What does the Bible teach about the millennial kingdom and the things that are coming? And then on Wednesday, we’ll be looking at some of the names of Jesus biblically that talk aboutHim and the millennial. The word millennium, as we talked of last week, means a thousand years. It’s mentioned six times in Romans 20, which we mentioned last time.
The coming of the Messiah will make it all possible, and we mentioned that last Sunday as well.And a lot of people who do not believe, who believe the millennium has already occurred or we’re in the millennial, they’re not reading the Bible. Because the Bible teaches that the millennial kingdom will not come until Jesus returns at the end of the tribulation period.
The tribulation period has to do with the nation of Israel, and that is why Satan wants to get rid of Israel, wants to get rid of the millennial kingdom, because he does not want people to focus on the second coming of Christ. If you focus on the second coming of Christ, what you’re going to do is you’re going to realize this world is coming to an end, and we need to be prepared for the one who created all of it. Zechariah 14.9 says, The Lord shall be king over all the earth.
In that day shall there be one Lord, and His name shall be one. And we mentioned that last study. And there is only one God.
Last time we mentioned also the conquest of all nations will be achieved. That will come at the end of the tribulation. The Lord shall return with His ten thousands of saints, as it says in Jude.
And Jude is quoting from the book of Enoch, where Enoch says that the Lord shall return with His ten thousands of saints to bring judgment upon the earth. And that will occur as He comes to deliver the nation of Israel, as the world tries to annihilate the Jews. And this is under the inspiration of Satan.
We see that this is happening in the spirit of Satan. And the world spirit is leaning towards anti-Semitism more each day. And the Jewish people are under tremendous persecutions in many portions of the world already.
And even this last week I listened to a short, just a little speech that Benjamin Netanyahu put together speaking to Christians in America. And he said, it used to be, he says, Today Hamas is America’s friend. Today Hezbollah is America’s friend.
Today Iran is America’s friend. He said, but America is speaking out against Israel. And Israel is America’s friend.
He said, in Israel, as he mentioned, which we all know, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where you can have great freedom as a Christian. It has a very large Christian community.And Benjamin Netanyahu spoke very positively about the fact that they are very open to supporting Christians in Israel.
And they support Christian sites. They support Christian activities. And you will not find that anywhere in a Muslim country.
And so the Lord will come with the conquest of nations, because the nations will desire to destroy Israel, and then to destroy the church. The Lord is going to, or the remnant of the church, the remaining saints, the millennial saints, not millennial saints, but tribulation saints.And the Lord will return and deliver Israel as the scriptures say, the remnant.
Zechariah 12, 9, And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy all nations that come against Jerusalem. Now, the third thing, the conversion of Israel, the remnant. It will come immediately before all of this begins.
And we know that that is, as I mentioned, even again I mentioned it, alluded to it this morning in this morning’s message. Things are happening in Israel already, where the gospel is going out.There’s a number of Christian organizations that are committed to bringing the gospel to the Jews.
And they are active in Israel. And they are seeing more response to the handing out of Bibles,both New and Old Testaments. They’re going on websites that are Christian websites, which give the gospel.
They’re responding to their explanation of who Jesus is, that he is the Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of the Jewish prophets from the Old Testament. And there are many people turning to accept Christ in Israel, both Arabs and Jews. I also just last week read about a group of individuals.
And everything is closed on the Shabbat over there as far as buildings, but they have a coffee store that they have open. And they’re getting a lot of not good response from the ultra-Orthodox and the Orthodox who are protesting their store. But he said they’ve never had so much business as they do on Shabbat, where all these people are coming because what they do is they have the opportunity to give them coffee, but they also talk about Messiah.
And he said it is amazing that people come in with questions. They want to know. And especially with everything that’s been happening in the Middle East over the last months, it’s really opened up people’s hearts to be receptive to the gospel.
So the conversion of Israel and the scriptures tell us that it’s going to happen in one day.Zechariah 12, 10, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. And the realization upon them that they had rejected Jesus up until this point is going to be overwhelming as they realize what Jesus has done for them.
We talked a little bit last week about the control of Satan. It will continue throughout the thousand years. Satan will be bound during this thousand-year period.
He will not have access to tempt the world as he does now, free access, but he will be loosed for a season at the end of this period. And the reason that he will be loosed for a season, as we mentioned last Wednesday night, was so that he can in fact tempt those that had not accepted Christ, that had been born during the Millennial Kingdom, because during this time there will be people going into the Millennial Kingdom who will be going in in natural, earthly bodies, and they will be able to bear children. There will be children born.
There will be people that will have to make decisions, that did not go into the Millennial Kingdom believing in God or believing in Christ. And the decision will still have to be theirs. And part of the reason that God does this is to show man how evil sin is.
We do not understand how wicked sin is. We do not understand how evil sin is. And this is to show man that it is not the devil that made us do it.
It is our own rebellious choices. The fifth thing, construction of the Temple will be accomplished by the Messiah. And we spent quite a bit of time on that last time, so I am not going to again this time.
Sixth, the center of world government will become Jerusalem. And guess what? It is not going to be governed by the UN. It is not going to be governed by the Roman Catholic Church.
It is not going to be governed by the Peace Board. But it is actually going to be Jesus Christ who is going to be ruling and reigning from Jerusalem. And it will be the center of the world government.
And it is also very interesting, why has Jerusalem always been the focus? Why has Mount Zion always been the focus of all these ungodly people that want that particular little plot of land? If you go over there, there is nothing really special about that land. And when you look at it, it looks like other places. There are actually other places in the world that are more beautiful as far as vegetation and attractiveness than Israel or Jerusalem or Mount Zion.
But it is because God has chosen it and God said these things will happen here. So Satan wants to prevent it. But the world is not going to be able to do that and neither will Satan.
And God, as he says here, will rule and reign from Jerusalem. This will be the crowning point of the tribulation. The martyrs will receive their crowns at this particular time.
And you can read in the book of Revelation, the martyred saints during the tribulation period sit under the throne saying, How long, how long, Lord, before judgment will come for what has happened to them? And this is the crowning day. Judgment comes against the world for its rebellion and wickedness and its destruction of God’s people, the Jewish people, as well as its destruction of the martyred saints under the inspiration of the Antichrist. And judgment is coming.
And so their day of crowning for the martyrdom shall occur. The condition for entering the Millennial Kingdom is very clear. In order to enter the Millennial Kingdom, either you enter as someone who is alive at the time of the second coming of Christ on the earth and is a believer in Christ, that would be Jewish people that accepted Jesus at his return, or you are someone who has returned with the Lord as one of his ten thousands of saints who believed upon him, who were raptured into heaven, who are returning with the Lord, or you’re one of the martyred saints from the Millennial that has returned.
You shall be entering the Millennial Kingdom to rule and reign with Jesus, some in natural bodies, some in glorified bodies, as those that have been raptured. And then finally, I just want to look at just a couple of things about the commitment we must make to the Messiah of Israel.And one of the things you have is the church today says that they are committed to Jesus Christ.
Guess what? He’s the Messiah of Israel. Yet many people are not committed to praying for the peace of Jerusalem, for praying for Israel, for bringing the gospel to the Jewish people. And it’s very important that if you do not have a proper perspective on this, it will impact your walk with the Lord, and it may even impact your perspective of what it is and means to be a Christian.
The Hebrew word Messiah is used 39 times in the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh or Old Testament,but it is only translated by the word Messiah in two places, and that’s in Daniel 9, 25, and 26.The word Reziah also appears in John 1, verse 41, and John 4, verse 25. The word Christ from the Greek, or the word Christos in Greek, is used 569 times in the New Testament.
Christos or Christ means the Anointed One or the Messiah. The Greek word Christos is also used in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew word Anointed is also used in describing the Messiah.
King David was called the Lord’s Anointed ten times. In 558 Jewish rabbinical writings of the past, there are 456 separate Old Testament passages used to refer to the Messiah and to the Messianic times and the Messianic kingdom. So a lot of times people don’t think that the Jewish people have any reference to this, but it’s there, and it’s given by the prophets.
They have the Tanakh, which has it. Those that refused to accept Jesus when he came as the Messiah, but those who lived before him, oftentimes the teachers would refer to the Messianic passages as speaking about the coming Messiah. They failed to acknowledge that Jesus came the first time in fulfillment of prophecies to the day, to the hour, to the means.
They were spoken of in the Old Testament the first time, but it did not speak of his second coming the first time happening together. But it spoke of the second coming as being the day of judgment and the first coming being the day of salvation. And that we had to have a day of salvation where we could experience salvation and then judgment would come after that.
And so the second coming, and they are confused. Oftentimes they acknowledge that it’s a Messianic passage, but they get confused over the first and second comings of Christ. They do not understand that he had to come to die and pay the penalty for their sin in order that he might return to establish his kingdom.
Well, these are some things I just wanted to review quickly. We’re out of time this afternoon, but next Wednesday we’ll be looking at names that you find in the Bible, specific, not titles, but references that refer to Jesus and what they mean and how those impact what he will do during not only the Messianic kingdom, but the new heavens and new earths. Let’s just close in prayer.
I pray that you just help us to understand the word that we’re studying. Help us to truly be those that are looking forward to the rapture of the church, are looking forward to the day that you shall come at the end of the tribulation period to establish your kingdom, and that the Messianic kingdom has not occurred. And Father, that you have told us that even we as your people that trust in you as Messiah shall rule and reign with you, that you have positions of responsibility for each one of us.
And Lord, help us to take seriously our time on earth now that we’re prepared for those times where we will rule and reign with you. Be with us now, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.