Having seen the climactic second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory to earth to defeat His enemies in chapter 19 verses 11 through 21, He now establishes His millennial kingdom in chapter 20. That's what we're going to be looking at. But before we get into the text itself. This morning, I want to do something a little different and give an introduction to the millennial kingdom of Christ. The word millennium comes from two Latin terms that mean a thousand years. When we talk about Christ's millennial kingdom, we're talking about his thousand-year reign on the earth. A thousand years, as we read through verses 1 through 7, is mentioned six times. Six times. However, this thousand year earthly kingdom of Christ is one of the most debated issues in eschatology. And it centers around the meaning of the thousand years. And at the heart of the debate is the issue of hermeneutics or the method of interpretation. It's amazing to me that all sides agree that interpreting Old Testament prophecy literally leads naturally to the premillennial view. And I'll talk more about what that even means. Floyd Hamilton is an amillennialist. He says this, "'Now we must frankly admit that a literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies gives us just such a picture of an early reign of the Messiah as the premillennialist pictures.'" End quote. A post-millennialist, Lorraine Botner, states this, and I quote, it is generally agreed that if the prophecies are taken literally, they do foretell a restoration of the nation of Israel in the land of Palestine with the Jews having a prominent place in that kingdom and ruling over the other nations, end quote. But even though they both state this is what the text literally says, neither of them believe that. They don't believe that this is what the text actually means because of the way they interpret the Bible and these prophetic texts. So I want us to look at why that is. So this morning we're gonna be looking at three truths about the millennial kingdom of Christ on earth that I believe should encourage us to simply trust what the word of God says. The first truth is what I call God's kingdom is central in scripture. God's kingdom. is central in Scripture. The subject of the kingdom of God is the central overarching theme of the Bible, encompassing all the other major themes in the Bible. Everything comes up and fits into the overarching theme of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is broadly defined as the sphere in which He reigns, the sphere in which God reigns, and it's interchangeably used with the kingdom of heaven. They basically are synonymous, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, because you see both of them used, talking about the same thing in the New Testament. It is God's sovereign rule over everything from eternity past to eternity future, for it has always existed and will always exist, the kingdom of God. David declared in Psalm 103, verse 19, Yahweh has established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all. God's kingdom is carried out or it's mediated on earth through the dominion of man over the creation, through the divine institution of human government, and spiritually through the church. And it was administered specifically in the nation of Israel by divinely appointed kings in the divinic line, or the line of David, which is the line of the Messiah. The expectation of the promised divinic king was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Matthew 1.1 says, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Each one of the facts about Jesus is literally true in Luke 1, verses 32 and 33, which says, he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom." At his first coming, Jesus and his forerunner, John the Baptist, proclaimed the same message. Repent. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. God's kingdom proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets was to be an earthly kingdom under the Messiah with a restored Israel and blessings for the nations. And repentance was the condition for entering it. But the people of Israel refused to repent. They rejected Jesus as their Messiah King. They also rejected his message of the kingdom. And therefore, he began from then on to speak of the kingdom as coming in the future, as coming in the future. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 25 verse 31, and when the Son of Man comes in His glory with all the angels with Him, again, we've just seen that in Revelation 19 where Christ in His second coming is coming back in glory with His saints and His angels, then He will sit on His glorious throne. The earthly kingdom of Christ with his saints is actualized or is fulfilled at his second coming to earth. And it is in Revelation 20 that Messiah King Jesus begins his worldwide earthly reign in Jerusalem. on the throne of his father David over the house of Jacob and the rest of the world that will then continue into the eternal state forever. Therefore, all of God's Old Testament and New Testament promises to Israel about His earthly kingdom will be fulfilled because God always keeps His covenant promises. He cannot lie. But not everyone interprets God's Word that way. And we understand why in the second truth about the millennial kingdom of Christ on earth, which is what I call here the primary views describing the millennium. There's various views of the millennium. Multiple views. If you've done any study at all in that area, I'm just going to give a brief description of only the three primary views. The first view is called amillennialism. Since the prefix a- or a- means no, amillennialism is misleading because it doesn't mean that this view teaches that there is no millennium. That's not what it's saying. It does believe in a kingdom. but only that the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah's kingdom on earth are being fulfilled in this present age between the first and the second coming of Christ by the church. So we are in the millennium as well as the tribulation right now. Therefore, the six references to a thousand years in Revelation 20 are not taken literally. They're not taken literally, but symbolically to mean an indefinite period of time, however much time that is between the first coming and the second. Also, this view sees the millennium as the spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts of His people, the church. Since Amillennialists believe God is finished with the nation of Israel, they view the church as replacing Israel. The church is the new or the true Israel. There is no future for national ethnic Israel. In other words, God's promises to Israel are now fulfilled in the church. Since the millennial kingdom of the present church age is characterized by a mixture of good and evil, the tribulation, as I said earlier, Revelation chapter 6 through chapter 18, which we've already gone through, is not future. It's not future. It's taking place concurrently at the same time with the millennium in this present age. Therefore, the binding of Satan that we saw in Revelation 20 and verse 2 is seen as symbolic of him being defeated at the cross. It means that he cannot prevent the spread of the gospel or deceive the nations as he once did in the Old Testament era. When Christ returns at the end of a thousand years or this indefinite period of time, there will then be a general resurrection and judgment of both believers and unbelievers. After this, both will be ushered into the eternal state. That's amillennialism. The second view is called postmillennialism. Postmillennialism is the view that Christ will return after the millennium. For the prefix post- means after. So it's after the millennium. Post-millennialism and amillennialism have much in common. They're a lot the same. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two. This is because both views place the coming of Christ after the millennium. So you have the millennium, this thousand years, or this indefinite period of time, because none of the numbers in Revelation are just true numbers. A thousand years doesn't mean a thousand years. So it's an indefinite period of time. So both views place the coming of Christ after the millennium. The millennium is seen symbolically as occurring, both of them, between the two comings. Neither take the thousand years literally, but rather symbolically. Both see the church as replacing Israel. Both hold similar views as far as the binding of Satan, as well as the resurrection. Post-millennialism, though, differs significantly from all-millennialism as well as pre-millennialism in that it views the millennium established by the church on earth before Christ returns as the best period in human history. They believe that during this time is going to be the best period that has ever happened. As believers faithfully proclaim the gospel throughout the world, the kingdom of God will increasingly grow from small to large to become the dominant influence in the world. And as the majority of people are being saved worldwide and society is being transformed, things will be getting better and better to the point of what is called a golden age. A golden age of peace and harmony and prosperity. Therefore, when Christ returns, He is returning to a Christianized world. That's what they teach. John MacArthur accurately states, and I quote, in keeping with the generally optimistic views of those eras, post-millennialism flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries. The impact of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, The rapid pace of scientific discovery, Darwin's theory of evolution convinced many that society was progressing inevitably towards a utopia. That optimistic world is going to get better and better, though by different means, MacArthur says in quotes. It will get better, but by different means. But the numbing horror of the First World War, the moral decadence of the Roaring Twenties, the hard times of the Great Depression, the madness of Nazi slaughter of the Jews, and the worldwide catastrophe of the Second World War brought an end to the naive optimism that had prevailed before World War I. Post-millennialism, accordingly, also declined in popularity. In recent years, however, there's been a resurgence of post-millennialism in such movements as liberation theology, kingdom theology, and what's called theonomy. I don't know if you've ever heard that term. Theonomy is a system of government in which civil government is ruled under religious law. Today, we have Christian reconstructionism. Christian nationalism and dominionism, which also urge believers to take control over the earth and its political governments in order to actualize, bring about the kingdom of God. The third view is called premillennialism. Premillennialism is the view that Christ will return before the millennium. For the prefix pre- means before. Futuristic premillennialism, which we as a church hold to here. Futuristic premillennialism views the millennial kingdom as both future and earthly. Future in that it follows The clear chronological sequence that John has laid out in Revelation that we have followed as we have been going through the book. After he comes back, then we have his reign on earth. And earthly in that Jesus reigns in Jerusalem on David's throne for a literal thousand years. There's also something called historic premillennialism that also sees the millennial kingdom as future and earthly, but there is very significant differences there, and so I'm not going to spend time talking about that. This view maintains, again, this futuristic premillennialism that maintains the biblical distinction between Israel and the church. They are not the same. The church is not the new or true Israel. They are different. It teaches the future salvation of the remnant of Israel as we see in Romans 11, verse 26. That the Old Testament covenant promises given to Israel will be literally fulfilled and are not to be applied symbolically to the church. and that Israel has an important identity and role to play in Christ's earthly millennial kingdom. It teaches that the tribulation period right before Christ's return, which we have just finished looking at, will be the worst time in human history. Not the best time in human history. And although the time prior to that will be a mixture, we're living in that right now, a mixture of good and evil, due to trials, tribulations, persecution, suffering. We live in a fallen, sinful world. And Scripture is very clear that God wants us to trust Him in the middle of that. Because this comes from just the sinful world itself. It comes from wicked people. It comes from Satan. Again, there's many ways that we suffer as the people of God. 2 Timothy 3, verses 12 and 13 says, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. And the evil that we experience today will be unparalleled. It will be unparalleled during the tribulation period. which we have taken much time going through and seeing. Therefore, this view disagrees with the optimistic post-millennial view that everything is getting better and better before Christ returns. You know what? I wish that was true. Now again, not to say that God doesn't bring spiritual awakenings. We see that in the history of the church. Spiritual awakening is Unbelievers coming to Christ in droves. Spiritual revival has to do with the church being revived. You can't revive something that doesn't have some life to it. Of course, we as believers are called to do our best to be the salt and light in this corrupt and dark world. to boldly live for Christ, to proclaim the gospel worldwide. And God, again, is God. He brings about revival, awakenings. He does what He chooses to do as we pray for that. But there is no biblical evidence that the world will be Christianized before Christ returns. Instead, according to Old Testament prophecies, the best time on earth is during Christ's earthly kingdom, which will be a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity and harmony in creation. And even among the animals, where you've got the lion laying down with the lamb, the young baby playing with a cobra, that's during the millennial kingdom. And we'll talk more about that as we get into that. During that time, people will still die, but they will live incredibly long lives. But before Jesus establishes His kingdom, there is a binding of Satan in the abyss for a thousand years. The premillennial view on that, as we will see when we get into that, is totally different. Satan is just not kind of handcuffed behind the back to where now he can't do much even though he's still active. He is very active in our world today. And what this is talking about is total and complete binding. He has absolutely no influence, no ability to deceive the world during the millennium. And as I said, he's not bound in our present age in any way. He is actively involved in worldwide deception. So the premillennial view teaches that the tribulation believers will be resurrected before the millennium, and they then will join all other resurrected believers, those who we believe are coming back with Christ. They will join us. to reign with Christ. So you can see that there's different perspectives, different views on this millennium that we're talking about. So who's right? Because they're not even close on some of these areas. How do we know what's true? Although no millennial view is without questions or problems, the futuristic premillennial view is the most faithful to Scripture because it interprets biblical prophecy and eschatology by a literal, grammatical, historical, contextual method of interpretation. After the close of the New Testament era, premillennialism was the predominant view of the first 150 years of church history. Among the church fathers during that time that believed this were John's disciple, Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian. However, the premillennial consensus of a literal Thousand-year earthly millennium was challenged, challenged by members of the Alexandrian school, most notably Origen, who was greatly influenced by Plato. He popularized what is called the allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture. which laid a hermeneutical basis for spiritualizing prophetic and apocalyptic literature, resulting in Christ's millennial kingdom now being spiritual. It's a spiritual kingdom, it's not literal. But it was Augustine, the great theologian of the early church, often referred to as the father of amillennialism, who ensured that the allegorical approach would dominate the church for centuries. And that's what happened. This is why the Reformers, most of the Puritans, and most scholars in the Reformed tradition today are amillennialists. They have two hermeneutics, the non-prophetic, the non-eschological, if you will. Portions of Scripture, they interpret by the literal, grammatical, historical, contextual method of interpretation. What God says is what that means. That's how they interpret most of the Bible, except when they get to Bible prophecy and eschatology. At that point, they apply the allegorical method of interpretation to those portions of Scripture. Let me just say that I love reading the Puritans and many of those who are Reformed. They take the Word of God serious. They dig deep when they're dealing with non-prophetic passages. So I use a lot of them for my own study. But I have to exercise discernment when they get into the issue of Israel being replaced by the church, as well as their view of eschatology. It wasn't until the late 1700s and early 1800s That spiritualizing prophecy started to be rejected for the way the rest of the Bible was interpreted. And this brings us to the third truth about the millennial kingdom of Christ. I call it the reasons to interpret prophecy literally. The reasons to interpret prophecy literally. Again, this isn't any different than what I said right when I started the study in Revelation. Again, the book of Revelation is prophecy. It falls in the whole category of apocalyptic literature, of eschatology. And how are you going to approach that? Are we going to do allegorical? Are we going to symbolize everything? Are we going to take it literally? The literal, grammatical, historical, contextual method of interpretation. That's how we've approached all the way through. Again, there's many reasons why we should believe in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth, but I want to just give you four. The first reason is the golden rule of interpretation. The golden rule of interpretation, which says this, when the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, lest it result in nonsense. Horatio Bonar Ackerley stated, and I quote, we are bound to adhere to literal interpretation until we can show reasons for departing from it. These reasons of Scripture ought to be well-weighed and found sufficient before we venture to disturb the plain meaning of God's Word, end quote. to spiritualize or symbolize prophecy without clear contextual reasons is to read into the text what is not there. That's called eisegesis. Instead of drawing out of the text what is there, that's called exegesis. That's what we are committed to try to do the best we can. We should be anyway. And when we do eisegesis, again, this is purely an arbitrary act on the part of the interpreter based on his presuppositions. The second reason is some symbolism doesn't require comprehensive symbolism. When we interpret prophecy and eschatology, by the literal, grammatical, historical, contextual method of interpretation, we do come across many, and we have in Revelation, many figures of speech, metaphors, symbols, allegories, which we must then interpret appropriately in that context. But this doesn't mean that we make the whole thing symbolic. so that nothing means what it says. And that's the thing that I have a hard time with. It grips me. As I've been studying through Revelation, I've been reading along with those who hold, not so much to post-millennial, because they're pretty much the same on certain areas, but I've been reading through on millennialism, those who write about that. And I'm comparing as I'm going through. And it's like, what the Word says is not what it means, according to them. It means something else. And then it's like, where does that come from? How do they end up with that? Beloved, the Word of God is the final authority over man's theological system. The study of individual texts should inform and constantly refine our system. Not our system can form God's Word to it. The third reason. Rejecting the literal, plain meaning of the text causes the content of the text and its meaning to come from the interpreter's imagination or reason. Now again, some of these guys I've read in this camp over here are brilliant, brilliant theologians. And again, that's why I said, when they're not dealing with prophecy or eschatology, I like reading their stuff. They're very good. They're committed to dig out what's there. But for some reason, when they get into this, they use their brilliance and ingenuity to come up with things that that is not what this just says, if you just stay with what this says. My question is, who then determines what's right among the many conflicting, non-literal spiritual meanings that are offered by these various people? Now again, there is differences in theology, period. But if you want to see differences, you study here, on this side. And you wonder if you're even talking about the same thing. How is it that, again, they seem to be big on the numbers, being symbolic, where in Scripture, as we've gone through 1,260 days, In 42 months, we're looking at three and a half years. Very specific numbers that were given that end up, they all say three and a half years. Even though in that passage that's what it says, they say no, it means from the time of Christ's first coming clear up to the time of his second coming. That's far more than three and a half years. Again, it's, you know, and we don't even know when he's coming back. Again, who determines what is right among these conflicting, non-literal spiritual meanings that they offer? My heart as a pastor, my concern is no wonder all the conflicting views of Revelation confuse people. It confuses people, and I can't tell you how many times I've heard, you're going through what book? Revelation? That's the last thing I want to get into. How in the world can you even figure that out? Not because we have a literal interpretation, but for some other reason. Biblical scholar Harold Hohner said it well, and I quote, the denial of a literal 1,000 years is not because of the exegesis of the text, but a predisposition brought to the text, end quote. And then the fourth reason is God warns against adding to or taking away from his word. Proverbs 30, verses 5 and 6 says, every word of God is tested. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar. And then Revelation 22, verses 18 through 19, which we will see. We're getting closer to. I bear witness to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book. What we see in both the Old Testament and the New Testament is that Jesus will reign on earth for a literal thousand years. Therefore, we should simply trust what the Word of God says. We should simply trust what the Word of God says. Charles Spurgeon said, and I quote, I believe the happiest of all Christians are those who never dare to doubt God, but take his word simply as it stands, end quote. Now, although godly believers throughout church history up to today have not agreed on this particular non-essential, secondary issue of the millennium for various reasons, for various reasons. We must remember that we are brothers and sisters in Christ who will spend eternity together forever in heaven. And since we are called to show our love for one another before a watching world, before a watching world, we need to agree to disagree on this issue in a humble, loving, Christ-like way. We're not all gonna agree. We're not all going to agree, but it's how we disagree that's the big issue. We need to disagree in an agreeable way, one that is humble, loving, and Christlike. Only then will we be pleasing to the Lord and bring glory to Him.