The Coming Reign of Christ

00:00 Invite you to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to Revelation chapter 20. Not trying to get ahead of Brother Trevor in his trip through Revelation, so I'm going to jump clear to the end, or almost the end. But it is a follow-up message to our message a number of weeks ago on the Feast of Tabernacles. 00:21 And the end of the feast, the feast that signifies the Feast of the End. It was the end of the feast, but it is also the Feast of the End. And it indicates the time when there will be heavenly beings and earthly beings dwelling together on the earth under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. 00:42 The Bible says here in Revelation chapter 20:1-6, "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 01:01 And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. 01:19 Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the Word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 01:37 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Oversuch, the second death has no power. 01:51 But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years." I want you to think this morning about how things would be if Christ were in charge on this earth. Now, of course, God is sovereign. We know that. And we know that God's kingdom at this time is a spiritual kingdom. 02:13 He is not now ruling over the nations with the rod of iron. He is not now setting up his headquarters in Jerusalem. It is a spiritual kingdom in the hearts and lives of men and women who come under the authority of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. 02:27 But there is a coming kingdom coming, a kingdom that is coming that will silence the voice of all other kings and dictators and will set things right that are wrong. Now, we can see a lot of things that are wrong around us today. Wars and rumors of wars. Even today as we speak, 02:46 there are tensions in the Ukraine and Russia and various parts of the world. There's rumblings in China. There's war games between China and Iran and Russia in various parts of the world. There are international tensions. And not to mention the injustices, famines, inequality. 03:05 There's the abuse of power and political abuses and lies. Oh my, never has there been such a time in our country when politicians equal lies and lies equal politicians, it seems. And we see persecution of the church in various parts. In fact, not too long, not too far from here, down in Lafayette, I can tell you more about it sometime. 03:26 But there is an ordinance that is being promoted by the city council to shut down a counseling ministry in the Faith Baptist Church, Faith Counseling Ministry, to make it illegal, illegal to counsel certain people in certain ways. And that's beside the point. But there is persecution even though we're not seeing the full extent of it in our country. 03:46 There are economic failures and corruption in high places. 03:51 People are rightly concerned about the sex trade and the sex trafficking, slavery on the black market, the oppression of people groups, the border and immigration crisis in various places around the world, and things that the common man just feels like he's incapable of changing. 04:10 And we are incapable of changing. But think how the world would be if you could make it into a perfect place. What kind of government would there be? What kind of leader would you want? And what would it take to set right the things that are wrong in our world system? 04:31 Well, Scripture in our text this morning tells us about the coming golden age of the earth. The golden age of history and civilization is not the past, but is the future. The future when Jesus Christ reigns over this world. And just like the creation had six days and then a day of rest, 04:53 the natural order of things on this earth, this globe, have had 6,000 years approximately. And then there will be a period of rest for a thousand years, as Scripture tells us about. Even so, just like Israel had its period of Jubilee when all the debts were settled and things were squared away again, 05:14 even so it will be at the end of the age and the beginning of the new age, the reign of Christ. Even so, the earth will have a period when all the wrongs will be righted. Peace will be universal. Judgments will be based on moral principles of justice and righteousness and not on that which is politically expedient. 05:35 Sin will be dealt with forthrightly and severely. Worship will be directed to the one true God of heaven and earth. And the curse will be suspended, and people will live long lives without common diseases that we have today. And Jesus Christ will reign over all the nations of the world. The perfect ruler will be inaugurated, 05:55 coronated, and assume his rightful place on the throne of his father David, with Jerusalem being the capital of his reign. Sound like a fairy tale? Sound like the prince coming to take over the kingdom? Well, that's exactly what it is. It's not a fairy tale. It is coming to pass. 06:16 And there's a couple of reasons I want to share this message with you this morning. Not that we would have all the answers figured out, or not even that we would feed our desire for more information than what God has given to us. But there's two reasons why, as I prayed this morning over this message again, that God brought to my attention as to why I should preach this message. 06:37 Number one is to exalt Christ. That should be the focus of all of our preaching: to exalt Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as Savior and God and coming King. So we want to exalt Christ and put him on the rightful place, not only of the throne of his father David at one day, but on the throne of our own hearts and lives. 06:58 But there's another reason that I want to share this message, and that is to encourage the saints. Sometimes people get discouraged in the days we live in, and they look forward to it. 07:08 We talk about this with the tribulation period, and that's not uncommon to our preaching and thinking here at Living Water, that there is coming a day, and we are sliding into it where there will be great difficulties upon the earth. And we tend to get discouraged. 07:24 But I would like to encourage you today to look beyond that great tribulation to the coming kingdom, to look beyond that time of Jacob's trouble, to the fact that Christ will be all in all and rule and reign immediately after his glorious appearing, 07:45 for the Bible says a thousand years. Now, you say this thousand years. I think we have a question sometimes: do people consider that to be a literal thousand-year period, or is that figuratively representing something else? Well, I want you to notice that in seven verses there (we didn't read the seventh verse), 08:08 there are six references to a thousand years. It's almost like the Holy Spirit was trying to emphasize something, that when he says a thousand years, he would probably mean a thousand years. Now, we say that a thousand years is like a day, and a day is like a thousand years. So this is just talking about the day of the Lord. 08:27 But that, in the context of Second Peter, is talking about God's view of timelessness in eternity and not measuring time as we measure time. So we just... a literal rendering, a literal reading of Scripture would lead us to believe that this is a period of time at the end of the age, initiating a new age that will be a thousand years in duration. 08:47 The ancient church, down to the time of Augustine, though with some exception, unquestionably held to the teaching of an earthly historical reign of peace that was to follow the defeat of Antichrist and the physical resurrection of the saints, but precede both the judgment and the new creation. 09:10 So this is not something that has been borne up in the last couple of years. This has deep roots in the tradition and in the understanding of the early church, the earliest of the church, when it came to a literal rendering of a period of time of peace and prosperity under the reign of Christ. Now, there are a number of Scriptures that we could look at this morning, 09:29 but I want to look at some Scriptures to ask us the question or answer the question: What is this reign going to look like? What is this reign going to look like? Well, there are some characteristics that we need to pay attention to. Number one, there will be universal peace. 09:50 Can you imagine universal peace? The world has never known universal peace from the time of the fall until now, unless it was under the Pax Romana, where there was a great era of peace under the Roman Empire as Rome had consolidated a lot of its enemies into the Roman Empire. But even so, 10:09 there were places of wars and rumors of wars and skirmishes. This will be a place of universal peace, a time of peace. And if you remember where it says that his name shall be called the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, that right after that it says, "Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. 10:31 Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." So be encouraged. There's more to come after this present age of tribulation. Isaiah 2:4, 10:52 "And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." What an age, what an age to come. 11:11 Zechariah 9:10 says, "And he shall speak peace unto the heathen. And his dominion shall be from sea even to sea and from the river even to the ends of the earth." You have to do something with these Scriptures. You have to do something with them. You either spiritualize them and say that, well, that's what Christ is doing now. 11:33 But he's talking about the nations. He's talking about ruling over the nations. And so with this, we will see that the Middle East problem will be solved. For Israel shall dwell safely for the first time ever within the borders that God promised to Abraham. This is something important to realize: that God promised Abraham some specific borders. 11:55 And I've talked to Jewish historians and those who have studied this issue, and they would agree that Israel has never, even in the time of its heyday, of its glory days under the reign of Solomon and David and then Solomon, 12:08 has never fully reigned over that entire region that God promised. And God will write his law upon our hearts, upon their hearts, and they will serve Jesus as their king as a result of their genuine repentance. 12:29 And they will experience all the promises which God made to them that they have not yet experienced. Zechariah 14:11 being one of them when it says, "But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited." The second characteristic of this coming age is that there will be a renewed earth. 12:49 There will be a renewed or a restored earth, renewed earth. And we look to that for Romans 1:21 and 22, "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 13:08 For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now." You see, creation has been subjected to the curse. And upon the rule of Christ, the initiation of that rule, the curse will be suspended. 13:26 And the creation will no longer be groaning as it's groaning today. And oh my, is it groaning. Understand that just this past week, there was a volcano erupted underground, under the sea, in the depths of the sea, down in the South Toga, yeah, 13:45 islands, South Sea, South Pacific, and it was heard all the way up to Alaska. Amazing power of the creation, groaning, groaning, groaning under the curse. 13:57 And these birth pains, the birth pains of groaning and travail, are getting closer and closer together and escalating in intensity just like it would be before the birth of a baby. What we have to do is not just look at the travail and the groan, but we have to look at the birth of the coming kingdom. 14:16 And Ezekiel 36:33-36 says this: "Thus saith the Lord God, in the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities. And the wastes shall be rebuilded. And the desolate lands shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. 14:38 And they shall say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden. And the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited.' Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I, the Lord, build the ruined places and plant that that was desolate. 14:58 I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it." God putting some emphasis on his own power and abilities and what he's going to do. He said, "I will do it. You won't do it. The church won't do it. But I will do it in my time and in my way." Thirdly, 15:20 well, now let's look at Isaiah 11:6-9, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb." Have you seen that happening anywhere recently? "The leopard shall lie down with the young goat." Not been happening in our area. "The calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." The wolf? 15:40 The leopard? The lion? And the domestic animals dwelling side by side and a little child leading them? Look forward to it in a restored earth. "The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 16:01 The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. 16:12 For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." I'm not aware that that all has happened yet. It's still coming. It's still future when God has promised that there will be a renewed earth. Number three, 16:32 there will be a rejuvenated humanity, a rejuvenated humanity. Zechariah 14:16, "And it shall come to pass that everyone that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of..." There you have it, tabernacles. 16:54 What does this message have to do with the feast of tabernacles? Well, it has everything to do with the feast of tabernacles. It was the feast of the end and the end of the feast. It was the end of the age of that yearly calendar signifying the end of the age. 17:09 And it was a time of great celebration after the days of mourning and the days of awe where Jews had tried to analyze themselves and to repent. And out of that time of brokenness and mourning and darkness comes about that day of bright celebration when the King shall reign. 17:31 So we said in our last message that when Peter said, "Lord, let's build some booths here. We've got Elijah, we've got Moses, and we got you. Let's just build some booths here and stay here." He was not acting out to lunch. He was actually referring to saying, 17:52 "Let's initiate this feast of tabernacles. Let's initiate this dwelling together of the earthly and the heavenly, which will take place when those who have been resurrected in their heavenly bodies will be working alongside and ruling and reigning over those who were left out of the great tribulation, 18:12 who came up against Jerusalem in Zechariah 14:16, who will now go year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." It all fits together. 18:29 Zechariah, Isaiah 65:20-25, "No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days. For the child shall die 100 years old, but the sinner being 100 years old shall be accursed." Now, what's he talking about there? 18:50 He's talking about that children who live to be 100 will still be like children. And sinners who live to be 100 will be accursed; being 100 years old shall be accursed. 19:07 So there's still some sinning going on during this period of celebration and restoration. 19:16 But it is not the norm, and it is under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ who still gives these sinful people who have come through the tribulation an opportunity to determine and decide whether they will worship God or not, worship Christ. "They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 19:35 They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of my people, and my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain nor bring forth children for trouble. And they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring with them. 19:54 It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. And while they are still speaking, I will hear." Again, it says here, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain," says the Lord. 20:13 There will be a rejuvenated humanity. What we have here in this period of time will be a reinstitution of a similar economy as the Garden of Eden. And then finally, there will be renewed worship. Jeremiah 31:34, 20:35 what a verse, what a verse. "They shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord.' For they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them," says the Lord. 20:48 "And I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." World missions will have been fulfilled. It's not fulfilled yet. Still unreached people groups that we're trying to reach. Still places that have no Bibles in their own language, no copies of Scripture in their own language. 21:10 There are still people that have never heard the name of Jesus in the context of a Savior. There are people around the world that still have not been touched with the Gospel. That group is shrinking as missionaries go and emphasize ministering to the unreached people groups of the world with the idea that, 21:31 "Why should people hear many times when so many have not heard once?" But at this age and this day, everyone will know about the Lord. They will all know of Him. And there will be a new temple where Jesus sits as the ruler, and many people will flow to it. 21:52 Now, this cannot be the eternal state in Revelation 21:22 because it refers in that condition that there is no temple. There is no temple. In this place, there is a temple in Jerusalem. 22:07 "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains. And shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, 'Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.' And He will teach us of His ways, 22:28 and we will walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Now, you want to talk about something very specific here. In that day, there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria. Egypt to the southwest of Israel. 22:47 Assyria up to the northeast of Israel. And there will be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria. And guess what? In order to do that, they have to pass right through Israel. 23:04 "And in that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land." This was astounding. This was almost scandalous when it was written by Isaiah and spoken by Isaiah because Assyria was one of the most cruel, 23:26 barbaric, torturous people that have ever lived, far outdoing the Romans and the Greeks and the Egyptians. And here you have the Egyptians, enemies to the south. Assyria, enemies to the north. And God says there'll be a day when we're going to unite them by a highway, 23:46 a trans-country highway. And you're going to do commerce together, and you're going to dwell together as partners. Wow, something's got to change. Something's got to change between that and then. Something's got to change between now and then. 24:07 And that something will be this glorious reign of the Lord Jesus. 24:15 Why do I believe in a literal reign? I'll give you seven reasons this morning why I believe in a literal reign. Number one, it will reveal the kingdom of Christ in world history. An actual demonstration of all of the values, 24:35 truth, righteousness of God established upon the earth, which He created for His glory. Now, that's happening today in the hearts and lives of those of us who have made Jesus Christ Lord. So this kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. It is. And it's happening now. 24:54 But you've heard the saying that we are here, that the kingdom is now but not yet. It's very true. It's now but not yet. It hasn't been realized in its fullness until Christ comes and sets it up. By the way, this will not be set up by the church. 25:15 This will not be that the church takes over the institutions, the social institutions, the religious institutions, the business institutions, the educational institutions. There's still those that are out there preaching that. That's not going to happen. It's not going to happen by the church. It's going to happen by Christ Himself. 25:32 And it will be the evidence and the fulfillment of the kingdom of God in world history. We need to see this not just what on a physical level when we see what Jesus does in people's lives and a spiritual level, but even on a historical level. 25:52 This is that which man has been craving after and and and calling for the utopia that man wants to create. The problem is man wants to create it without God. Christ will create it for God. 26:09 Second reason why I think it's important for a little literal reign is it will fulfill the promises that God made to His people. There are promises, folks, in the Old Testament especially and in the book of Revelation that have not yet been fulfilled. We can't just scrap those and say, 26:28 "Well, because Israel crucified the Savior and rejected the Savior, then that means that all those promises are null and void." I don't think we can just write it off. We have to do something with those things. And so we either have to expect them to happen yet, or we have to say that they're only spiritual. 26:49 And then that leaves us with a whole nother set of problems. So I believe it will fulfill all the promises that God has made to His people that have not yet been fulfilled. Number three, it will reveal the evil within the human heart. 27:05 Notice that in this text, Satan will be 27:12 inoperative for a period of time. He will be off the scene. And yet man will still have those men and women that are not saved, that have come through the tribulation, will have an evil heart nonetheless. 27:33 And when the Bible says that He will rule over the nations with a rod of iron, that means that there's going to be somebody that He's ruling over that needs the rod of iron. It will not all be voluntary. It will not all be peaches and cream. There will be those skirmishes that the Lord Himself will need to put down. 27:54 And out of that will be the revelation of man's heart that he cannot blame his evil on Satan, and he cannot blame his evil on his environment. We've heard that for years and years. Well, people are bad because they live in a bad environment. So take and put them in a good environment, and they'll not be bad anymore. And what happens to the environment? 28:13 It gets bad. So man's heart is the problem. And this will reveal that. Number four, it will reveal the permanence of the authority and power of Christ. For what we did not read is in verse seven, "Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations, 28:32 which are in for the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved city. And the fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. 28:54 And they will be tormented day and night forever." So Satan's going to have a little bit of a hiatus. He's going to have a little bit of a resurgence. And he'll gain a following. And the lordship of Christ will ultimately, one more final time, be permanently established. 29:16 Number five, it will restore all that man and Satan stole from the beginning. One of the problems I have with the Big Bang theory of the end, I call it the Big Bang theory because that's what many people think is just going to all end with a great bang. 29:36 And everything's going to be transitioned immediately into the eternal kingdom. That's one way of looking at it. But that's not what a literal rendering of the text would tell us. 29:46 But I believe that Jesus will establish Himself as the ruler over this world and not let Satan have the last word. 30:03 If Jesus just comes and destroys the whole kit and caboodle and ushers in the new heaven and the new earth, then there would be a sense, would there not, that Satan had the last word as far as this earth was concerned. And he took out, 30:21 and he went out in a blaze of glory, just destroying everything possible to be destroyed. I don't think that is what the Lord is anticipating. At least in my mind, it would cause a problem because Jesus has to get it all back. Now, He's paid for it, but He hasn't accumulated it all. 30:41 And this is what the period of the glorious coming kingdom will be about: rejuvenating and ruling over that which He has right to rule. Number six, it will right all the wrongs that have been committed on the earth. 31:03 Wow, that's a lot of writing to do. That's a lot of wronging to clean up. But praise God, we have a Lord who's able to do that. And I just think about that when I think about the rulers of this earth that are dictators and warmongers and are horrible men, 31:25 just men and women, just horrible, evil men and women trying to amass power and gain power and keep power. And I think, you know, one day, one day, King Jesus is coming back. And you're going to give an account over everything you did as a leader. 31:47 We'll give an account also for everything we did as a person. Number five, or number seven, it will ensure that God has the last word. Now, I'm fully aware that we've not heard probably much teaching on this period of prophecy. 32:10 I don't know, of all of the things that I believe about the prophetic scriptures, from the rise of Israel to the tribulation to the second coming and everything, 32:25 I've probably heard less upon the thousand-year reign than anything that I've ever heard in prophetic preaching. You have to dig for it. You have to dig it out. It's not preached a lot. Part of the reason is because there's a lot of mystery surrounding it. 32:45 There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questions. So we're not dealing with all the questions. We're trying to exalt Christ as the ruler, trying to encourage us to hang on for the ride. It might be a bumpy one. But the end result, brothers and sisters, is going to be this coming age. 33:07 Now, the most important thing for us today, after having exalted Christ and after having encouraged the saints, is one more area of encouragement. And that is, is Christ dwelling in our hearts today as Lord? We can get all excited. 33:27 One day, one day, all these guys are going to pay. All of this stuff is going to be wrapped up. It's all going to be made good. It's all going to be great. And this coming age is going to... And yet we haven't made Christ Lord of our lives. Now, that's rather inconsistent, isn't it? We're going to rejoice in His lordship over the nations, 33:48 but we're not quite ready to give Him charge of this heart. Well, I hope we can see the inconsistency of that. I hope we can see the need for Christ to be Lord today, right now, right here. 34:09 Rule and reign without rival, without equal. And bring all things under the authority of Christ in the church and in my heart and life. Let's pray. Lord, we do anticipate that great day when the dead in Christ shall rise, 34:30 and their resurrection will bring up to life those who died at various times and periods in history and in the days ahead. And we do anticipate when You come back with Your saints, the raptured church, and You set up Your kingdom. 34:50 Lord, we anticipate that. We're excited about that. We're encouraged by it. We want to live under that expectation. The Lord, let us here now, today, personally, bring all things under the authority of Your feet, under the authority of Your lordship, 35:12 under the authority of Your name, 35:16 so that then the kingdom may be presented to the Father when it's all 35:26 at the end of time. And may we be able to rejoice and anticipate the coming of our heavenly bridegroom who has purchased us of such great salvation. In His name, we pray. Amen.