Revelation 6 says this, Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals and heard one of the four living creatures saying, with a voice like thunder, Come and see. As we've come to the prophetic section of the book of Revelation, I thought that it would be appropriate to pause for several Sundays and take a look at an overview of the various views of the book of Revelation that are held by true Christians and the meaning and the visions of this book. I believe that there are four major views of the book of Revelation and three of them in their names have reference to the Millennium And the last view believes that the visions of the book have already been fulfilled in the days of Nero. I'm not going to go into great detail in regard to any of the major views in a systematic way. I simply intend to give an overview. The four major views are the premillennial, the postmillennial, the amillennial, and the preterist view. The descriptive prefixes that are in three of these, the first three, refer to Christ's second coming in relation to the millennium. In premillennialism, Christ returns before the millennium. In postmillennialism, Christ returns after the millennium. And in amillennialism, Christ is presently reigning and will return at the end of this age. These major views even have various views within them. For example, in the premillennial view, it may be distinguished into the historical premillennial and the dispensational premillennial camps. The postmillennial view may be distinguished into the historic postmillennial position and the progressive, that's my term, postmillennial position. The amillennial view may be distinguished into optimistic and pessimistic camps, and the preterist view may be distinguished into the full and the partial camps. All of these terms have significance and they have meaning, so what I want to do this afternoon is to begin to define as simply as possible what these positions are, in terms of the things that I have read about them. I do not claim to be an authority on these positions, on all these positions. I simply want you to try to understand them better and to accept the fact that true Christians do differ in their understanding of prophecy and the interpretation of the book of Revelation. I hope that in setting those views forth that each of us would make a good use of this time, be able to make better sense of the prophetic part of this book. I myself, in my spiritual pilgrimage, was a person who believed in the premillennial dispensational view of prophecy when I first became a Christian. Perhaps you were too. When I came to the doctrines of grace and the Reformed faith, I became amillennial for a time when I sat under Pastor Gordon Taylor's teaching at Sycamore Baptist Church in East Moline. And then in 1993, having read many of the Puritans and having read widely in both Reformed and Evangelical literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, I came to embrace the post-millennial view of the book of Revelation. I've only recently been exposed to the preterist view of interpretation, especially the partial preterist view which has been opened up by R.C. Sproul in his new book, The Last Days According to Jesus. I'm well aware that most of the pastors of our Reformed Baptist churches hold to an amillennial position in regard to eschatology. I have no idea how many Reformed men have held the partial preterist position in the past, or maybe some in our movement of churches who are considering it. But I am quite sure that at the present time that the vast majority of Bible-believing Christians hold to the premillennial dispensational view of prophecy. That's another reason for doing a further study of the book of Revelation, because whether you're amillennial or postmillennial or historical premillennial, it will do you well to understand these views better in order that you might try to convince people that the pre-millennial dispensational view is not correct at many points. Many churches have placed that view in their confessions of faith, and they require that it be believed as a requirement for membership in that church. I believe that that is wrong. The reason that I believe that is the difficulty of the subject. I am aware of that fact that some men believe that eschatology can be made simple. But anyone who seriously considers the meaning of the many symbols of the book of Revelation, and has tried to tie them together with where they may have been previously mentioned in the Old Testament, realizes that it is not a simple task. And then deductions and conclusions must be made in terms of those related text and a hermeneutic or a way of understanding all of these things theologically, biblically in terms of their meaning has to be developed from that as well. Some men have not wanted to try to do this in great detail and therefore they have attempted to systematize their study and simply declare that the time period of the millennium that which the Puritans, the Reformers, and others like them, many of them, referred to as the latter-day glory, which I believe is mentioned in Revelation chapters 19 and 20, and the glorious progress of the Church in this present age, which is in no uncertain terms declared in the Old Testament and is yet to take place, is then relegated or equated with the time period of the new heavens and the new earth in Revelation 21. That is why some people believe that prophetic things are simple. And when this is done, there is a failure to recognize that it is our Lord's plan that the church triumph and reign on the earth in this present age and not simply in the age to come. Eschatology is related to biblical prophetic history of the church, not simply to principles of truth that are gathered and related to the fact that Christ is presently sitting and reigning at the right hand of the Father. He will remain there reigning until all of His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. This means This means that the church has much work in preaching and in the spread of the gospel to do before Christ returns. The truth of prophetic things is something that godly men in every generation have differed on. As proof of that, let me give you the names of some very famous pastors and commentators who are in these various camps. C. H. Spurgeon, the prince of preachers and the man who is one of the fathers of the modern Reformed Baptist movement, held to the historic premillennial position. He preached as a postmillennialist, and I think sometimes even as an amillennialist, but his position that he took before other men was that he believed in the historic premillennial interpretation of last things. It appears to me that Matthew Henry is an optimistic amillennialist from the writings in his works and his commentary. John MacArthur, who is perhaps one of the most famous Bible teachers and preachers of our time, holds to the dispensational premillennial view. I'm sure he's modified it some, but he still holds to it. St. Augustine was one of the first men to teach amillennial truth in his writings. I don't know if you're aware of that or not, but he was. Theologians like B.B. Warfield, R.L. Dabney, J.L. Dagg, and Robert Haldane are all postmillennial in their thinking. I've mentioned R.C. Sproul is holding the partial preterist view A man named Ken Gentry, who is also a powerful writer on the subject of eschatology, also holds that view. It appears to me that some of the men who hold to the partial preterist view are also post-millennial in their view of the Gospel, eventually conquering greatly among the nations. So what I'm saying here this afternoon is this. Let us not disqualify our brethren from being seen as orthodox Christians because they differ from us on this matter. Whether we are amillennial or postmillennial or historic premillennial, let us not be saying, well, now these men are not orthodox because they hold a certain position, one of these four that I'm describing. It simply is not the case. A fact that may surprise you, and I hope that you will consider it, it seems to me that of all the views that we have been speaking of here, that the view which appears to have been held by the majority of reformed people after the Reformation until almost the 20th century was the post-millennial view. No longer the case today. This was the view of Baptist Andrew Fuller and William Carey. William Carey is considered as the father of modern missions. And I believe that one of the reasons that he was so active in missions was that he believed these post-millennial truths. It was the view of John Owen, and the view of John Flavel, and it was the view of William Bridge, and Philip Henry. It was the view of Jonathan Edwards, and Samuel Davies, and David Brainerd. It was the viewpoint of W.V. Sprague, and Edward Griffin, and Asa Hell-Mettleton, all pastors and evangelists in the time of the Second Great Awakening. It was the view of Samuel Pierce and John Angel James and Gardner Spring and David Brown and John Howe and Thomas Boston. It was the view of Richard Stibbs and Thomas Goodwin and Thomas Manton. It was the view of David Dixon and Samuel Ruckerford and James Durham. It was the view of Matthew Poole and John Newton and Richard Cecil. It was the view of Thomas Scott and Isaac Watts and Albert Barnes. It was the view of Archibald Alexander and his sons, Charles Hodge and his son A. A. Hodge. It was the view of Professor John Murray and John Wesley and George Whitfield. It was the view of Lorraine Bettner. And in a modified form, it was the view of John Gill. It was also the view of John Bunyan. And I could list many others. So let it not be said that post-millennial view is out of the mainstream of Orthodox thought or of Reformed thought. There are far too many of our Puritan and Reformed brethren who can be proven about them that they were of this view. The great theologian Louis Burkhoff makes this mistake in his systematic theology under the chapter entitled Millennial Views. And he's speaking here of the many pre-millennialists, the way that they think about amillennialism. And he says, some pre-millenarians have spoken of amillennialism as a new view and as one of the most recent novelties, but this certainly is not in accord with the testimony of history. And brethren, he is true about this. He is right about this. The name is new indeed, but the view to which it is applied is as old as Christianity. It had at least as many advocates as Chileism among the church fathers of the second and third centuries, which is supposed to be the heyday of Chileism. Chileism is the belief in a future thousand year reign of Christ upon the earth. It is a literal reign in the minds of pre-millennialists and spiritual in the minds of post-millennialists. A literal reign of Christ upon the earth after his second coming for pre-millennialists for 1,000 years. He is right about that. Amillennialism is old, old view of eschatology. And like I said before, it was held by Augustine and developed heavily by St. Augustine. But he then goes on to say, Birkhoff does, yet amillennialism has ever since been the most widely accepted is the only view that is either expressed or implied in the great historical confessions of the Church and has always been the prevalent view in Reformed circles. Now I'm not sure how he can say that based upon the historical confessions of our faith. The great historical confessions appear to me to be decidedly post-millennial in their view. of eschatology. I will point to three confessions. The Westminster Confession and the 1689 London Baptist Confession both speak similarly in their chapters on the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, in whom by the appointment of the Father all power for the calling, institution, order, or government of the Church is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner. Neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be the head thereof, But is that antichrist, that man of sin, the son of perdition, that exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming? This view of the pope being antichrist, although it cannot be confined exclusively to postmillennialism, most certainly is the view of all historic postmillennialists. It is one of the major truths of that system. And it has not been embraced by most amillennialists or premillennialists. And therefore, I conclude that the historic confessions, again, lean more toward postmillennialism than any of the other views. In the Staboy Confession, listen to this now, which is the Congregationalist's modification to the Westminster Confession of 1643, you find an additional paragraph under the church It says this, as the Lord in care and love toward His church has in His infinite wise providence exercised it with great variety in all ages for the good of them that love Him and His own glory, so according to His promise, we expect that in the latter days Antichrist being destroyed, he's referring to the papal system, the Jews called and the adversaries of the kingdom of his dear son broken, the churches of Jesus Christ, being enlarged and edified through a free and plentiful communication of light and grace, shall enjoy in this world a more quiet, peaceable, and glorious condition than they have enjoyed." That is post-millennialism. This is a view that I believe is the closest to the Bible in regard to the outworking of prophecy, and I will follow it as we go through the book of Revelation. There's a great need, I believe, for this view to be better understood, as I believe that many Christians have misunderstandings or misconceptions about it. They have the view that somehow it means that the world is getting better and better, and that the Church will not face worse times yet ahead before the millennium. I do not believe that. I believe that we may see some of the darkest, most bleak times of the Church yet to come before the anti-Christian forces are destroyed, before the Jews are converted, before the Lord returns, before the Millennium can even come in, in the sense that I will define it as I go through this book of Revelation. So what I want to do in the weeks to come is to take each one of these views and to examine it generally so that you will be able to grasp it well enough to be able to think about it and to know for yourself whether you believe it or not. If you find that there are biblical truths that should be retained from any one of these systems because they are plain from the scriptures, I would exhort you to receive them. For instance, the AMillennial view of prophecy has done a great service for Christ's kingdom in establishing the truth that Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, has broken down the barrier between Jew and Gentile. And that the two are now one new entity. God does not have two programs for the church. One for the Old Testament Jews, then the New Testament Gentiles, and then He takes up the program again with the Jews at a later time. When Jesus Christ came and died, He died on the cross. One of the primary reasons was so that the barrier between Jew and Gentile might be broken down and that there might be one new man formed as a result of them. And so what dispensational premillennialism does is it makes them two separate programs and entities. as though people aren't saved in the same way in the Old Testament as they are in the New by faith in Jesus Christ or faith in the promise of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. You can see where that kind of thinking would lead. Another truth that amillennialism has brought to light and which ought to be believed by all of us is that Christ is presently reigning in this present age. Now, you and I need to believe this. God is sovereign. Christ did not die in vain. Christ is presently seated at the right hand of the power of the Majesty on High, and He is there to stay there. He's not going to be coming into some greater position than what He already is in now. What we need to believe and understand is that God, through Jesus Christ, is presently reigning. And not as the premillennial dispensationalists would have us to believe that sometime in the future kingdom in the millennium that He will be reigning. No, He's reigning now. And we need to receive that truth. We need to believe that truth. In all generations, God's elect are one. In Hebrews 11.39, describing those Old Testament times and those men who did great things by faith, Paul says, "...and all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that we should not be made perfect, you see, apart from them, and they from us." We need to receive this truth of amillennialism. We need to receive these truths I'm saying to you, the Old Testament Jews and the New Testament Gentiles are viewed together under two different administrations of the covenants of grace. Jesus Christ brings them both together. And we shouldn't separate them. The strong man has indeed been bound. Even as Amillennialism says, Jesus Christ has bound him, has overcome him. He has overcome the world. These truths are not to be disdained or set aside or thought to be untrue. Just because there's going to be a glorious fulfillment in a greater sense in the future does not nullify at all those truths. Or that He isn't doing great and glorious things in the hearts of people, even when it's done on a smaller level. We all need to receive and understand that truth. All of God's elect will most certainly be saved and gathered into Christ's church And the binding of Satan in Revelation 20 does have a relation to the binding of the strong man in the Gospels, but I'm going to examine that truth at a later time. If the declarations and assertions that any of these systems make are not plain to you from the Scriptures and seem to be forced conclusions, either on other men's part or on my part, you are free to reject them. Do you see what I'm saying? I will not be telling you as we go through the book of Revelation that you must come to my view of the book of Revelation or to the post-millennial position of eschatology. And I will not belittle your view of eschatology if it is amillennialism or historic premillennialism or partial preterism. I am going to attempt to challenge the views of dispensational premillennialism and full preterism. I do ask that you would consider the post-millennial view as you will hear me preach it. You have heard me preach it on many different occasions on a smaller compass. And I hope that you will at least give me a hearing in regard to it as we go through the book of Revelation. I believe that we are on the verge of some very great things taking place in the Church at large in the battle for truth and righteousness. and the forward progress of the Gospel and Christ's Kingdom in the world. But I'm also well aware that the false doctrine and false religion of the anti-Christian system and forces has not yet been defeated by the forward progress of truth. And this, I believe, is what stands between us and what the book of Revelation calls in chapter 20, the Millennium. Well, let's pray together. Father, we do stand in amazement as to your work among nations and the history of the church. We read it and it is overwhelming. The amount of great and glorious things that you have done in amongst nations and the hearts of people and throwing down systems that were opposed and set up to the kingdom and throne of Jesus Christ. And Lord, we know that there is more yet to come, and so we pray, Father, that You will give us a mind and a heart to learn what this might be, and that we would, with all of our strength and with all of our heart, that we would serve You, that we would live godly lives, and that we would hold fast to the hope of not only Christ's return, but Your also continuing to work with Your church and to cause her to reign among the nations and in the earth. We pray, Father, for your blessing upon our study of Revelation in the weeks to come, and we pray that it would be profitable to every heart here. For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.