This evening, I’m going to look at a topic that I think our church is very excited about. But in a lot of churches, it’s very controversial. And that’s the Millennial Kingdom.
Just to give you some background on what’s happening in the church today, the Bible spoke about, and one of the things that Jesus said as he was talking to his disciples, and he was talking to them and he was also directing them to what the attitude would be towards the Jewish people before he returned to establish his kingdom upon the earth. And he said one of the things would be the false teaching and really the false Christ that would come into the world who would try to lead people astray. And he talked about all the events that we’ve been seeing in the news just this last week.
Earthquakes, there’s been just a tremendous amount of increase in earthquakes. How many of you remember that when there was a big earthquake in Alaska? Okay, I’m looking out there, probably nobody except maybe a few of us older people. It was like close to an eighth earthquake.
It was one of the largest earthquakes that had ever been. That was when I was a kid. It happened in Alaska.
It made all the front page news and it was that way for weeks. Well, today we’re having seven point whatever earthquakes every day it seems like. And then they have them not only one but two at a time.
And there’s some of them you don’t even hear about. There was earthquakes again in Indonesia. It didn’t even hardly make our news.
There was a big earthquake just about as large as the ones that were in Venezuela and Colombia. And that didn’t make much of our news. And we’re seeing that the earthquake and even the earthquake in Hawaii, although it wasn’t as large of an earthquake, they didn’t talk much about the earthquake.
They’re talking about the hurricane, but they didn’t talk much about the earthquake. That’s there. And I don’t know, pray for Hawaii too because I was just looking at the weather.
And they were saying on the weather report that there’s another tropical storm forming south of Hawaii moving north. And I don’t know if it’s going to hit the Hawaiian Islands or not. And they just pray that the Lord would be merciful and direct it to go around the islands instead of hitting them again.
So you got all these things going on. Then I don’t know how many of you heard on the news, but Ebola is at the highest level that it has ever been in the Congo in years. And so people are dying from pestilence.
And then you have all of these, the Muslims killing all the Christians. And you look at everywhere you see, there’s just disaster after disaster. And, but we’re not to be surprised because Jesus said that was going to, what was going to be.
It would be the signs. There’d be the birth pangs showing themselves before he would return. Well, the sad thing is the church totally ignores a lot of that.
Most people don’t even preach and relate it to what’s happening because they don’t believe Jesus is coming again. They believe that we have to establish the kingdom, that the church is the one that has to establish the kingdom on earth. And then once we’ve made the earth a place of total righteousness, then Jesus can come to it.
Well, I don’t know about your Bible, but my Bible says the exact opposite. Things are going to continue to get worse and worse. And then the church is going to be raptured.
Then they’re going to get really bad. And then Jesus is going to come back. And the other thing that he told the Jewish people is, or told his disciples, is that the Jews are going to be persecuted.
And antisemitism is growing at a greater rate than it ever has. And not only outside the church, but within the church. And it’s hard to believe that.
The nation of Israel used to look to America, and they always knew that we’d be their ally because of the strong Christian community in America, and the love of the Christians for the Jewish people in the nation of Israel, and the promises that God had given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And they looked at Israel as an object that could be revealed of God’s faithfulness in delivering on his promises. That’s not much of the church today.
And as we come to this evening’s study, and we look at the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus, we’re going to be looking really at, as we look at the Millennial Kingdom, we’re going to be looking at the various characteristics of Christ that he’s going to bring to the Millennial Kingdom, and what’s going to happen in the Millennial Kingdom. When you stop and think about it, the majority of the churches today have turned Calvinistic, Catholic, Orthodox. Even those that claim to be evangelical are leaning those directions and abandoning a vision of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ.
Well, what exactly is the Millennial Kingdom? Let’s just talk about that first before we get into the different scriptures. But the thing is, the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus is when he returns at the end of the Great Tribulation. At the end of the Tribulation of the last seven years, and the last three and a half years are referred to as the time of Jacob’s trouble, or the Great Tribulation, and it’s when the nation of Israel will be persecuted in a way that they will never have had.
And you look around the world today, and you go, it can get worse than this. Yes, it can get much worse than this. And it’s going to, during that particular time.
The world will be led at that time by the Antichrist, and he will establish a political system, a religious system, and an economic system that will come against not only Christians, but against the Jewish community as well. And there will be those who believe in Jesus during that time, there will be those who will be saved during the Millennial Kingdom, and their persecution is going to be severe. They come to know Christ, and it’s like a death sentence.
Not the Millennial Kingdom during the Tribulation. I just want to read a little bit from Ezekiel, and where did I put my glasses? I’ll read a little bit from Ezekiel, and then we’re going to be looking at some various verses dealing with the Millennial Kingdom. So if you turn with me first to Ezekiel, and we’re going to be looking at chapter 43, I believe it is.
Chapter 43 of Ezekiel, and we’re going to be looking at the first, I’m going to read the first 12 verses. This talks about the return of the glory of the Lord. And the glory of the Lord returns at the end of the Great Tribulation when the Millennial Kingdom is going to be established by Jesus on the earth.
And Ezekiel gives us a picture of the glory of the Lord that is given to him by the Lord after he’s gotten done explaining the temple that will be built.
Ezekiel 43:1
Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east:
Now the gate that he’s speaking of here is the eastern gate in the wall of the city of Jerusalem.
If you go to Israel today and look from the Mount of Olives to the west, you will see the eastern gate. We talked about it in the last couple of studies.
Supposedly the dead people are going to keep Jesus away. They don’t realize that he will raise all people, those that believe in him to everlasting life and those that don’t to judgment and everlasting death. So he’s not afraid of tombs.
The thing is, that will not keep Jesus from entering the eastern gate. And we see here that the eastern gate will be entered and will be entered by Jesus. And the thing is, during the end of the Ottoman Empire, there was one of the Moslem leaders that blocked up the eastern gate and figured that would keep the Jewish Messiah from coming.
Well, it’s not going to. So we see that the Lord reveals to Ezekiel that he’s going to return, he’s going to come through the eastern gate of the city of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 43:2
2 and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.
So who is this a picture of? Well, it’s Jesus. You can look at, this is a description of him, both in the book of Revelation, prior to this, in Ezekiel’s visions that he’s been given, when we’ve seen that there’s the one who speaks, there’s the voice of many waters, it’s speaking about the Lord Jesus. All of his fullness and all of his beauty and all of his power and all of his might shall be revealed.
Ezekiel 43:3
3 And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.
And you remember the vision he had at the river of Chabar, the Lord appeared to him along with two angels and gave him visions there, and at that time he fell on his face as well.
We know that this is the Lord because you see that when the prophets see Jesus and come into his presence and he reveals himself to them, they’re prone and on their face. was one of the inner circle along with Peter and James, his brother.
Even John, the apostle in the book of Revelation, when he sees Jesus and Jesus comes to him and shares the visions of what he is showing and tells him what he’s seeing. John, who was the beloved disciple of Jesus, who at the Last Supper was the one that laid his head on his shoulder, was the one that asked him to reveal to them who the one was that would be betraying him. Yet we see that John, when he saw Jesus in all his glory, fell flat on his face. When we see the Lord in all of his glory, it’s going to be amazing. Those that don’t trust in Jesus, when they see Jesus in all of his glory and have to stand before him, they will have no words to say, and they, like the scriptures say, will bow the knee and confess Jesus is Lord.
So we see that this is the vision that he’s given of Jesus in all of his glory, just as he was by the river Chabar in an earlier vision in the book of Ezekiel.
4 And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. 5 So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.
So this is the rebuilt house, the rebuilt temple, which is on the Temple Mount. Jesus comes in through the eastern gate. The Lord takes him into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord fills the whole temple.
6 And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me.
7 And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.
Now, it says here, who’s going to rule from the throne in the house of the Lord? It’s going to be Jesus.
It says it right here. It’s not going to be a whole bunch of Christians that have gotten together and made the world righteous and elected a leader. No, it’s going to be Jesus.
Jesus is going to come back and establish His authority and His rule within the house. And it’s going to be done for whom? The church? No, it’s going to be done for the nation of Israel. And why is it being done at this particular time? Remember going back to the book of Daniel, we saw that there was the 70 weeks of Daniel, which dealt with God’s chastisement of the nation of Israel.
The 70th week being really the last week, which we referred to earlier as the Great Tribulation, those seven years. And at the end of those seven years, the Lord was going to come in all of His glory. And when He comes, they’re going to acknowledge Him whom they pierced, and they will see that He is their Messiah, and they will fall down and worship Him and accept Him as their Messiah.
And that’s what the Lord is telling them here. No longer are they going to be worshiping their false gods. All of their wickedness will be driven from them, and they will come to worship Me.
And they’ll come to worship Him on the Holy Mount in the temple that He has built and established, that’s referred to in the previous chapters. In their setting of my thresholds, and their posts by My posts, and the wall between Me and them, they have even defiled My holy name by their abominations that they have committed. Wherefore, I have consumed them in My anger.” And so here, also, two-thirds of the nation of Israel is going to be destroyed.
They’ll be the ones that do not accept Jesus, that do not want to repent. And the thing is, He also says that He’s a just God. He will deal with judgment, and with those who don’t receive Him, there will be judgment.
So there’s two ways of having it, being forgiven by the gift of His salvation that is found in what He did for us at Calvary, and those who refuse that, they will be judged. Now, “let them put away their whoredom and the carcasses of their kings far from Me, and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.”
So He’s not going to dwell with them in the midst of their wickedness and evil.
10 Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.
Now, what is He saying? Show the house to the house of Israel. Well, what house is that? It’s the house that the Lord built. It’s the Lord’s temple on the Mount.
He says, show them this house and let them compare what they built and what they did within their house to the reality of what you have done and the promise that you made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that you would come and rule amongst them, tabernacle with them, be their king forever, and that that will be seen and done and their abominations shall be driven from them. And they’ll also see the foolishness of their whole sin in defiling the temple of Solomon and later on defiling even the temple of the second temple which was also enhanced by Herod and the third temple which they tried to build.
And this temple is going to be built by the Lord and He’s going to say, Compare my temple to your temple and see the glory of my temple. And He says,
11 And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them.
So he’s telling Ezekiel, Reveal to them all this and they’re going to have it revealed to them when they see the glory of God.
The glory of Jesus come into the house that He built that’s been described in the previous chapters which we didn’t look at in depth but we just looked at some of the descriptions of them. And all of a sudden they’re going to see this glory and they’re going to be realizing the truth and they can’t deny the truth any longer. The last verse we’re looking at tonight.
12 This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.
What is the law of the house? It is going to be holiness unto the Lord.
Now what is holiness? Holiness means purity. It means perfection. It means that there’s no compromise.
Holiness is a derivative of the word whole. And if whole, if you look at something that’s whole, it’s a hundred percent. And we’ve talked before, if you take a glass of water and just put in, you know, one half of one percent of arsenic, it’s not whole anymore.
It’s been compromised. And the Lord says, the houses that they built were compromised. This will be a holy house.
This will be where my presence is. This is where I will establish it. We’re just about out of time.
I’m not going to be able to, I just want to give us a beginning to look at the Millennial Kingdom and what Jesus is going to do. And then we’ll have to pick it up next Wednesday. Revelation 11.15 says the following, Who’s going to reign? Jesus is going to reign.
It’s not going to be somehow that the Roman Catholic Church has established its authority over the world. It’s not going to be the Evangelical Church has established its authority. It’s not going to be the NAR groups.
No, it’s going to be Jesus and He is going to rule and reign. And as David Hocking makes a statement here, he says, May that day come soon. And really, you know, some people say, well, I don’t know if I’m really ready for the Kingdom of God.
Because, you know, I really, I like my job and I like to go to places. We have no concept what it’s going to be like when Jesus comes to rule and reign in all of His righteousness. Beyond this thousand years, we cannot comprehend what the new heavens and the new earth are going to be like.
Jesus gives us a little picture or glimpse in the book of Revelation. I can’t comprehend it when it talks about the New Jerusalem where the foundations are made with precious stones and it’s just commonplace. You’re walking on streets of gold and the gold is so pure that it’s transparent.
That is pure gold. And that becomes what is commonplace and you’re placed under your feet. And we can’t comprehend it, but we really should have a desire to see it and long for it because in the midst of all of that will be righteousness and truth.
We won’t have to be talking about floods and earthquakes and disasters and death and rebellion and sin and wickedness anymore because He’s going to rule in holiness and purity. And we can’t comprehend what a world like that would be, but that’s what it’s going to be. The word millennium is the Latin word for one thousand years.
It is mentioned six times in Revelation chapter 20 and there’s people that say, wow, millennial is not real. What they do is they just characterize millennialism or make it an allegory, but the Bible is very clear that it’s a literal thousand year reign. It says it more than once in chapter 20 of Revelation and if you look at, when God tells you something in His word one time, you need to listen.
When He tells you it twice, you really need to listen. And if He tells you more than that, you better understand it and you better believe it. You know, when Jesus came to His disciples and He’d say, verily I say unto you, the verily was there so that they’d listen.
Sometimes He would come and He’d say, verily, verily I say unto you. When He said verily, verily, He was making a strong emphasis. You need to listen and understand what I’m saying and apply this truth to your life and believe it.
Well, if He says something six times in one chapter alone in the book of Revelation that it’s literal thousand year reign, we better believe it and we better apply it and we better look for it because it’s real. It’s not to be allegorized away. Well, tonight, we’ll take just one more point and then we’ll be closing tonight and picking it up next week.
It says, what does the Bible teach about the millennial kingdom? This is something that we all need to understand. What does the Bible teach? First of all, it says the coming of the Messiah will make it possible. The Bible teaches that.
Not that the church will make it possible. Not that somehow we are going to defeat Satan and all of his influence. We had a friend one time and he had become a non-millennial.
A non-millennial believes that we are living in the millennial now. And so we’re talking to him and he’s going, oh, I don’t believe in pre-tribulation, which pre-millennial is that the church is going to be raptured before the millennial kingdom. That you’re going to see all of the things happen to the nation of Israel before the millennial kingdom.
The end of that will be the millennial kingdom at the end of the seven years. Or we’re not mid-millennial. And mid-millennial is that somehow the church is going to be raptured at the midpoint in the tribulation.
Then there’s the post, the mid-tribulation rather, and then there’s the post-tribulation that we’re going to be raptured at the end of the tribulation just before the millennial begins. That’s kind of like zip up and zip down. And nowhere in Scripture does it say that.
That we believe that the rapture occurs just before the tribulation. And then at the end of the tribulation comes the millennial. And that the only reason he can come in is because Jesus has physically returned to earth.
And Jesus has established His temple and His throne in the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Israel, upon the Mount Zion. And that will only occur when Jesus comes again. And it’s not going to occur with men being able to do it.
Zechariah 14.9
The Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day shall there be one Lord and His name is One.
Okay? And so, it doesn’t say there’s going to be a lot of different lords over the earth.
It doesn’t say that you’re going to have all kinds of spiritual leaders coming to set up this new kingdom. No. Jesus is going to come and He’s going to establish one Lord and one Lord over the earth.
And He shall be King over all. Well, let’s close for tonight and then we’ll pick this study up again on next Wednesday night. Let’s just close in prayer.
Father, we thank You for the opportunity You give to us and help us to understand that the millennial kingdom is a reality. That all the signs of the time are pointing to the fact that the church could be raptured at any time. That the things are being put in place for the kingdom that Satan will establish around the Antichrist to be put into place.
The world is being set up for deception. And we see everything going according to what Your Word tells us. And yet, Your church is falling asleep and denying the reality and the truth of Your prophetic visions that You gave to Your prophets to reveal to us what will happen.
Help us to believe and look for the day that You shall call us home. And to look for the time that we shall return with You to establish Your kingdom upon the earth and where You shall rule and reign in holiness and righteousness from the city of Jerusalem, from the temple mount, from the temple that You shall build, and You shall be King of kings and Lord of lords, and all shall know it. Lord, now, go with us this week and help us to be able to share with others the hope we have in Jesus.
This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.