Views of the Kingdom

Transcript

GR 1999
Views of the Kingdom
Revelation; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh
04/09/2017

Palm Sunday, we celebrate beginning the most momentous week in the history of the world, the week when the Son of God Who had come to this earth to be king, to rule and reign. But first He had to suffer and die so He could provide salvation for lost sinful human beings, so that we might be part of the kingdom that He would someday return to earth to establish, that would go on forever. What a privilege it is to know and understand the truth concerning Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, and that He suffered and died according to the plan of God to make payment for our sin. And that God would offer us the free gift of eternal life, forgiveness, cleansing, and a relationship with Him in an eternity of glory simply by receiving the gift that He provided. We do that by believing that He is the One who loved us and died for us.

Most of you are here regularly on Sunday morning at Indian Hills and know we have begun a study of the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ given to His servant John. We have done the first three chapters and are ready to move into the prophetic portions of the book and we'll start with looking into heaven in chapters 4-5. And what an awesome portion of the Word that is. Then in our study we will return back to the earth in chapter 6 and we will move through events that are going to take place on this earth in coming days, climaxing with the return of Jesus Christ to earth to establish His kingdom. We are going to look at a variety of overview matters today, just to sort of be sure that we are all together and understand. There is much confusion on the subject of prophecy and some people just give up and say, it will work out. Whatever God has decided to do, I'm going to be comfortable with. But God has told us about the future so that it might shape and mold us in the way we live day by day. We noted when we began the study of the book of Revelation that several times God pronounces blessings for those who hear what He says in the book of Revelation and live in light of it. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. How sad it is, some people think it is something mysterious, hard to know and understand. God says it is a revelation, it is an unveiling, it is making known. So we are not going to be in the book of Revelation specifically today, but we are going to talk about the overview of some of these matters.

Everything is foundational on how we interpret the Bible. We have been through that several times, the principles of interpreting the Bible. We call it literal interpretation, normal interpretation. People get off track when they think the Bible is something almost magical, you have to have special insights and so on to understand it. God wrote it to be understood. You understand that the people of Israel were just shepherd people, they weren't attending great universities, getting advanced degrees. And yet much of our Bible is addressed to Israel, all of our Old Testament, and it was expected to be understood, including the prophecies God gave through His prophets. And then when Jesus came and surrounded Himself with the initial disciples, who did He pick? A tax gatherer, fisherman, ordinary people. And God has given His Word to be understood. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, “it's not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble that God has called.” God has chosen the foolish things, the base things, the things of no account or importance from the world's perspective. That's encouraging. God intends us common, ordinary people to hear His Word, to understand and believe it and then to live in light of it.

So first we are going to look at an overview of prophecy, a chart that we have looked at a number of times. This is the overall perspective that God gives of the course of the world. We started with the 70 weeks of Daniel; that comes from Daniel 9. He even gives us a starting date, 444 B.C., and he said 70 weeks were determined for his people, Israel, and for his holy city, Jerusalem. And we've noted 69 of those weeks, 483 years ended with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, what we are celebrating. Think about that! When in Daniel 9 God told Daniel what the future would hold, the beginning of those 70 weeks, and what would happen at the end of those 70 weeks. And do you know what he says in Daniel 9? After that 69th week Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. That could not be understood at the time by Daniel because the Jews were looking for the Messiah to come and establish a kingdom. That's what He came and offered. John the Baptist came ahead of Him saying repent for the kingdom is at hand. We are celebrating Palm Sunday, Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that donkey in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah given hundreds of years earlier that their king would arrive in that way. But within the week He has been finally rejected and crucified. But He comes to be King. With His crucifixion and rejection by Israel, He is raised from the dead, the grave couldn't contain Him. He is different than every other man who has ever lived and the rulers that have lived. We build tombs and monuments, we go to Egypt and look at the tombs of the Pharaohs. But Jesus Christ is alive. He’s been raised from the dead!

But there are seven years left in God's program with Israel. Well, what are seven years? It has been 2000 years since Christ died, we can just forget about those. No, God doesn't forget. There are no alterations necessary in His plan. With the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, their King, Christ ascended to heaven in Acts 1. And the church begins in Acts 2, and that's what we have here. The period of time in which we live is called the church age. God is focusing His work of salvation in the world in the church, manifested in local churches around the world. People who have come to believe in Jesus Christ, His death on the cross as payment for their sin, His resurrection from the dead in victory. That's what makes you a member of the body of Christ, the church. And in connection with that you become part of a fellowship in the local church. Joining a church doesn't make you a child of God, it is faith in Jesus Christ. You can join a church, be baptized, take communion, do all sorts of things and die and go to hell because you can't be saved by what you do. You can only be saved by what Christ has done. And that only becomes effective for each one of us when we recognize that we are the sinners He died for, we are the guilty ones. It was our sin that necessitated His death and recognize “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son in order that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.” And today Jesus Christ is building His church with those who come to believe in Him. It is primarily Gentile. In the Old Testament He worked primarily, almost exclusively, with the nation Israel. Now there are Jews who are saved, there may be a few of you here, but primarily it is Gentiles who are responding in this day. It is called in the book of Romans the time of the fullness of the Gentiles, the time when God is giving the Gentiles of the world a special opportunity to believe in Christ and experience His salvation.

But when this time is over, the end of this period, Christ will come in the air. And we've looked at this, it is called the rapture of the church. The Greek word in our New Testament is harpadzo. We get the word rapture from the Latin word that was used to translate the Greek word, and we carried that over into English. It's when Christ comes in the air, calls all believers, believers during the church age who have died, they have been in heaven, they come down with Christ. At that time their bodies come out of the grave, they come up to meet Christ in the air. Then they are taken to heaven, the place Christ has prepared for them.

Following that we have what is called the 70th week of Daniel. Remember there were 70 weeks God said He had laid out for Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Now He is ready to pick up and resume that program, it is divided into two 3½ -year segments. This is what Revelation 6-19 will be about. We get things laid out for us now in an order to help us understand it. The Old Testament prophesied about much of these things but things weren't put in order for them by God. But now in this last revelation from God, called the book of Revelation, God lays it out sequentially and adds to it. It will be a time of great difficulty, suffering, persecution. Literally billions of people will die on this planet before we are done. In fact Jesus said when He talked about this period of time, if He didn't intervene after seven years, there wouldn't be a person left alive on the face of the earth. People are dying in numbers it is hard to comprehend. We'll see that as we move through the book of Revelation, and God gives us numbers of how many people died in this plague, in this judgment, in this judgment, and they pile up. Like I say, we will be in the billions before we are done. It's amazing anyone will survive. So this period of time is before.

The next thing is the rapture. There is nothing that has to happen. We looked at some of the reasons we believe that the rapture occurs at this time, before this seven-year period called the pre-tribulation rapture, before the seven-year tribulation. The last point, the seventh point that we just touched on in the seven points we looked at was imminencey, which means Christ can return at any time. There is nothing that has to happen before the rapture of the church. It could happen in the next five minutes, it would simply mean every true believer in this auditorium would immediately just vanish, disappear, be called to meet Christ in the air. Doesn't mean everybody in this auditorium would disappear because any who might be here who haven't trusted Christ will be left to go into this seven-year period.

At the end of the seven years Christ Himself returns to earth with the people that were raptured here. This is Revelation 19 remember. So we have been in heaven, now we come back with Him to the earth. Remarkable event. He will stand on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem. You will have Armageddon and those events. There will be judgments, we will move into the kingdom, the first phase of which is one thousand years. So we call it the millennium. Not all that there is to the kingdom, it's the first phase of an eternal kingdom and when we get to Revelation 20 we will talk about those details. Much of Old Testament prophecy speaks about that event.

So this is the overview, so we understand where we are. We are someplace in the church age, maybe here, maybe here, maybe here. Who knows? Like I say the rapture could occur in five minutes, could occur tonight, tomorrow, a month, a year, five. We don't know. We do look and see things that will be taking place in the 70th week and sometimes say that fits. We know there will be things happening with Israel, Israel will be back in their land Scripture tells us. Israel during this period of time will have a rebuilt temple in Israel. Some of these things we look around. The nations around them, according to Ezekiel 38, will be looking and eventually attack them in an act of war in alliance with Russia. So we know some of the things that are happening here. So we say if we see some of these things, perhaps we are getting close to this event. But it will happen in God's time. And we are to be alert, expecting Him and prepared for Him at any time.

Now we talk about the pre-millennial return of Christ, that's His return at this point, before the kingdom, to establish the kingdom. Now there are different views and I want to overview them with you, not to confuse you but to hopefully know why there are differences. This particular view that we have here on the screen is based upon a literal interpretation of biblical prophecy, which means we interpret the Old Testament prophecies literally. When God said there were 70 seven-year periods, 490 years determined for His people Israel and for Jerusalem, we believe that is going to be literally taking place. He meant 490 years. He just didn't pick out a number and say 70x7 and seven is the number of perfection, I guess we just mean when God's perfect time is complete then He'll do it. When you start talking like that, then you are just out here in “Alice in Wonderland” dreaming. No. We take prophecy literally. When it says Christ will come to earth and establish a kingdom over which He will rule, we believe that is literal. So that will be the difference in the viewpoints. If you interpret the Bible literally, and if you have been here you know we do this in a normal way, the way we talk and communicate.

We use figures of speech. We'll say I was blown away by what he had to say. You were not, you are too heavy, you couldn't be blown away. Don't care if you weigh 50 pounds or 500, you couldn't be blown away by what he said. There is not enough air coming out of his mouth, even from the windiest of us, thinking of preachers. So we use figures of speech but it has a literal meaning. There was an impact upon me, it took me back. We don't say, he wasn't speaking literally, I wonder what he meant. So figures of speech we recognize. But if I say I'll meet you back at the sound booth after the service, you don't say I wonder what he meant. Sound booth, where do you get sounds? You can get sounds in the family center, maybe they have a booth set up. We say that's silly. So we don't come to the Bible and start making it silly. This is serious. God speaks and then He tells us, “you better obey.” Well it wouldn't be fair if He told me in a way that I could never understand, would it? We tell our kids, do I make myself clear? This is what you have to do. That's the way God speaks to us.

So if you interpret the Bible literally, normally in biblical prophecy, this is the pattern that will unfold for you. And there is basically no disagreement. I'm going to share some different views with you but I've already shared from the writings of those, for those of you who were here, that they agree. If you interpret the bible literally, this is where you will end up. And you will understand Israel is always Israel in the Bible. When God says something about Israel, He doesn't mean that is just spiritual people who are God's, no matter what their nationality. No, you have to be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be in the line of God's promises to Israel, Jacob being the third in that line whose name was changed to Israel. So that's the way we are going to look at it.

We have a comparative chart. We compare two views here because both these views are pre-millennial. It means Christ will return to earth at the beginning of the kingdom to establish the kingdom. One is pre-trib, one is post-trib. Post-trib means that Christ will return after the time of tribulation, pre-trib means He is going to return for the church before the tribulation. You see we just have the church age here, we put in 70 weeks, the 70th week, but those who hold this view really believe that the whole church age is a time of tribulation. Remember Jesus told His disciples His last night with them, in the world you have tribulation. Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. So they say the church always has tribulation, sometimes it is worse, sometimes it is worse in some parts of the world than in others. We left on this 70th week here at the end because some of those who hold this say it may get worse toward the end of this period. They believe the rapture of the church will occur at the end here of the whole church age and this time of tribulation, we'll meet Christ in the air, then we'll turn around and come back down to earth with Him and start the kingdom.

It is also called dispensational pre-millennialism, a bigger word, but it just means those who take the Bible literally and as a result see Israel and the church distinct. What happens with this view, sometimes called historic pre-millennialism or classic pre-millennialism, they don't keep the church and Israel separate. The church is the new Israel, is their terminology, the true Israel. So there may be a future for many of the Jews but it will be as they are incorporated into the church. So Israel as Israel doesn't have the same future, it's the church. And the nation Israel, for some of them they may say that toward the end many of them may get converted because it is hard to deal with passages like Romans 11 and take it any way other than its clear statements. But this has become a very popular view. It's the view of where schools go.

Let me read you the most recent book I have on this, it was written by a group of seminary professors in 2009 in Colorado, presenting this post-tribulation view. They view this view for people who are just common, uneducated, illiterate. They take everything literally. Well, that's too simplistic. I've read some of the things to you, this is out of their book. These are seminary professors, claiming to be evangelicals, believe in the pre-millennial return but this is how they look at the other views.

It started in the 1940s. Post-tribulationalism goes back before that, but it was revived in the 1940s under what is known as neo-evangelicalism, the new evangelicalism. And that basically had several components. They didn't want to be narrow fundamentalists any more, separate from the world. They wanted to be recognized as scholars, not just among believers but in the world. And they wanted to be strongly involved in social and political matters. Those are three key things that were important to what we call the new evangelicals. So they wanted to get away from this literal interpretation of the Bible that marked Christians off as separate. Wasn't focused on scholarliness, any believer who has the Spirit who seriously studies the Word should be able to understand it. And they thought we needed to be in social and political issues if we were going to impact the world. So here is what they have to say.

In the 1960s, when this really started to take hold, a new generation of historic pre-millennialists, that's another name for the post-trib pre-millennialists, the historic pre-millennialists began publishing scholarly books on eschatology. Because before that they were just for you and me. One is tempted to say that historic premillennialism rates high as elitist because its leadership tends to be school-based. In other words we are in the scholarly world, we are the educated. Most writing on historic pre-millennialism is not intended for the masses, most of it is written by scholars for scholars. Well, snooty, snooty. This is in their book, it's entitled The Case for Historic Premillennialism. They are proud of it. I don't think I get any indication in the Old or New Testament that God wrote His Word as one scholar to another. Peter was a fisherman, Amos wasn't even an official prophet. He was a herdsman, he kept sheep. And they are proud that some people are moving from this position toward this position. And if you look at who those people are, they have doctorates from Oxford, Cambridge and other impressive universities. Well I don't understand how going to Oxford would give you a better understanding of the truth of the Word of God. There was a day back in the days of the Puritans when some of those old universities . . . Today you go to the unbeliever, and this is what happens, they go to these unbelieving schools, they sit under that teaching. And the simplicity and the beauty of the Word that God gave to ordinary people like you and like me, you don't even have to finish school and you can know and understand and have a grasp of the Word of God. Obviously you have to know something about language, you have to have learned to speak, to communicate. But it's not any different than the way we communicate.

Here is what they quote one of their people that they would agree with. When they are criticizing this view over here . . . What drives scholars crazy is if you take the Bible literally, just at face value in a normal way, anybody can understand it. And it is so cut and dried, I mean, this is what it says and this is what it means. Scholars like to have things open and loose. Part of being scholarly is being open to other things. So it is a constant point of irritation that we take the Bible literally. What does that mean for me as a scholar? Now we learn from scholars. I appreciate scholars, the commentaries they write, when they devote that exceptional ability God has blessed them with. Not to making the Scripture complicated but to explaining it in its simplicity. I started getting a theological journal from one of the seminaries back in the 1960s and the articles written in there were written by men who were truly scholarly. But they wrote in such a way that you could read it and understand it. I even subscribed to it for my parents. My mother dropped out of school after the 11th grade to get married because my Dad was going to World War II. Many people did things like that. But she could read and understand it; it was just explaining the Bible. Nowadays I get that same journal, half the time I don't have any idea what they are talking about. It is way beyond me. I can understand there is a time for one scholar to address another scholar, but when we begin . . . One of the professors, not here, has warned of the danger that we create a scholarly elite that remove the Bible from the hands of the people.

And we have our own form of Roman Catholicism that took the Bible out of the hands of the people because it is scholarly. Here is what this man says regarding that literal interpretation of the Bible and biblical prophecy. It has inflamed the imaginations of the biblically illiterate into consuming end time fantasies. When people are ignorant of the imagery of the prophets and gospels, untutored in the metaphorical language of war and the story of salvation, they are easy prey for entertaining predictions of the end time. And Jesus told us quite clearly that the people who make these breathless and sensational predictions are themselves the “false christs” and “false prophets.” They are pretending to warn us against…I mean, it is just . . . Some of these men, I don't doubt, are believers. But we get moved along when we make our desire to be recognized as something other than a follower of Jesus Christ. I want to be recognized.

The leading, in fact they say in here he is the most outstanding man promoting the post-trib rapture in the history, George Elton Ladd. His biography is entitled A Place at the Table. And it is a good balanced biography, written by a former student. And he admires him and thinks he is to be followed. But I appreciate he also points his weaknesses. A Place at the Table, he acknowledged this man was driven by a desire to be recognized in the scholarly world. Went to Harvard to get his doctorate, didn't think it had impacted him. But his biography said he changed. And that encouragement was, we need men to go to Harvard and schools like that to get degrees that will be recognized in the world. Too bad God's plan is to take those things, the foolish things of the world, the things that the world does not admire, and to use them to transform lives. Dangerous position, I'm going to talk more about this because some of it will lead into some of the corruptions that ties to what we are talking about in Galatians. We'll do that in our study tonight.

Those are two views that impact. This has become a dominant view because it has taken over the schools, seminaries, Christian colleges. Because what happens here is they say the kingdom began at the first coming of Christ. Because if you want to have an emphasis on social action, political action, you go to the Old Testament and what the Bible says will happen in the kingdom. You ought to emphasize being recognized by the world and being involved and we permeate, we're in the kingdom. So they say the kingdom began at the first coming of Christ but it will come to its fullness at the Second Coming. So they say it is already, not yet, we are already . . . So the church age is the kingdom, so that's why they blend Israel and the church and the church is the new Israel and we're in the kingdom. But when Christ comes then it will have its full earthly phase. Now, since we're in the kingdom, we ought to be involved in political action, we ought to be involved in social action, we ought to be involved in getting recognition in the scholarly world to spread the kingdom and permeate the world. We shouldn't be separate from the world….those kinds of things. That's why I say, people say future things, eschatology. But it shapes what we do. If we are in the kingdom, then we should be politically involved because the kingdom will be political. There should be social and political justice, social things, poverty. Our mission field is being corrupted with this distortion. I'll share some of that with you tonight. The church today is because the world admires that kind of action. So they believe we are in the kingdom. That's not all there is to the kingdom, they believe there is a premillennial return, but the kingdom already began. Christ is sitting on the throne of David in heaven and we are building the kingdom here on earth. And then there will be the final phase when Christ returns.
There are other views you need to be aware of. Why don't you put up chart 3. Up here is the dispensational, it is pretribulational or dispensational premillennialism. We'll talk about that word sometime, someplace. All you need to know is that is the literal interpretation of the Bible and biblical prophecy, and it keeps Israel and the church distinct. Because if you interpret the Bible literally you can't say that when it says Israel, it is the church, because the church is not Israel.

We have the two forms, we have that other form, I didn't put that on the chart since we had a separate chart. There are two other views here, amillennialism and most have come out of one of these backgrounds. Amillennialism. Now all are agreed, no matter what the view is now, that the first 300 years of the church from the writings we have of the early church, they were premillennial. They believed that Christ was going to return to earth and establish a kingdom. There is debate over whether they were pre-trib or post-trib, but they are all agreed they were premillennial. Around 400 A.D. a man named Augustine came into the picture and some things were going on in the world. It looked like the kingdom was really here. So he moved from being a premillennialist to being an amillenialist, the “a” on the front of millennium. Millennium is just the Latin word for t thousand years. The “a” means no thousand years. Now technically an amillennialist believes there is a kingdom, they believe we are in the kingdom now. It began at the first coming of Christ, it will climax at the Second Coming of Christ. So there is no distinct earthly kingdom over which Christ rules, He is reigning in heaven now and then He will return to earth, there will be judgment and we will go into eternity. There is no future earthly kingdom. The kingdom is the church.

So Augustine, because remember it is about that time that Constantine the Roman Emperor claimed to get converted to Christianity and he made Christianity the religion of the Empire. So he wed Christianity to the political situation. It looks like we have the kingdom. We have a Roman Emperor who claims to be a follower of Christ, who wants Christianity to permeate his empire, and we're in the kingdom. He thought he had found the answer, the kingdom began at the first coming of Christ and we live in the kingdom. So amillennialists, Roman Catholicism is amillennial. Christ is ruling on the throne in heaven and the pope is His earthly representative. That's why nothing gets done there without the approval of the pope, because Christ is ruling through the pope. So there is a kingdom and they set up the structure. They don't deny that that's their conviction. If you came out of a Lutheran church, almost any of the denominational—Presbyterian, Mennonite. The reformers were all amillennial, believed they were in the kingdom because they came out of Catholicism. Luther was a Catholic priest, right? Calvin was a Catholic priest, Menno Simons was a Catholic priest. But when they understood the truth of the Gospel, then they left the Catholic Church and stood against that teaching. But they never changed their view of interpreting Bible prophecy. So Luther would argue for a literal interpretation of the Bible, but he never got to sorting out some other things. So the denominations that developed from them never changed anything, either. So by and large Lutherans would be, that doesn't mean every single Lutheran, but the group would be amillennial as are the other major denomination.

So it is existent today and they are involved in social action. That is consistent, we are in the kingdom. The Roman Catholic Church is big on social programs, they are big in being involved politically around the world. We know something of the history of that. Protestant denominations, if we are in the kingdom we ought to be improving the world, we ought to be making politics, whatever. That's amillennialism. No physical earthly kingdom, we are in the kingdom and have been since the first coming of Christ and it will end with the Second Coming of Christ because then we are in eternity.

The other major view is post-millennialism, and post means after. So their view is that we live in the church age, we are in the kingdom, but things will get better and better and better. And pretty soon the world will be saturated with Christianity. It doesn't mean everyone will be saved because some of the kingdom prophecies in the Old Testament talk about sin in the kingdom, death in the kingdom. But by and large the world will “have been Christianized.” So Christ will return sometime after the kingdom. But the kingdom may be a lot longer than a thousand years because a thousand years in Revelation 20 are just a symbolic number. But the point is we can change the world and this has ebbed and flowed as well. Jonathan Edwards in early American church history in New England was a post-millennialist. And some of you read his stuff and been involved in trying and moving the world along to make it better. So you have those kinds of influences, impacts. You get into the Puritans and so on and their time.

When I was in school in the 1960s, but back in those dark ages the only post-millennialist that was living and writing that we talked about was Loraine Boettner, who lived down in Missouri. But it underwent a revival. It almost died out, it was popular in the 1800s, major theologies and so on were written by post-millennialists. But then you had World War I and World War II, didn't look like the world was getting converted and getting better. So it pretty much died out. But then things settled down and prosperity came and good things came and you had a revival of postmillennialism. Put the word theos, God, and namos, law, and you get the word I can't say, or reconstructionism. They began to promote things—we ought to implement the Mosaic Law, we ought to be voting this way, we ought to be pushing society, taking a stand, requiring this, control. Thinking that we could. So these things come and go.

One thing all of these views except this have in common—a-millennialism, post-millennialism, and the post-tribulation that believes that the church is in the kingdom now but there is a future kingdom coming—all believe we are in the kingdom. A-millennialism, in fact the post-millennial book I referred to, they say you will see a lot of similarities between us and the a-millennialist because we both believe we are in the kingdom, we both believe we should be doing kingdom work. The only difference is we believe there is a future earthly kingdom and the a-millennialist doesn't. The post-millennialist believes they are in the kingdom. That's why dispensational pre-millennialists stand outside of what everybody else is saying. We have to be careful, we come to Scripture and determine what is biblical and move out from there.

I mentioned neo-evangelicalism. They started with the idea, “if we are going to impact the world, we are going to have to be socially and politically involved. If we are going to be recognized by the world for our scholarship, we'll have to have degrees that are recognized from recognizable places. We can't view ourselves as separate and distinct, we have to be permeating.” And then from that they decided they ought to have a view of the kingdom that would be consistent with what they wanted to do. That's going backwards. You don't decide what you would like to happen in the world and then back up, build a theology that will give you that. You go to Scripture and decide what has God said that's foundational, unchanging and we move out from there. Doesn't matter the world might admire those who produce great social programs. He has called the church to do a great spiritual work and we move away from what God says the church is and so we say is it a big deal if they say we are in the kingdom or not in the kingdom? I don't care if you call it the church or the kingdom. You have to care because God cares! He says the church is not the kingdom, here is what the kingdom is. The thing that amazes me, all of these positions, these two, post-millenialism, a-millennialism and post-triblationalism who also believes we are in the kingdom, all agree. If you take prophecy literally you will be a dispensational pre-millennialist. Why would you change? Every prophecy that has been fulfilled in Scripture has been fulfilled literally. Period. There is no debate about that. All the prophecies regarding Israel that have been fulfilled have been fulfilled literally, all the prophecies about Christ that were to be fulfilled at His first coming have been fulfilled literally. Nobody disagrees. But the ones that are yet future, we think we can change. I have to say, I scratch my head, I can't make sense of it.

I just want to run through with you what Scripture says about the kingdom and it’s future. 2 Samuel 7. This is the Davidic Covenant. It is a subset of the Abrahamic Covenant first given in Genesis 12. But the Davidic Covenant is the covenant God establishes with David and his descendant to rule over a kingdom, over a kingdom forever. So 2 Samuel 7:8 says, gives the prophet the instruction, “You shall say this to My servant David.” The end of verse 9, “I will make your name great, like the names of great men who are on the earth. I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and I will plant them and they will live in their own place and not be disturbed again nor will the wicked afflict them anymore as formerly.” Now you can't say, if you interpret the Bible literally, that that has happened. I mean not to this day.

And he goes on, the end of verse 11, “The Lord declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you.” A house is a dynasty, we still use that in places where they still have royalty like England or Saudi Arabia. They talk about the house of so-and-so. “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers,” talking about David, “I will raise up your seed after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” A part of what is going to promise down through this will apply to Solomon, but part of it goes beyond Solomon because Solomon is not ruling today. He died. And under his son the kingdom split, it wasn't established forever. And the northern ten tribes will go to captivity and the southern two tribes will go to captivity. So that promise is foundational.

Come over to Daniel. I realize this is review, Daniel 2. Daniel is given an overview of future events from his day forward of the empires of the world. Babylon was the empire ruling as Daniel writes. And you work through the next empires down to Rome. Then in Daniel 2:42 you have the toes of the feet, partly of iron, partly of pottery, ten toes. We know there are ten because later prophecy tells us there are ten. You would expect that on the image of a man. Then in verse 44, “In the days of those kings,” those ten toes, “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. That kingdom will not be left for another people, it will crush, put an end to all these kingdoms. It itself will endure forever.” Now if you are a-millennial and you believe we are in the kingdom and it began with the first coming of Christ, you say the ten toes were ten emperors. And you read their writings, they try to pick out ten rulers that we might say would fit. And Christ established His kingdom but it is not an earthly kingdom like the other kingdoms were. You see they don't appreciate that there is progressive revelation. With the first coming of Christ and His rejection by Israel, there is a period not revealed in the Old Testament called the church age. You can't say that Christ has crushed all the kingdoms of the world and He is ruling. If you think that, I can't help you. I mean, what do you say? Turn on the news. We're talking about the United States and possible conflict with Russia and this nation conflicting with this. Well, it's a spiritual kingdom, He is ruling and conquering in hearts. That's nothing like the kingdoms He says He is going to crush and replace and endure forever. I mean, this idea you can come back now and rewrite the Old Testament, you can't do that with God's Word.

Come over to Daniel 7, God repeats Himself. Same vision, different symbols, imagery. Here beasts, but the same empires, culminating with Rome. And then out of Rome comes ten horns, the end of verse 7. And then where do we go? We have a few more details added here, then we come to the kingdom. Verse 13, “I kept looking in the night visions. One with the clouds of a heaven like the Son of Man,” Christ's favorite name for Himself during His earthly ministry, Son of Man. “He came to the Ancient of Days, was presented before Him. To Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” Now you get into problems here. If you have a-millennialism and you are in the kingdom, this view here, like Roman Catholicism, what have they done down through their history? Persecution. Why? We are in the kingdom, we have replaced Israel. What did Israel do with heretics? Executed them. What did Roman Catholicism do with non-Roman Catholics? Execute them. You see we are the kingdom. The Reformers got into this, they killed off one another. Why? We are in the kingdom. What was Israel supposed to do in the Old Testament with heretics? Execute them. Well, you carry that over, we are just doing what God says we do when we are His kingdom. You see it begins to have practical repercussions. John Calvin was criticized for executing a heretic named Cervetes. I wrote a man who wrote a book criticizing Calvin for doing that and not understanding grace. I said you sound like the God of the Old Testament was a different God. Calvin's problem was he thought he was in the kingdom and you shouldn't allow heretics in the kingdom. He had set up his own version at Geneva, it was perfectly consistent with his theology. The problem was his theology was wrong.

These kinds of things have practical implications. People say why doesn't your church get involved in social programs? Because we don't see ourselves as in the kingdom. What does that have to do with it? We're talking about getting involved in a social program. It has everything to do with it. If you think you are in the kingdom, you ought to be doing social things, working for political justice. We'll talk more about that at a later date
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Come over to Matthew 24, see the literal interpretation, there is consistency through the Old Testament right into the New Testament. We could have stopped at Zechariah, and Zechariah 9 is what they quoted regarding Christ, riding into Jerusalem on the donkey. Fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. You come to Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse. They ask Christ about His coming to establish the kingdom. He goes through the tribulation, that seven years prior to Christ which we are going to see in detail. Same things. Then you see in verse 15, “the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.” That's in the context of that section on the 70 weeks of Daniel in Daniel 9, beginning with verse 24. The abomination of desolation, the great tribulation that will take place. Note what I had mentioned, verse 22, “unless those days had been cut short no life would have been saved.” Verse 29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days” you have signs in the heavens. We'll see this in Revelation. Verse 30, “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, all the tribes of the earth will mourn, they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.”

You come over to Matthew 25:31, “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.” Then they are saying He is on His throne now. He is saying the throne I am talking about on the earth is yet future. All the nations will be gathered before Him, He will separate them, believer from unbeliever. And He'll tell those then that are believers they are going into the kingdom. Verse 34, “Then the King will say to those on His right, come you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” He doesn't say aren't you glad you have been in the kingdom. He says now we are going into the kingdom. I have set My throne up on the earth. The kingdom begins and I am sifting out who is coming in and who is not. And we go on, that's where Revelation 19 will bring us that return of Christ. Then Revelation 20 with the beginning of the kingdom.

Important that we keep our perspective. Bad theology always catches up to you. We say I think we make too much out of eschatology, future things. We ought to be concentrating on it now. If your eschatology is corrupted, your “now” will get corrupted. The church will think how God must be pleased that we are trying to bring about social justice in the world; that we are trying to raise the poverty level in these places. And we expect to stand before Him and He will say it's not what I told you to do but it was not a bad idea. I'm happy. That's not the way it is. We're the slaves, He is the master. You do what I tell you. You don't improvise, you don't come up with alternatives, you do what I told you. And when you have done everything I told you, then you remind yourself you are at best an unprofitable slave because you only did what you were told. We have our hands full doing what we were told, let alone trying to improvise and improve on what God said.

We are going to the kingdom. You are either going to the kingdom or you are going to hell. Those are the only two destinies. You either are going to the kingdom or you are going to hell. We'll see that when we get to the end of Revelation 20. Everyone not going to the kingdom is sentenced to an eternal hell; everyone who has been saved by God's grace through faith is going into the kingdom. What a glorious future!

Let's pray. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word. Thank You, Lord, that even as we reflect on the first coming of Christ, even that which is called a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, it was a triumphal entry but the nation rejected Him. But Christ would accomplish the greatest victory, paying the penalty for sin so that when He does come to establish His kingdom there will be a host of the redeemed who because of Your grace and the provision You made in Christ can rule and reign with Him for all eternity. Lord, may the truths of Your Word grip our hearts, may we hold them fast, may we delight to live in the expectation of the return of Christ to call the church into Your presence. We pray in Christ's name, amen.