All right, let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for who you are. We ask that you'd be with those that aren't here, and traveling, and safety. We just ask that you'd have your blessing on this time, in Jesus' name. Okay, so I have just this. I had been working in the couple of times that I have done Sunday evening on this premillennial, amillennial, postmillennial question. And I get some feedback sometimes that I have no idea what you're talking about or what is this about? And so I have a few things that I want to cover. I realize that when you have 50 years of hearing this kind of thing, it's a big step for new believers, or even people that haven't looked much at end times kind of things to sort of even know what we're talking about. And I don't know how far to step back to cover these things. So I would like you to raise your hand if you have a question. Just state the question. It'll help me understand maybe where we are. I'm going to give a little preamble and move forward. But please ask a question, just interrupt me, and maybe it'll help structure things, and maybe I'll have an answer, maybe I won't, but if you have a question, please ask. So I'm gonna start back a little bit further than we did last time, and that is with this statement that we know that after Christ died on the cross and was resurrected, he spent 40 days, right, in his resurrected body, right, where many, many people saw Him after the resurrection, and then He ascended. So I'd like to look at that passage. I'm doing this out of order for my notes, because I was kind of thinking on the way here that I need to be flexible. So go to Luke 20, verse 34. Now, Acts 1. Acts 1, we'll start in verse 6. So when they had come together, this is the disciples slash apostles, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. So this is what the future looks like for them, is that they're gonna be missionaries, so to speak, as they go out. And after he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky, while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them, and also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. So we find out, not from the beginning of the passage, but the end of the passage, that this happened on the Mount of Olives, okay? A Sabbath day's journey away. Well, that's kind of interesting. What's a Sabbath day's journey versus a regular day's journey, right? So I did a little Google search on that This is tied to Judaism and on the Sabbath there was a Restriction on the amount you could travel if it was too much it was work Okay, the violation of the Sabbath so you could travel a small amount so this is what Some response came back Google A Sabbath day's journey is a distance of 2,000 cubits. So that's, a cubit is 18 inches. 2,000 cubits, which is approximately 0.6 miles, about one kilometer. This measurement originated from rabbinic interpretation of the biblical text, particularly Exodus 16.29 and Numbers 35.5, which were understood to limit travel on the Sabbath to prevent work and maintain rest. The distance is also supported by historical accounts such as Josephus, who recorded the Mount of Olives as being five furlongs, approximately 3,035 feet from Jerusalem, closely aligning with the 2,000-cubit limit. This distance was considered the maximum allowable travel from one's home or city limits on the Sabbath without violating the law. That's why a Sabbath day's journey is about a half a mile, a little more than a half a mile, okay, from the Mount of Olives where Christ ascended. So what we talked about in previous times was how many of you think that the Bible promises Christ to return? How many think that the Bible says that Christ will return? We just read it, right? We all should believe that, right? Okay, so we just read it, right? The angel said, hey, he's gonna come back the same way he left in this sort of, he ascended up, and so we reverse it, because he's gonna come back in the same way he left. He's going to descend down, okay? And we would assume the Mount of Olives, okay? Same place, same way. comes to the Mount of Olives. So one of the things that we're establishing is, is that has Christ returned yet? I would ask that question to the group. Has Christ returned for the second time? No. Now, as I say that, there are people that I would call Christians and brothers in Christ that believe he has returned already, right? Now that would be in a very weird sort of interpretation, which is he's returned spiritually. I don't want to go into their position because I think it's so clear. That angel could have clarified, right? He's going to come back in a way different than he left. He didn't say that. He physically ascended. The angel says, hey, what are you looking at the sky for? He's gone, but he's going to come back in the same way, physically descending, probably on the same location, the Mount of Olives. All right. What I'm trying to do is, I think, I don't know what the questions are that people had that they said they didn't understand the kind of things that we were dealing with when we were talking about premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism, but we want to establish the fact that Christ is returning, okay? And he is returning to Earth and to the Mount of Olives, if you take this verse, and others, which we'll go to, probably. And so the question is, where do we fit this into the timeline of the rest of Scripture? And that's really what all-millennialism, post-millennialism, and pre-millennialism is talking about, Does it come before a thousand-year reign or a thousand-year time of great peace and all of the promises that will come during that time? Does it come at the beginning of that? Does it come at the end of that? And then the amillennialist is really saying, well, there isn't really a millennium, and it just comes at the end of a better time ushered in by Christian evangelism. Hopefully that kind of orients you into what we're trying to establish, okay, is just sort of a timeline of where this event of his return would take place. Okay, I think what we'll do next is go to Zechariah 14. This is Old Testament, and I made the assumption that I'm assuming that when Christ returns, he'll return to the Mount of Olives because the angels said it in the same way, and we would take that as far as we could, which was the same place, the same way. But, we have a corroboration in Zechariah. Zechariah 14. We'll read it and see if this rings any bells here. Verse one, behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. So speaking to Israel, Zechariah the prophet, for I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle and the city will be captured and the houses plundered and the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on the day of battle. Now, the first part of that, verse one and verse two, you could probably say 70 AD when Israel was destroyed, okay? When Rome came, right, and did, tore down the, after Christ has ascended, okay? This is when some people say he returned, and they think that this verse sounds a lot like when the Romans came, okay? But as we read on, it doesn't sound, that's as far as it sounds like 70 AD. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. That didn't happen in 70 AD. The Romans took it over and established a, kingdom for many, many hundreds of years. On that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. His, God's, God will come and stand on the Mount of Olives, okay? Well, that sounds a lot like a return, right? Now, it doesn't say that he descends from heavens, but it's got God standing on the Mount of Olives. in a singular event, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will split, in its middle, from east to west, by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north, and the other half toward the south. Has that happened ever? There is no splitting of the Mount of Olives that's happened yet. Right? So, to say that this is why I say they spiritualize his return in 70 AD, this was just for your notes if you want to file it away. A full preterist is one who says that, if you ever heard that word, a preterist, I'm a preterist, it means that they believe Christ came back in 70 AD, period. That was it, okay. It gets really wacky after that because we're living in times that are the new heavens and the new earth, and it's like, no, I can't even go there. So we don't believe that. I don't believe that. I'm looking at this saying, on the day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will split in the middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move towards the north and other half will toward the south. And you will flee by the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azael. Yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the day of Uzziah, king of Judah. So there's been other earthquakes in that area. Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him. Oh, okay. So that sounds like Revelation 19 when he comes with his holy ones, right? There's a corroboration there. We could look at it, but we're gonna keep going. In that day there will be no light, the luminaries will dwindle, for it will be a unique day which is known to the Lord neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light. And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them towards the eastern sea and the other half towards the western sea. It will be in summer as well as winter, and the Lord will be king over all the earth. And that day the Lord will be the only one, and his name the only one." Or literally read, will be one and his name one. All of the land will be changed into a plain from Gabba to Remen, south of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin's gate, as far as the place of the first gate, to the corner gate, and from the tower of Haniel to the King's winepress, people will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will dwell in security. Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem. So I believe he's now kind of jumping back in time, right? He told of an event, now he's jumping back in time to his actual time of his return that he talks about in verse four. Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouth. So we know this prophecy from Revelation, which is that at his return, there'll be a great war, the Battle of Armageddon. You've probably heard that statement, the Battle of Armageddon. I believe this is the Old Testament communication of that battle, okay? And it will come about in that day, the great panic from the Lord will fall on them, and they will seize one another's hand, and the hand of one will be lifted against the hand of another. So they'll start fighting themselves in the confusion. Judah also will fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered, and gold and silver and garments in great abundance. So also, like this plague, will be the plague on the horse and the mule, the camel, the donkeys, and all the cattle that will be in those camps. Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. Okay, so now we're starting to talk about the reign and what these nations that survived this, okay, that weren't utterly destroyed or hadn't made it all the way there or were other places in the earth, okay, so the ones that, Our left, oh, one more quick note. Do you see how it says that the gold and silver and garments in great abundance, that will be, like the booty that will come from that battle will be distributed to Israel? Well, go back to verse one. Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. So the idea that here's how that spoil gets back to Israel that people have stolen. All right, so now we're talking about a, in verse 16, you might have a little illustration of a paragraph or, you know, a bold 16, a different, a break here. He's starting to talk about that nations will be required to go up to Israel and worship at the Feast of Booths. And it will be that, Whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them. It will be the plague with which the Lord smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. It says that Christ is gonna rule and reign from Jerusalem, okay? And he'll have requirements on the nations. And one of those requirements is that they will come to this feast of booze and worship in Jerusalem. And then it gives the punishment for that refusal to go up. I don't have to go up to Jerusalem as a nation. That's a lot of effort and a lot of expense and we're just not doing it this year. And the punishment will be a famine in your land. And so, okay, so file that away, that there's still rebellion, okay, in this time, even as Christ is on the throne in Jerusalem. Verse 20, in that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, holy to the Lord, and the cooking pots in the Lord's house will be like the bowls before the altar. Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of Hosts, and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them. And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts in that day." All right. Now, there are some difficult things here. If Christ's sacrifice was on the cross and is all-sufficient, why is there a temple and a sacrifice in the temple? That's a great question. I don't know. It could be instead of looking it could be very much like communion because it said we do communion when until he comes so the new thing is a remembrance through sacrifice back to the temple of Israel because this is very Israel centric and That may be a remembrance of Christ's sacrifice through the temple sacrifice as it was a looking forward to Christ So a looking back rather than looking forward and But the thing is that a couple things that I want to focus on, now these are just some things that are really fun. I'm gonna pass these around. I'm just gonna orient you. This is looking aerially. This is the Temple Mount area of Jerusalem. There's a big valley here that drops down and then back up to a mountain here, and this is the Mount of Olives right here. So Christ ascended, over here on the Mount of Olives. This is to the east. Mount of Olives is to the east of Jerusalem. And in this prophecy in Zechariah, it says when he lands on the Mount of Olives, it's going to split, okay, across here. And did we read that the waters will flow, the eastern water flow out in summer and in winter, so it's a continual spring of water. It will flow out of this, seemingly this fault that opens up on the Mount of Olives, and it'll flow, the eastern water will flow all the way to the Dead Sea, and the western water will flow all the way to the Mediterranean, okay? That's what that said, or what Scripture said. I remembered a, something that I had heard that there were some geological surveys done and they found a fault through the Mount of Olives. I don't know if you've ever heard that before. Okay. That to me is like almost was like too good to be true. So I started, you know, digging. I mean, God doesn't need a fault to split land, right? But it is kind of cool if there was one, right? Um, so there's a couple of things that I put it into, you know, Google, is this true? And it came up with yes. Let me do one more thing. This is a little different picture. Jerusalem here, Mount of Olives here. The valley that's here, the Kidron Valley, very deep valley as it drops off from the Temple Mount and then climbs up the other side to the Mount of Olives. This in modern day is just a ton of graves. If you go to Google Earth and look, it's just tombs stacked so tightly together there's not a They're just one little stone next to the other. I mean, you know, burial plot. Very, very huge area here. It's all stones. And then there's a bunch of built up areas. The actual Holocaust Museum is somewhere up here. There's some hotels and a bunch of stuff up here. And then further up, there's the mouth of the Church of the Ascension, where, you know, sort of Christianity staked out the spot that they think Christ ascended from. A little further up, the Mount of Olives. What I want you to see, you probably can't see it here, but there's a little squiggly road that goes from the bottom of the Kidron Valley up through the wall of the Temple Mount. So when you get it, you'll see this little squiggly road. You can do a road around to get to Jerusalem, or you can cross down through the valley and back up the other side, the hard way. And it's a very squiggly road because it's steep. And it comes to a little, you'll see a little block on the edge of the wall. That's the East Gate. of Jerusalem. All right, I just want to bring that up because I'm going to show you another picture. That little squiggly line ends up at the East Gate. The East Gate doesn't look much like a gate, does it? It used to be a gate. It's blocked up. So a sultan, a Muslim sultan, hearing that Jesus was supposed to come and return through the East Gate, because he's gonna land on the Mount of Olives, like we read, the Golden Gate. So it's called the East Gate, the Golden Gate is another name for it. In Jerusalem was sealed for the final time in 1541 by Oman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who incorporated the gate into the city's rebuilt walls and blocked it up with stones. While Suleiman may have acted primarily for defensive reasons, the sealing is also widely attributed to preventing the fulfillment of Jewish messianic prophecy, which holds that the Messiah will enter Jerusalem through this gate. We're going to stop God by blocking it up. Good luck with that. Some sources suggest that the decision was influenced by religious beliefs, including the idea that a false Messiah or Antichrist could be prevented from entering, and a cemetery was later built in front of the gate. And you can see that. Yeah, you can see it actually on this picture. There's a bunch of tombstones that are there to keep people from building a road into the East Gate of Jerusalem. It was later built in front of the gate to reinforce this belief. Okay, so here's another one. It's just a picture of the East Gate of Jerusalem. All right. So, going backwards slightly here, the question of the I queried several search slash AI, and I ended with this question. Is there or is there not a east-west fault line near the Mount of Olives? And this is one that I got. Yes, there is an east-west geological fault line near the Mount of Olives. Multiple sources confirm the presence of an east-west fault line running through the Mount of Olives, which is distinct from the larger north-south Dead Sea Rift, which runs over by the Dead Sea through the Jordan River there. And a part of the Great Rift Valley that forms the tectonic boundaries between the African and Arabian plates. So these are very significant plates. We have the whole plate of Arabia and the whole plate of Africa kind of come together right there in that area. So there's a lot of earthquakes that have happened in that area because of so much activity there. Now this is the report that came later. The existence of this fault gained attention during the construction work in 1964. The Jordanians, because they had that land, Jordan owned that land until after the 67 war when Israel captured it back. For what would become the Seven Arches Hotel, excavations reportedly revealed the fault, leading to concerns about structural stability and resulted in an adjustment to the building's location and foundation. Some sources state the motel, the hotel was relocated slightly more to stable ground, although it still stands on the Mount of Olives summit. One place I read said that's been debunked, there was never that study and buh, buh, buh, buh. I've got to dig a little deeper. This is the most probably benign or most unpartisan. I just couldn't find any study that showed this. It was more like prophecy sites that kept repeating it. So you don't know if it was just really convenient to have that. But here it is. Just the geological context for the area. Regional tectonics, the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem lie near the Dead Sea transform fault system, a major left lateral strike-slip tectonic boundary between the African and Arabian plates. So that's confirmed. This transform zone trends north and south, not strictly east and west. So this big tectonic plate runs just over to the east of Jerusalem, right down where you see the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. It's like, that's that valley. It's a tectonic plate, okay? It runs this way. But Israel's over here and down here and the amount of olives in Jerusalem is low and over. And we're talking about some fault line that would go east to west, okay? So here's what this says. But local fault mapping, detailed geological maps, show various small scarps and short faults around Jerusalem and the adjoining valleys. Most of these features terminate at the Kidron Valley. That is shocking, because that's that valley right between what I showed you, Mount of Olives and Jerusalem. So a lot of fault lines come and terminate in that Kidron Valley, which is the valley between them. That's pretty close, right? features terminate at the Kindrin Valley, rather than being a large continuous fault. So there's a lot of little ones that are pressure faults that are in there. Older geological maps show a short fault trace in the vicinity of Jerusalem that runs roughly northeast-southwest, so it's a little angled, for a few kilometers. But this is not a clean east-west fault line under the Mount of Olives. So I started wrestling with that. I mean, it doesn't really matter. do what he wants to do there. There is a lot of geological stuff there and a lot of tension. And if some of these short fault lines go through the Mount of Olives or near it and end in the Kindred Valley, which is right there, that's pretty interesting. So then I had this thought, okay, if you split the Mount of Olives and water comes up out of it, where does that water go currently? So I asked this question. If rain falls east of the Mount of Olives, currently, if rain falls east of the Mount of Olives, where does it go? Rain that falls east of the Mount of Olives will drain into the Jordan River system, which ultimately flows into the Dead Sea. That's exactly what will happen if water starts flowing up out of, if it goes one side of the Mount of Olives, currently, it ends up at the Dead sea just the way Zechariah 14 talked about without any other geological uplift or down or just crack the crack the earth have water come out some of these some of the West and the East up will currently If you drop it there that I dropper and it can make it all the way there, right? It's going to the Dead Sea. So that just confirms that that like I don't know. It's just cool. Really cool. All right, I'll keep reading. The region east of the Mount of Olives is part of the Jordan Valley, where surface runoff from rainfall typically moves downhill toward the Jordan River via wadis and streams. So that's to the east. And the Jordan River, which originates from the Sea of Galilee in the north and flows southward, receives runoff from this area and eventually drains into the Dead Sea. So it's going to go east, hit the Jordan River, and go all the way down to the Dead Sea, just the same way Zechariah 14 said. Oh, could it be true that if we had rain go on the other side? Now, I didn't know how to say just on the east side. I guess I could have said east side of the mountain walls, but we don't quite know how long the fault will split. So the question I asked was, I mean, Jerusalem is just a little bit further to the west. So I just said, if water falls on the west side of Jerusalem, where does it end up? The natural topography ensures that water from the east side of Jerusalem ultimately flows westward and southward, and following the gradient of the land towards the coastal plain and the Mediterranean. So we're right there in that, you know, Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, that if water originates there, it is going to the east and going to the west in the same way that Zechariah 14 talks about, which I just think is cool. To me, Why would we spiritualize something that's just so earthly and revealed? All right. Now, getting back to the question of premillennialism, postmillennialism, amillennialism. The only position that has what the theologians call an intermediate kingdom is the premillennial position. Now, what we mean by intermediate kingdom is we are currently living now in a period of time, say this age, and we know that there's going to be an eternity, right? That eventually the heavens and earth are destroyed and there's a new heavens and new earth. So this is the end of time, so to speak, is all summed up in Christ. We can look at that. Let's go to Revelation 21. after Revelation 20 where it talks about his thousand-year reign? Conveniently? After? 21 verse 1, Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men. and he will dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be among them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. The first things have passed away." So what we find is that in this end state, so I'm gonna call it the eternal state, because we don't know, this just continues on for eternity. Okay, not a lot of revelation about past this in this new heaven and new earth, other than what we get here. What do we find out? No more crying, no more tears, no more suffering, no death, right? So in a way, it could be like, it's very different. Like we wouldn't be able to say that that's now. Right, in no way could we say that there's no more crime, no more tears, no more death, no more sorrow, all those things have been wiped away. No, that has to be in the eternal state, right? Luke 20, 34, we find about Christ talking about this final eternal state in Luke 20. So this is where they're putting to him the question to test him about what if a woman, verse 27, Now, there came to him some of the Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection. So they're trying to catch him in this hypothetical problem they think they're going to create. They question him saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies having a wife and he is childless, his brother should marry the wife and raise up the children to his brother. Now, there were seven brothers, and the first wife took a wife and died childless, and then the second, and then the third married her, and in the same way, all seven died, leaving no children. So, what they're saying is, they're saying, well, according to the law, this woman keeps having husbands die without children, and clearly the law says that the brothers, if they're unmarried, should marry this woman to bring up for his name, and they're kind of saying, well, this would be absurd What do you say is gonna happen in the end, in eternity? So they say, finally, the woman died also, verse 33. In the resurrection, therefore, which one's wife will she be? For all seven had married her. So they think they've got him, right? In the resurrection, there's gonna be seven guys that have married this woman, and who is she gonna be married to in eternity? Jesus said to them, The sons of this age marry, and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him. All right, so what we wanna get out of this is we're not that concerned about this question about the married sons and proving the resurrection. What we're interested in is that people don't die in eternity, okay? And they're not given in marriage, okay? That's past that. Okay, it's an eternal state and time. All right, that would comport with Revelation 21, that there's no more crying, no more tears, no more death, no more sorrow. Okay, so here's the conundrum that I try to bring forth from scripture that a premillennialist is gonna say. He's gonna say, what do you do with scriptures that have Christ here, but still Sorrow, rebellion, okay? Here in time, which we just read in Zechariah 14, right? God has returned, he subdued his enemies, he set up his kingdom in Israel, but is there death and is there sorrow? And is there rebellion? Seems like. Egypt is saying, hey, we don't wanna go worship the king in Jerusalem, okay? So, this cannot be in the future New Heavens and New Earth. It can't be talking about that, okay? So, an all-millennialist and a post-millennialist believes that Christ returns to Earth and then immediately goes into the New Heavens and New Earth. A pre-millennialist says, no, Revelation 20, which we've read several times, we probably ought to go there just to refresh, because Revelation 20 is the clarifying illustration of, I guess we gotta go to 19, 1911. And I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sat on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flaming fire and on his head are many diadems and he has a name written on him that no one knows except himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the word of God. So, you know, this picture of Jesus is shocking to people, right? Because we're just, we just left, we're at the time when he's in the manger, right? Our Savior came and he said, I haven't come the first time to judge but to save. But he's a very different Christ when he returns as judge. He is recognizable, but yet his mission and his job is extremely different, and even shocking in a way. So that's what we're dealing with here. He has a name written on that no one knows, which is 14. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. Didn't we just read that his people come with him in 14? Wasn't there a verse there that talked about the holy ones coming with him, okay? Well, that would comport with this. Armies that are in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean were following him on white horses. That would comport with Zechariah 14. And from his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nations. He does that in Zechariah 14. And he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh he has the name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I saw the angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice coming, saying, To all the birds which fly in heaven, midheaven, come, assemble for the great supper of God. This is, I'm gonna skip this, but this is about him coming back and putting all of his enemies down as he returns. Those same enemies, that we read in Zechariah 14 were a raid against Israel, okay? And he plunders them, okay? All right, so we get to chapter 20. And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he would not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed. At his return he subdues the nations then The devil is bound and thrown into the abyss and chained and locked over Here's what he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him So that he would not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were complete So this is where we get the idea of a thousand years. It's like six times in this chapter. Okay, and it is a clarifying more complete Fleshing out of the events that we find in many many other places of scripture including Zechariah 14 And after these things he must be released for a short time who Satan must be released I always say why why do we have to release Satan? Well, we're gonna find out why but Then I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was given to them and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because the Word of God and I think these are those that were beheaded during the tribulation of seven years. And those who had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received the mark on his forehead and on their hand, and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. So we have him ruling and reigning from Jerusalem. Well, if we just jump to Zechariah 14, we get something about the nations, right? If they don't come up, they don't get, there's a famine in their land. So we can add that to this, Passage. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are the ones who take part in the first resurrection. Over these, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. Another thousand year reference. When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison and he will come out to deceive the nations, something he was doing before he was put into the abyss. He's gonna start doing it again right away as soon as he's released. Now, people have a very... The amillennialists and the postmillennialists have a very hard time with this passage. They don't like what's been revealed, okay? Why don't they like it? What they think is is that, well, certainly if Christ comes back and rules and reigns, it's gonna be so great Everyone's just gonna fall in line. I mean who wouldn't want Christ as their King? He's the most benevolent wonderful King How is it that? There's some rebellion. They don't like this. Okay I'm sorry. I'm just reading scripture. I have to deal with what's here, right? I think there's a very important thing going on here, and I've mentioned it many times, but I'll mention it again What happens they come out he comes out to deceive the nations and which are in the four corners of the earth. So these nations, maybe Egypt and some others that are rebellious and have decided not to go up and they don't like to be ruled by Christ in Jerusalem. They came up, okay, four corners there. Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war. What? There's a war? This is on the heels of a thousand-year reign of Christ. And the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. It's not one or two. It's a lot of people. And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved city, Jerusalem. And fire came down from heaven and devoured them. Well, it's pretty decisive. It's a nothing, right, to God. I think the most important part of this, just to jump off a topic slightly, is that it proves that man's heart is wicked. It proves that even with perfect environment, lying laying down with the Lamb, great prosperity, all the other things that we find in other pages of Scripture for this, what I'm going to call this interim kingdom, okay, before his final kingdom for eternity, his eternal kingdom, that Man can make the argument, Lord, if I just would have had you as my king, then I wouldn't have rebelled. But it's clear that man doesn't have that excuse because a certain group of men and women, I assume, aren't happy with Christ in the same way that Psalm 2 says that they're always kicking at the Lord and at the Lord's anointed. It restricts, right? People who want to pursue their sin get restricted by the rule of God and the rule of Christ. The people that don't want to follow His law and His plan, they don't want it. And to me, if Christ's return changed all of men's hearts and we had a benevolent, wonderful, then someone could make the argument that was rebellious before that, Lord, if you would have just been, if you would have had me born during your millennial reign, I would have never rejected you. Does that make any sense? He would have that excuse. But here, I think it's very clear that man's still rebellious, even with the perfect king, even with the Savior that comes and dies on the cross. Men don't choose always, right, to accept him, the greatest, wonderful news. And then he deals with the devil. I think it's now time to deal with the devil. He's proved his point that man's heart is Wicked and so the net very next verse is and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone That's the final one. Okay Where the beast and the false prophets are also and they will be tormented day and night forever So that's the done deal for Satan. Okay, and it's I'm not gonna read the rest of this because we went right into 21 and we saw what the eternal state actually looked like, right? That's the no more crying, no more tears, right? Eternal state, we do not marry, we do not have husband and wives. It's a different state, right? So, to me, I reject post-millennialism and pre-millennialism, because there's clearly, as defined by Revelation 20, that Christ rules and reigns on earth for a thousand years. I take that literally, and there's still rebellion on earth during that time. It isn't the eternal final state. Now, I think it's a wonderful, this seems like it's only highlighting the bad, right? you know, the rebellious things that are going on in Revelation 20. Yet we know from other passages that it's not all like that. There is wonderful prosperity and it's a benevolent time and it's a wonderful time. So, let's just go to Zechariah 8. The word of the Lord's Host came saying, Thus says the Lord of Hosts, I am exceedingly jealous for Zion. Yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her. Thus says the Lord, I will return to Zion and dwell, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts will be called the holy mountain. This is, I think, paralleling more information different information that we would stack Revelation 20 on top of. This is his return to earth on the Mount of Olives. We know that from Zechariah 14. Here we're learning a little bit different things about it. He says, I'll return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Well, how's he gonna do that? I think he's gonna land on the Mount of Olives and return to the city of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with a staff in his hand, because of age. Well, that would only make sense if this is still in time in the intermediate kingdom. He said there's no more death, no more dying. There would be no reason to talk of age and a feeble one in the eternal kingdom, right? clearly some interim period of time of rule. Why not Revelation 20, his thousand-year reign, when we're still dealing with some earthly suffering, even though the environment, and death, even though the environment is perfected, and we're told it'll be a great time of peace for a thousand years, people won't train for war. But it's clear that we, When a Amillennialist or a Postmillennialist reads that, he thinks that as soon as Christ comes back, it's ushers in the new heaven, the new earth. There is no thousand year reign. Well, then how do you, what do you do with old men and women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem? It's a peaceful time, right? They're able to sit and enjoy the next verse and the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in the street. So a time of, of peace, your children play freely without fear of violence, and they propagated children, right? Well, we were told by Christ that there is no marriage in the final eternal state, right? There is no marrying, he said that. But here, we've got Christ's return, and old people, and young people, and old people that need canes, so maybe hips hurt, But they're old, okay? And thus the Lord of hosts, if it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too difficult in my sight? It's like, I think he's saying, you know, you don't think I can do this? You don't think I can bring everyone back to the land? Verse 7, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, I am going to save my people from the land of the east and from the land of the west, and I will bring them back. They will live in the midst of Jerusalem. Well, a lot of Jews are scattered abroad, and here he's promising that he's gonna bring them back. And he's like, what, you don't think I can do this? I'm God. You don't think I can bring people back to Jerusalem? So, and they shall be my people. Romans 11 said there's going to be a great turning, right, of Israel to the Lord. And I will be their God in truth and righteousness. We could read on, but I think we can be done there, with the exception of any questions. So what I'm trying to get at is that there is a group that is maintaining, and they're very prominent people. Alistair Begg would not hold to a preacher that I love. He's great on salvation, he's great on grace, and he's great on Christ's first coming, right? But he does not hold to a premillennial view of Christ ruling and reigning. I pointed at Herx. We've talked about Alistair Begg, and we both like listening to him. He's really good on everything, except for when it comes to this, there's this group of people that explain away these passages and say that they they don't mean it, or they're spiritualized. One said that this passage here, and the fruitfulness of children, is just the fruit of the Spirit. Where in the New Testament is spiritual fruit tied to fruitfulness of children, right? It's just making it up! It works so well if you just take it as it's read. I think some of the confusion in me talking about it is people aren't aware of the other positions that I hear all the time. Oh, you pre-millennialists believe in Christ coming back for a thousand. Yeah, I do. And there's a lot of good reasons to believe that. I have a whole other parallel between Zechariah 24 and Revelation 20. You can go down through, it's actually what I was gonna do first, but I wanted to deal, anyway. I'll just give you the passages. Read Revelation 20, Revelation 19 and 20, the end of 19 through 15, 2015, and compare it to all the things that are revealed in the short section of verses, Isaiah 24, 21 through 24, okay? There are little phrases that almost match. I mean, they're a little different, but it's just clearly another representation of Revelation. What's more fully explained from a little different angle and focused on a little different things. Yeah, 24, like 20 through 23. Isaiah 24, 21 through 23. And compare it with everything that's revealed from the latter half of Revelation 19 up to about verse 15 of chapter 20 of Revelation. And you can just see this parallel here. So I'm just very passionate about, it hurts my heart that there are such godly believers that hold to a position that really came from the Catholic Church and never really got reformed at the Reformation. The early church was premillennial. They believe, like we're talking about right now, up until like 300 AD, the early church fathers. And we did that last time I was here. We talked about that and some quotes from these church fathers that knew some of the apostles or were trained by those who knew the apostles. And so, any questions? Hopefully that cleared up something. Yeah. I'm just curious. reading these, you come across where the different positions, how they impact the rest of a person's life. How they live out the Great Commission, all different aspects of it. Can there be a reach in those directions as well? Not usually in that direction. What usually is the thing that gets most damaged with a amillennial position is no regard for Israel, because they spiritualize away all the promises of Israel to a spiritualized fulfillment in the church. Some even go as far as to say, when you're reading in the Old Testament and you see Israel, just substitute it with the word church. Well, you want to get really confused? Start doing that. Really confused. because there's such detail there about Israel, and it makes no sense to put the church in there, okay? So the biggest and the saddest to me is if you don't believe that God is literally fulfilling some of these promises to Jerusalem, in Jerusalem, and that that chunk of land over there is important for His fulfillment, He's gonna take care of it. We don't have to. But to dismiss even the New Testament, Romans 11 talks about, and we read some of that this morning, or talked about some of that at the end of Romans 11, where he's talking about, because of the hardness of heart that he seems to have put in Israel for this time being, to focus on the Gentile, and yet that's gonna shift back to Israel, and there's gonna be a great fulfillment there. Did he not say to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile? That's New Testament words to us. So that's the main thing that falls apart, okay, is a complete, like Israel is no better, he's been rejected, they've been rejected, their promises are now fulfilled. When you start spiritualizing, and this is what the Catholic Church did, this is what they said, we're the new children of Israel, and it was because of that spiritualizing that allowed him to say preposterous things like, when you read Israel, read the church. I mean, that's just, that's a violation of, I don't know how you would feel right about doing that to God's word. It's blasphemy to say, I'm just gonna substitute a word, right? And read it that way. But there's dear, dear people, and they're saved, that hold this position. People that I listen to and study, that I know hold a different position of the end times and the future. And I don't want to say that they're godly people, and they care about their walk, and they care about their holiness, and they care about the message of Christ. All that's good. It's just that to take the end times and spiritualize it away, I think it just does violence to a lot of other things that Christ teaches, that the Bible teaches. Take it literally when it makes sense literally, and you'll go a long ways. Let's close in prayer. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. I pray that we just take it for what it is and deal with these things that are conflicting and hard at times, but just know that that your truth is here and that we have a glorious future in you and all the blessings that are in Christ are given to us and we're saved for eternity if we put our faith and trust in Christ. That's the important thing. You have great work to do here to fulfill promises and to me it's very clear that there's still opposition in this world to the promises that you desire to fulfill, earthly promises. And we just ask that you would continue your work and your sovereign. We know you will. We thank you for these things in Jesus' name. Amen.