s always a bright spot.

I know when I had a Church, I never wanted to take a wedding. I don’t like to perform weddings. But I would take just about every funeral I could get. Because what an opportunity to preach the Gospel, the good news.

To encourage people and to show that this is not the end. And that even though our bodies get old and what was once a great athlete becomes all hovered over and so forth, God will put it back in good shape again. He’ll turn it to optimum condition. And that is the resurrection of life.

Now, the resurrection of life has a phase four. I’ll have to get into this next week, but phase four is at the end of the Millennium, after a thousand years. Now, apparently, believers will not die in the entire thousand years. Because at the end, they are not raised from the dead.

They are translated from mortal to immortal. In other words, they are just changed from mortal to immortal. And there’s some passages, like one says, if a man dies before the age of a hundred, he shall be considered accursed. In other words, that’s a child.

And the only reason someone would die is because he’s been judged for some flagrant sin. And only unbelievers will be judged that way. But at the end of the Millennium, all the believers will be transformed into immortality. And that closes the resurrection of life.

That closes the first resurrection. The second resurrection, only unbelievers will be in that one. You don’t want to be in that one. The second resurrection is the resurrection of damnation.

And every unbeliever, from the beginning of time to the end of time, will be raised bodily and will stand at the great white throne. Everyone who stands at the great white throne is condemned. You know, we get this false idea, you know, we’re going to go to the pearly gates and Peter’s going to be at the gate. Peter doesn’t qualify, number one.

But number two, that came out of some very, very faulty theology back in the third, fourth century that kind of permeated the Roman catholic Church, and that is the idea that, you know, people are going to everyone, believer and unbeliever, are going to stand at the judgment seat together and we’re going to be judged to see whether we made it or not. Hey, if you stand at the judgment, the great white throne, you didn’t make it.

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary, and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives.

As I prepared for this week’s program, I was again struck by the speed with which events are moving into the scenario the prophets predicted for the end times. I believe we’re there. People on the street are talking about what all of these things mean. Folks that wouldn’t darken the door of a Church or pick up a Bible are now very curious.

This may be our greatest opportunity, maybe even our last opportunity, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ before we’re silenced by political correctness. The message that God has given me is more important now than it’s ever been for the Church and for the nation.