I want to continue our discussion about biblical prophecy. We have talked most recently about the judgments of Scripture. Now I want to spend some time talking to you about the subject of the kingdom. And we'll be revisiting things that we have talked about numerous times before. But it's important and essential that we understand it. I'm going to refer to a paper that I've had in my file for several years. It takes an opposing view, but it interests me because the person says in this paper, I was raised in a church which not only taught dispensationalism, but identified it as scripture, quote, read correctly. That person was raised in a church which taught dispensationalism and thought the dispensationalism was the result of interpreting scripture correctly. because it happened to be this church. He just wasn't paying close enough attention. So I want you to pay close attention so that you understand these things and the issues that are involved. Why don't you put the chart up? This chart is not inspired. But they do present in a visual way what God unfolds in Scripture. This one's entitled The Resurrections, remember, because they lay out the key events of when resurrections occur and judgments also occur with the resurrection. And for example, here before the millennium, we had a judgment of living people before they go into the millennium, as well as resurrected Old Testament saints and tribulation saints. And we'll be following this as we talk about different views on the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, that is talked about in Scripture. We'll talk about the prophesied kingdom in particular. We'll talk in the future about the universal kingdom of God, which has always been in existence and continues today. But we're talking about the prophetically promised kingdom that is anticipated in Scripture. And there are three basic views on this kingdom. And I should have had it done so you could see it. But if you have a piece of paper, you might write these down because I'm going to be referring back to them at different times. And some of you are very familiar with it. Some of you may be less familiar with the views. We're going to talk about amillennialism. They had to say something about millennium. Millennium is from the Latin word for a thousand years. We get the term from Revelation, Chapter 20. Why don't you turn there? Revelation, Chapter 20, since this is foundational. We've looked at this recently, but maybe all of you weren't here. In Revelation, Chapter 20, Then I saw an angel, verse 1, coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years." A millennium. So a thousand years. We sometimes use the Greek for the thousand years, and we talk about Kiliism. or kiliastic from the Greek word for a thousand years here. But we get the Latin word millennium from a thousand years. So he's bound for a thousand years. In verse three, toward the end of the verse, he won't be free to deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed. Then the end of verse four, there's a resurrection and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Verse five, the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. The end of verse six, they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. Verse seven, when the thousand years are completed. That's the only place in scripture that it talks about a thousand years. Some would say, since it's in the book of Revelation, the things in the book of Revelation are highly symbolic and we ought to interpret the numbers found in the book of Revelation literally. That will make a difference in where you end up. Three basic views that we're going to talk about. Amillennialism. Amillennialism means no millennium. The A on the front of millennium means no. No millennium. No literal earthly thousand-year kingdom. Then we're going to talk about postmillennialism. Post means after. Postmillennialism teaches that through the work of God's people in the world, things will get better and better and then we will usher in a time of prosperity and blessing, the kingdom, the millennium. Then at the end of the millennium, Christ will return. Premillennialism means that Christ will return before the millennium. So let's look at this on the chart. Amillennialism first. Amillennialism says there's no literal physical kingdom on earth. Rather, the kingdom is spiritual. It began with the resurrection of Christ. So right here, when Christ was resurrected, He ascended to heaven and He rules spiritually through this entire period of time. We are in the kingdom now. It's a spiritual kingdom. This is the viewpoint of Roman Catholicism, of the standard view of Lutherans, Presbyterian, hold to an amillennial view of prophetic matters relating to the Scripture. This is a spiritual kingdom. When Christ returns, It will just be the end of all things. We'll move into eternity. There's nothing else we really literally know about. We will just be in eternity, whatever God has prepared for us. The basic reason we come to different viewpoints on these matters is interpretation. This person writing this paper is defending amillennialism. And so I want to quote from him. He says, the amillennial position follows a very important exegetical procedure, exegetical is interpreting the scripture, which is present in the New Testament. That is, that the New Testament reinterprets the Old Testament. Now, I strongly disagree. That method of exegesis, of interpreting, is not found in the New Testament. But people always say to me, why do people who profess to be believers come to different viewpoints? Well, amillennialists believe that with the coming of Christ, at this point, and His subsequent death and resurrection and ascension to heaven, we now have the right to reinterpret the Old Testament. So, part of the reinterpretation is, the people of God in the Old Testament were called Israel. The people of God now are called the Church. But we have the right to reinterpret and understand that what really God meant in the Old Testament is not the physical people Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but the spiritual people of God. So they talk about there's only one people of God. In the Old Testament, they're called Israel. In the New Testament, they're called the Church. And sometimes you'll read in their writings, they'll refer to the Church in the Old Testament. Or in the New Testament, you can talk about the Church as being the new Israel. So you see, they take and say you can reinterpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. And they say the New Testament does that, but it does not. Remember what we said when we started our study of prophecy? We studied on the principles of interpretation. Additional revelation from God never changes earlier revelation. It can add to it, give additional revelation, It can clarify the prior revelation. It does not change it. This is a major difference. The person who writes this paper fails to grasp the significance of that. That becomes what is called spiritualizing. And he does acknowledge, yes, we spiritualize, but that's what we're supposed to do. form of allegorizing began with origin. So the Amillennialists hold this as a spiritual kingdom because they reinterpret all that the Old Testament says about Israel and its future, all that the Old Testament says about a literal earthly kingdom as something not literal. Israel is not literal, physical Israel. The physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob It's not a literal earthly kingdom. Now with the coming of Christ, we realize all of that should be re-understood, re-interpreted and be understood as a spiritual kingdom going on now in the hearts of men and women who are believers. And then someday Christ will return and we'll move into eternity. That's amillennialism. Many of you came out of a background of Lutheranism where you would have been taught amillennialism. Usually these people don't get into prophecy a whole lot because it's hard to find consistency in an interpretation because you've lost the moorings of what enable you to be sure in your understanding. Now note here, if we are in the kingdom now and it's a spiritual kingdom, they believe we ought to be doing things associated with the kingdom. Helping the poor, doing social justice, They take those, still literally, out of the Old Testament, and that manifests that we are in the kingdom, the spiritual kingdom, and we're doing these physical things. Another viewpoint that was popular prior years, through the 1800s particularly, is called postmillennialism. Postmillennialism. teaches that really the kingdom got started here with the first coming of Christ. But the thing that will happen is, over time, things will get better and better and better until, through the efforts of God's people, the kingdom will be brought in. Then we will have this period of time here. Christ won't return here. He will return here, after the kingdom, post-kingdom. And so you have people today saying we ought to reinstitute the Mosaic law. This becomes part of the move, whether people, even Christians, get involved, but they're not clear on what they're doing. We're going to change the world. We're going to get kingdom principles practiced. We're going to get judges in and political leaders who will act more consistently with biblical principles. Why? Because all of this? Over time, things will get better and better. And almost post-millennial, they almost died out completely with World War I and World War II. But if you read the theologies from the 1800s, the theology by Hodge, Charles Hodge, Shedd, Strong, all the major theologies, they're all post-millennial. But with World War I, things were clearly not getting better. World War II, Lorraine Bantner. For a time, he was the only living post-millennialist that anybody could identify. But now we see a resurgence of it, and there are commentaries written on Revelation and so on by post-millennialists, sometimes called reconstructionists, theonomists, because they believe God's law, theonomists, God's law ought to be reinstituted in society. So they, too, believe we're In the process, we're in the kingdom, but we're bringing in the fullness of the kingdom by the works of men. So they, too, are strong on social action, involvement. Why? Because this is what's ultimately going to bring in the kingdom. Now, we need to be careful, because what happens here, people who are premillennial And we believe that Christ will return to earth and His coming to earth will provide the foundation for the instituting of the kingdom. That's the third view. The people who are premillennial sometimes practice the same theology as the amillennialists. They have a doctrinal statement that says they're premillennial and dispensational. We'll talk about that in a moment. But they practice, oh yeah, we ought to be practicing like we're in the kingdom. So you'll hear references, we're in the kingdom. We want to do kingdom work. People claim to be dispensational and at the same time they claim they're doing kingdom things and we ought to be doing social justice and alleviating poverty and all that. Are you post-mill or are you pre-mill? Now pre-millennialism believes that the kingdom will not come until Christ returns to earth and establishes it. Now it gets a little more confusing. There are breakdowns in all of these, but we're doing just the highlights. Within premillennialism, there is covenant premillennialism and there is dispensational premillennialism. Covenant premillennialism, sometimes called post-tribulationalism, believes Christ will not return at the beginning for the church of the 70th week of Daniel. But he will return at the end. So they are premillennial, but post-tribulational. They believe the rapture will occur after the seven year tribulation, but before the millennium. So they're premillennial. But they don't believe that he's coming before the tribulation. We are pre-tribulational, premillennial. See why I told you to write it down? We believe Christ will come for the church pre-tribulation, before the tribulation, and then will return to earth pre-millennial for the establishing of the kingdom. Important distinctions. Those who are covenant pre-millennialists believe that Christ will only return here, this is where the rapture occurs, blend Israel and the church. Because this all blends together here. And so that's why they're covenant premillennialists and without going into covenantalism, but they don't see this clear distinction between Israel and the church. And as we noted, not in great detail, part of the problem with putting the rapture here, you have people who are believers, all believers, being raptured to meet Christ in the air and turn around and come back down to earth with Him. Serious problem with that. We saw in the judgment of the living here, all unbelievers, Jews and Gentiles alike, who are not believers, will be killed. Only believers go into the Millennium. If every believer gets a glorified body in the rapture here, who's going to populate the Millennium? Where does the great number, like the sand of the seashores, Revelation chapter 20 says, come from that will rebel against Christ at the end of the millennium? Glorified saints? Who are those that are going to die in the millennium as a result of judgment according to Isaiah 65? Glorified saints? So there's some real problems, I think, and that's just one of them. There are others. The blending of Israel and the church again moves away from a literal interpretation of Scripture. We are pre-tribulational, pre-millennialists, sometimes called dispensationalists. And we see a clear distinction between Israel and the Church. When God talks about Israel, He is always, Old Testament or New Testament, always talking about Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He sometimes makes the distinction Come to Romans chapter 2, since this is one of the examples that comes out of this paper and almost everyone who is not a dispensationalist takes this passage. So I'll just use this as one example before we move to the kingdom. Verse 28 of Romans 2, For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. Let me read you what this paper by the Amillennialist says. Paul himself writes that one is a Jew spiritually, not outwardly or literally. And he references this passage in Romans. He doesn't say one is a Jew spiritually, not outwardly or literally. He is not a Jew who is one outwardly. True. Nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise comes from God. What's the point? Being a physical Jew, a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, does not mean you will inherit the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You must also have a circumcised heart as a Jew. And he ought to know that because he refers just prior to this to Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6. We are way back in the Mosaic Law. The Lord, your God, will circumcise your heart. That was always required of a Jew to benefit from the spiritual blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It has nothing to mean that he's not talking about physical Jews. But you understand, being a physical Jew alone will not guarantee you eternal life. They can put it in that context. I guarantee you a place in the kingdom that the Messiah will establish. You must have a circumcised heart. That's true in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 30, verse 6. Well, repeated in Jeremiah. It's true here. So that's not a reason why. See, we have authority to call the church spiritual Israel. I mean, that's not seriously dealing with Scripture. dispensationalist. We believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. Now, what happens? Terminology gets confused. It used to be when you talked about literal, historical, grammatical interpretation, people recognized within all millennials. I have all millennials writing to my library that say, if you take a consistent, literal interpretation of Scripture, you will be a dispensationalist. You will see a distinction between the Church. Now they deny it and say, oh, we interpret the Bible literally. Because it was literally intended to be interpreted spiritually. It's like me saying, well, you know, Alice in Wonderland, you should interpret that literally. Because it was literally to be interpreted as... What would you say? That's where we're going. We interpret the Bible literally when we say Israel is not Israel, because it wasn't intended to be interpreted as Israel. All right, we want to talk about the kingdom that is promised here and look at the verses and see if the scripture is clear on this. First, we're going to start in Daniel chapter 12. And as you come to Daniel 12, I want to emphasize again the importance of this, not just for an eschatological future, which is very important, and God has saturated his scripture with it, but present practice. We have many churches who still claim to be dispensational, but are functioning as though they were amillennial or postmillennial or covenantal post-tribs. They're getting involved in social programs. They're getting involved in social justice. They're doing all this. Jerry Falwell did it. He claimed to be a dispensationalist. He'd talk about the rapture of the church. He'd talk about the future of Israel. Then he starts the moral majority, like he's going to change society through the political action and who we got into, and as though the world's going to come apart because we Christians aren't getting involved. He was functioning as an amillennialist, or a postmillennialist more likely, While he claimed to be a dispensationalist. Our churches keep their doctrinal statement. We're dispensational. But they're going about functioning like they were non-dispensational. So we have to understand the theological foundation for what we are doing. We talked about the believer in social action. But you see, it fits into the theological framework. At least the Amillennialist is functioning consistent with his wrong theology. The post-millennialist is functioning consistent with his wrong theology, and then you get a dispensationalist in the mix who doesn't know what he's doing. He just doesn't want to look like he's not doing something. All right. Daniel 12. Remember where we are in Daniel 12. The end of chapter 11, we had the Antichrist action, the little horn, the willful king, as he's titled in Daniel 11. He comes to visible power right here in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel. Chapter 12 opens up. Now, at that time, Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress that has never occurred since there was a nation until that time. Oh, we noted Revelation chapter 12. There's war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. That occurs right here in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel. Then what we're told, verse 2, many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake. These to everlasting life. But the others, who will be resurrected later, are raised to disgraced and everlasting contempt. And then the promise of blessing, verse 3, to those who are raised to everlasting life. Now you note what does not happen here. These resurrections, you're not told, how they all fall into place. That's later revelation. Even in John's Gospel, chapter 5, Jesus just talks about a resurrection of the righteous and a resurrection to condemnation, as we've seen. But He doesn't unfold the timeline of it. You need the rest of the New Testament and particularly the book of Revelation that puts these things in order. What the book of Revelation does is lay out the chronology of some of the events that were just prophesied. But it doesn't change anything about what was meant when it was prophesied earlier. There's going to be a resurrection to life, eternal life. There is going to be a resurrection to disgrace and contempt. Now, it's in the New Testament that we find out those resurrections are spread out here for the church, here for Old Testament and Tribulation saints, and then here for the resurrection to contempt and disgrace. But it doesn't change anything in the prior revelation. It just gives added clarity, added information. It does not reinterpret it. It's exactly as it says. There's going to be a resurrection to everlasting life and a resurrection to disgrace and everlasting contempt. Oh, they must happen at the same time. Well, if this is all the revelation we had, we could misunderstand and think that'd be so. But God gives additional revelation. But that doesn't mean there isn't a revelation, a resurrection to everlasting life and a resurrection to disgrace and contempt. What we get is additional information as to when these events occur. We're here to jump down to verse 11. From that time, from the time the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days. How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1335 days. We don't have time to go back because we've done this earlier. This is a seven year period. It's divided into two segments. We have 360 days being a prophetic year. Now we're going to go here from the time the sacrifice is abolished. Remember in Daniel he talks about the abomination which makes desolate in chapter 9 is set up. Jesus referred to it in Matthew chapter 24 when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. That happens, as we've noted, in the middle of the tribulation here. So we have 1260 days left till the return of Christ. And those 1260 days are mentioned by days, unlike the book of Revelation, chapter 12 and chapter 13. We take those days literally. Here, he says, from the time the regular sacrifice is abolished The abomination of desolation is set up, there'll be 1290 days. That's an extra 30 days. And how blessed is he who keeps waiting until 1335 days. Altogether, that's 75 days past the return of Christ. What is going on here? Well, for example, what do we have? Well, we have the judgment of Israel that we talked about. Living Israel. We have the judgment of the nations alive at the return of Christ. So what happens is during this 75 days, these events along with others in preparing the earth for the institution of the kingdom, so whoever passes through and makes it to the end of those 75 days is blessed. Why? He's going into the kingdom. By the time you get to the 1335 days, 1260 plus 75, all unbelievers will have been destroyed. And the preparations necessary for the establishing of the kingdom will have been made. So there's blessing pronounced upon them. I think God just throws out days here just for something to do. Then you find him coming up. Well, this many days is a multiple of this. And when you take this figure multiplied by this, it just means this. I said, where would you ever get that? You wouldn't get it from the simplicity of just reading your Bible and taking it for what it says. OK, the kingdom. We're going to read the descriptions again of the kingdom, and I've limited it basically to Isaiah, so start in Isaiah two. These are not by any means all there are. I try to most often use the same references so that you get so familiar with the foundational references. But you get any of the books from sound words on the kingdom, the millennium, and they will give you many more references to the millennium in the Old Testament. Some of you have done this work on your own. Isaiah 2, and you see whether you're going to take this as you would have understood it when Isaiah gave it, or you're going to read something else into it. This is the word which Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. We're in Isaiah 2, verse 2. Now, it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills. Now they say, oh, see, is a mountain a literal mountain here? Well, clearly it's a figure of speech used to refer to a kingdom in the Old Testament. Literal interpretation doesn't mean there's no place for figures of speech, poetic language or that. But even that we interpret literally. A mountain has to have a particular reference. And we'll see at least one reference where it is identified as a kingdom, Christ's kingdom. Here, the mountain of the house of the Lord, the kingdom for God and Israel, will be established as the chief of the mountains. It will rule over all other kingdoms, all other peoples. All the nations will stream to it. You see, there are other nations or other kingdoms here in the small case, if I can, under this one ruling kingdom, the kingdom of Christ. And many peoples will say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, Mount Zion, which will be the capital of the world, Jerusalem. To the house of God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways, that we may walk in his paths. For the law will go forth from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Now, we're going to come and say, well, we get to the New Testament, we'll have the authority to reinterpret that. And Zion is no longer Zion. We're talking about spiritual Zion. And not literal Jerusalem, but spiritual Jerusalem. And these are spiritual pictures. No, it's literal. God means what He says. He will judge between the nations, render decisions for many peoples. They will hammer their swords into plowshares. They're spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation. Never again will they learn war. This is inscribed on the United Nations building. They're not dispensational. Let me warn you, don't do this today. You have to read the other prophet who says, beat your plowshares into swords, because there are worse days coming before better. The tribulation is coming. So you spiritualize this and now they're amazing. I see bumper stickers on people's bumpers. Nebraskans for peace. And I'd like to beat my horn and ask them to pull over. What does that mean? What does that mean? You know, some kind of idea that we're going to bring peace. We've got this, talking about peace, and we ought to have peace in the world. You understand when this is? This is when Christ reigns. Read the context. You pull a verse out of it, and people say, well, doesn't the Bible say that we're not to lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war? Don't you think we ought to be doing that? No! Not now. I mean, you ignore the fact that happens when Christ reigns. He's the Prince of Peace. He will bring peace. Come over to Isaiah 9. And there are more passages in Isaiah as well. I don't want to give you the idea that these are all the ones in Isaiah. And you're going to see an example of where the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ are together in the same passage. And we'll see some others on this. This is the way the Old Testament prophets saw. They talk about the first coming of Christ. They talk about the second coming of Christ. You know why? This period of time, from the events around the first coming of Christ and his suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, coming of spirit, this period of time here to the rapture was not seen in the Old Testament. That's additional revelation given in the New Testament. Paul said it was not revealed fully until it was given to him. Now, none of that changes what was said earlier. What we're going to see is everything up to this point was fulfilled how? Literally. Literally. He refers to Isaiah 53 in his paper, somehow in a context of spiritual interpretation. But Isaiah 53 talks about the literal suffering of the Messiah, does it not? His literal death, his literal burial in the tomb of a rich man. I mean, literal. Now all of a sudden, everything after that gets spiritualized. No. So let me read this, Isaiah 9. There will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, these are areas of the tribes of Israel, with contempt. But later on he shall make it glorious by way of the sea on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. That's reference to Christ in the New Testament. He came into Galilee. Much of His ministry was carried on in Galilee. The fullness of the light of the presence of the Messiah of Israel, God in the flesh, was there. But New Testament does not reference the rest of this as fulfilled. You shall multiply the nation. You shall increase their gladness. They will be glad in your presence, as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. They break the yoke of burden, the rod of their oppressor. A child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. The government will rest. Wait a minute. You see what happened? Israel, it was fulfilled literally with the coming of the Messiah and his presence in Galilee. But Israel refused to receive Him. They refused to believe in Him. So their land was left to them desolate, Christ said. But that was fulfilled literally. The rest of it will be fulfilled literally, but now, between verses 2 and 3, we've got over a 2,000 year gap. Still to be fulfilled literally. This idea that we jump around and give different meaning. A child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. That's true. That's who he is. That's who he was when he walked the earth. But verse 7 hasn't been fulfilled. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. I say, well, we spiritualize that. He's ruling in the hearts of men today. There's peace in their hearts. Well, go on. He'll be on the throne of David. Is that not specific enough? Read the Divinity Covenant in 2 Samuel 7, which elaborates this, where God guarantees that the physical descendant of David will sit on the physical throne of David. and over His kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Only you and I won't accomplish it. It will be accomplished by the visible return of Christ in glory to establish His kingdom on the earth. If we don't, we read this, we spiritualize it and say, well, our responsibility here, since we're in the kingdom and Christ is ruling from heaven, we should be establishing justice and righteousness on the earth. We're just pulling verses out and running with them. It's not what it says. That's what He will do when He establishes His kingdom on the earth. Come over to chapter 11. There's another passage where you get the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. And people read this and they go to the New Testament. They say, well, see then, we should spiritualize this because this passage is referred to Christ, and yet the kingdom's not here. So this must be a spiritual thing. Chapter begins, Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. Literally, right? Christ was the literal descendant of David. Part of the purpose of the genealogy is to begin Matthew, to begin Luke. It's important. If he's not the descendant of David, he's not qualified to sit on the Davidic throne. He is a shoot. It's a literal. Stem from Jesse, a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, fear of the Lord. That was true. True of Christ is first coming. He is who he is. But then you go down to read with righteousness. He'll judge the poor, decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. He'll strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, the breath of his lips. He'll slay the wicked. We read about that in Revelation 19, where he comes at Armageddon and the sword coming out of his mouth slays the wicked. That's the future of it. That hasn't happened yet. The righteous will be the belt about his loins, faithfulness about his waist. The wolf will dwell with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together. The little boy will lead them." I'll pull out a verse like that and say, that's what we need today, humility. Also, the cow and the bear will graze. Their young will lie down. The lion will eat straw like the ox. He won't have to be afraid of the lion. You know why? He won't be eating meat. You won't be dinner. The straw will be dinner. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra. The weaned child will put his head on the viper's den. Did you try that today? Well, this is just talking about the fact the Lord brings peace to our hearts and the tranquility and the violence. And that's what we want to bring to the world. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain His Kingdom. For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Have you watched the news today? This week? This isn't happening. So they say, well, the first part of it here is that one from Jesse came and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him, descended on him like a dove and that spirit. So all the rest of this must have been fulfilled as well. Therefore, it must be being fulfilled spiritually. No, we have additional revelation. This is going to fit in here. Then we're going to have the seven years of suffering that the Scriptures prophesy will happen before He returns. Then we have the kingdom. But you know, none of this changes the literal meaning of what happened. Verse 1, Christ was literally a physical descendant of David. You don't spiritualize that. No. And the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him. You don't spiritualize that. Problem is, you don't want to accept later revelation that doesn't change prior revelation, but clarifies and fills in for us. Come to chapter 35. I'm emphasizing this because maybe I shouldn't have read the paper again, because he says that amillennialists are more literal than dispensationalists in interpreting scripture this way. Look at chapter 35. The wilderness in the desert will be glad and the Araba will rejoice and blossom like the crocus. They have the desert blossoming like the rose. We're familiar with it. King James has a crocus. It will blossom profusely. Remember Romans 8, the whole creation groans in anticipation of the unveiling of the sons of God when the curse will be lifted back here when we return in glory with Christ and Old Testament saints are resurrected. And then the kingdom is here and the curse is lifted from creation. At the end of verse 2, they will see the glory of the Lord and the majesty of our God. I mean, His glory will be displayed in its fullness. That's not happening now. Down to verse 5, Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped, the lame will leap like a deer, the tongue of the mute will shout for joy, for waters will break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert are the Araba. I mean, why did Christ heal? Remember, we read Matthew 8. In His healing, He was demonstrating what? Fulfilling prophecy. He didn't heal all the blind and all the deaf and all the lame, but He healed some to demonstrate, I am the One who can fulfill the promises given regarding the coming of the Messiah and the establishing of the Kingdom, if you will but turn from your sin and believe in Me. When He comes and establishes His Kingdom, there won't be any sickness, any illness. All these things will be removed. And it goes on, verse 8, the highway of holiness. Verse 9, no lion, no vicious beast. The redeemed will walk there. Come to Isaiah 65. We're going to run out of time, but that's okay. We'll pick up next time. Isaiah 65. I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered. Come to Mine. Rejoice! Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. Behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing." Who gives us the right to reinterpret the Word of God and say Jerusalem is not Jerusalem? This is a promised blessing for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, verse 19, be glad in my people, there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping or the sound of crying, no longer an infant who lives but a few days, an old man who does not live out his days, the youth will die at the age of one hundred, one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be accursed. People will live a long life like the life of a tree, they'll wear out the work of their hands, in verse 22. In other words, you won't make something and you'll die before you've used it, it'll be worn out. Not thrown away because it got replaced by the newest, but it just won't wear out. It'll wear out. You won't. Down in verse 25, the wolf and the lamb will graze together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. The dust will be the serpent's food. They will do no evil or harm in all my holy kingdom. Do you see that happening? No. We have to come to Daniel 2 and we'll end on this note. Daniel 2, the kingdoms of the earth. We were here early on in our study. Just to remind you, in Daniel 2, God gives Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, a vision. He sees the kingdoms of the world that are yet coming. God gives Daniel the understanding and interpretation of this vision. Verse 37, you, O king of kings, are the king of kings. You, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the strength, the glory. You rule over all in verse 38. You are the head of gold. That is a literal, physical, earthly kingdom ruled by a physical king. No doubt about what it means. After you, verse 39, will arise another kingdom inferior to you. Another kingdom? What's going to replace Babylon? Something spiritual. Medo-Persian. And a third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth. These are physical kingdoms. That's Greece. Then the fourth kingdom, strong as iron, Rome. Then there's feet and toes in verse 41. Now, it sounds like we're going right on. And then in the days, verse 44, of those kings, the kings what? The toes. Ten toes here. And we know there's 10, chapter 7, gives additional information on this. The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. Some say, well, we just take this then, we'll take it literally, come all the way through here, and we had Rome when Christ came, and so the ten toes must refer to something like maybe ten Roman empires or something like that. There's various views. And then the kingdom of Christ was established. But you see what they've done. All these up to here were literal, physical, earthly kingdoms. Now they are replaced by a spiritual kingdom up here. But that's not what verse 44 says. In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. That kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will endure forever. End of verse 35, we'll use the picture of this kingdom of Christ as a great mountain filling the whole earth, representing a kingdom, and it's interpreted for us. So that kind of figure of speech is interpreted within the confines of Old Testament prophecies. And we know when it talks about a mountain, it's talking about a kingdom and the kind of thing. What happens? Well, what happens is there's additional revelation, and we find out between Rome and its revival down here in a ten-nation confederacy with ten kings in this seven-year period, there's a gap of 2,000 years. Then we'll have the literal ten toes and something about them revealed in chapter 7 of Daniel, and then in Revelation chapter 13 where we've been. Then we have Christ coming in the days of those kings. And we have the kingdom. You see, there's nothing reinterpreted. It's interpreted literally, but there's additional revelation given. And we find out between the fourth kingdom and the feet and toes, there's about 2000 years, the church age. Well, therefore, we should not interpret the Old Testament literally. Why not? God's later revelation didn't change anything. Babylon was Babylon. Medo-Persia was Medo-Persia. Greece was Greece. Rome was Rome. The Ten Toes would be the Ten Toes. The book of Revelation makes that clear. And chapter 17, it'll talk about the Ten Kings, who gives their authority to the beast, the little horn, the willful king, the prince it is to come. And then we'll have the return of Christ in chapter 19 that puts an end to all those kingdoms. And His kingdom is established, chapter 20, and He rules over all. So we just take all that has been given literally, all that is added literally, and we get it unfolded more clearly. The book of Revelation is not meant to confuse things. This guy thinks you keep going back, it keeps repeating itself. And then you go back and it repeats, and you go back and it repeats. We take it chronologically unfolding and that puts in order literally all the things that have been prophesied. So why are we dispensational? Why do we believe in a pre-tribulational return of Christ? Why do we believe in a clear distinction between Israel and the church? Because we interpret the Bible literally. consistently, literally, normally. That doesn't mean we don't recognize figures of speech. It doesn't mean we don't see poetry. But we interpret that. It's clear when we're dealing with that and we interpret it. And even that literally, a mountain can't mean just anything. We talk about the mountains of our lives and the things we have to get over. That's not what he's talking about. It grows to a great kingdom. It's a mountain. So we interpret the Bible literally. We'll talk more next time. Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word, given with the intention that we understand it, the clarity of the Scriptures. Thank You, Lord, that You have spoken with the intention and requirement that we listen, understand and obey. Thank You for the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives as believers. that enables us to understand with clarity the beautiful truths of Your Word. Lord, we want to live faithfully for You in these days as we anticipate and look forward to the return of the One who is our Lord and Savior, the Messiah of Israel, the One who will establish His Kingdom and rule over all. We pray in His name. Amen.