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The Gospel by John and chapter fourteen, verse one. it is our Lord speaking, and he says, Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.
We have reached the stage in our thinking about, uh, the Lord's coming and prophetic matters in general, where doubtless we are beginning to feel that the thing is becoming complicated. We shan't get much further, but what it will get fearfully complicated. I don't know what reaction it has upon you when things get complicated. Sometimes, when things get complicated, I feel like going to bed. And I do notice in some of my fellow Christians that when spiritual things get complicated, they begin to despair.
That's very understandable, I suppose, but there are some spheres, of course, in which when things get complicated, we don't despair. I'm at breakfast one morning, and the postman brings me a letter, and I undo the envelope, and there is a, a letter with a heading on, letters money more than too little. Goodness me, I said, they are the local solicitors. Or they're not with me. It is, uh, a statement that, uh, my uncle Manaki has died in the United States of America, and if I would pop along to the office of, uh, Lunymore and Doolittle, I should hear things to my advantage. So I proceed there, and I hear that this good man has died in America, and he's left me his fortune.
So sit you there, says Moneymore, and I will read you the will. So he starts, I've been left five million dollars, that is marvelous, and I've been left two hundred and thirty preferential shares in the big tire company in Chicago, and, uh, some stock plus some ordinary shares to the tune of, oh, about, uh, thousand shares in another firm, five ocean-going yachts, two countries. I say, no, look here, now you're becoming complicated. No, I couldn't, I couldn't have that. No, no, shut up. No, we don't do it. We say, goodness me, it's enough to make my head burst.
I don't understand it all, but I hop along the road on air, and the more complicated, the better. I read you the will of Jesus Christ our Lord. Signed, sealed, and settled the day he went to the cross. And he says, I leave it in my will to you. I appoint you, but the word he uses for appoint is the legal term for leaving something in a will. I leave it in my will to you, a kingdom that you may eat and drink with me at my table in my kingdom.
I don't want that to be too simple. You understand that? I want it to be complicated. So you think. I want there to be enough of heaven to last. Why we should expect the marvelous treasures about chased to us by the will of our Lord to be simple, I don't know. So then if we find things become complicated, let's be honest and admit it to ourselves and the Lord and say, Lord, this is getting beyond me. Well, I'm glad it's all true. And let's start by believing it, and then, as we can manage, understanding it.
This, you will see, our Lord invites us to in these words that we have just read. They are a tremendous prophetic statement, wherein our Lord informs us that in the Father's house are many abiding places. Now, of course, if he hadn't have told us, we shouldn't have known. There is no philosopher, saint, or anything else on earth that could possibly tell us what there is in the Father's house. You can't arrive at it by reason, nor deduce it from any philosophical axioms. If ever you're going to know about it, you'll have to know by simply believing what Jesus Christ says.
If you ask him to elaborate and say, please, what are the bricks made in your father's house, you won't get any answer. Or how many are the mansions in your, in your father's house, you won't get any answer. For in the very nature of things, the father's house and what it comprises is a something that goes far beyond what we could understand even if we were told. Therefore, our Lord, you notice, prefaces his words to us with this tremendous appeal that we believe him personally. You believe in God?
Believe in me. And it is essential, number one, in any right approach to prophetic statements that we put first and foremost our belief. And when the Lord says something, we say, Lord, amen, that's it from now on. I believe it with all my heart, and I believe it just because you said so. Though we don't always understand, we shall have the grace to admit it to ourselves and to others. But we must draw a distinction between understanding prophecy and believing prophecy.
We mustn't let ourselves get into that, uh, state of mind where an acquaintance of mine, a Christian preacher, has got himself, and he says, well, I know the New Testament talks about prophecy. I'm not interested in it, really. I'm interested in the now. Really? To say that we are not interested in prophecy is to call into question the deity of Jesus Christ, our Lord. He says, look, I'm going away, and I'm preparing a place for you, and I'm coming back, and I'm taking you to myself, that where I am, you may be in one of those mansions in the Father's house. Believe me. Don't turn around and say, oh yes, well, I hear what you say, but you see, I'm not interested in that.
That's a lot of impractical, well, that doesn't really help us, you see. I'm interested in the practical side of Christian life, or blasphemy. The Lord says he's going away and he's coming back again, and he's going to do this and that and other when he comes back again. We don't please turn round to the king himself and say that that's, that's rather impractical, you know. I don't bother about those things. We turn round to the king and we say, hallelujah, your majesty, how marvelous. I do believe it! As implicitly as if God the Father had spoken. You believe in God. Believe in me.
What can we be sure of? We can be absolutely sure of everything that Holy Scripture teaches. One other cautionary tale, before I proceed. There are dangers in becoming middle-aged, dangers of becoming fat. Dangers also of becoming cynical and skeptical. And it's never good to become either cynical or skeptical.
Not only do the middle-aged become cynical and skeptical sometimes about things in general. Labour Party or Conservative Party. But, um, alas, sometimes Christian middle age becomes cynical and skeptical about prophecy. And I'll tell you why. Because in their youth, they were absolutely certain of this particular system and scheme of prophecy. And then later on they read a bit, or they listened to some arguments. They found out that some of their ideas weren't quite scriptural.
Then they heard somebody else expounding another system of prophecy altogether, and they said, goodness me, that must be true. And they nearly believed that, when another chair came along, he had a third one. So the third response was that. We could have done it. We should try and avoid that difficulty. And one way of avoiding it is to distinguish between what scripture explicitly says. On the one hand, and on the other, what we ourselves infer from what scripture.
Good Christian folks, I among them, have not always been careful to distinguish between what Chris- scripture actually and explicitly says in so many words, and the deductions and inferences that we have drawn from. Now please, it is not wrong for us to draw inferences from what scripture says. The two people on the road to a mass were very gently but very firmly rebuked by Jesus our Lord, as you heard this morning, for not drawing inferences. The Old Testament had talked about the coming of Messiah, and certainly it had talked about his coming and the glory that should accompany that coming.
The Old Testament also had talked about the sufferings of Messiah. Well, there was a problem, wasn't there? That the Old Testament didn't very explicitly work out for it. How can you, uh, resolve the problem that some Old Testament scriptures spoke of the coming of Messiah to suffer, and other Old Testament prophecies spoke of the coming of Messiah to reign? Many Jews faced with that, gave up trying to think or settled for the prophecies that appeal to them most, particularly the ones about the glory, and let the others out.
But you see, there wasn't any verse in the Old Testament that says that when Messiah comes, he will first come, then he'll be crucified at Calvary, then he will rise again, and then he'll come again in glory. Not quite as explicitly as that, was it? It was right and proper, therefore, that the Old Testament saints should have drawn some infancy. Oh, fools and slow of heart to believe, slow to believe after all the prophets are spoken, instead of just choosing to believe some.
Therefore, we too mustn't just choose what scriptures appeal to us about the future that is now future to us, and then leave those under under the carpet that we don't understand. We must try to put them together, must try to understand. Now we do well to still distinguish, there still is a distinction between what scripture actually says and the inferences that we draw. Our inferences may prove to be wrong as time goes by. No scripture will ever prove to be wrong. Therefore, what wonderful things I may be absolutely certain of if I'm prepared to believe them.
One Thessalonians four, our Lord's coming for the believer. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. Amen. I believe it. I can be absolutely certain of it. The Lord is coming. Take our souls, either raising us from the dead or changing us without our doubt. And that's also says one Corinthians fifteen, it shall happen in a moment, so I know that bit.
In the twinkling of an eye, the last trump, the dead in Christ shall rise, and we shall be changed. Amen. I believe it. There's no doubt about it. It's clear as anything. The Lord is coming and taking us home to God. One Thessalonians five and 2 tell us that the Lord is coming to execute judgment on an ungodly world that has rejected him and his gospel. He shall come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God.
There is no doubt about it. It's as plain as a fight staff. You may believe it with all your heart right now. And then we've got two things we can believe. The Lord coming for his people to take them home, and the Lord coming to judge this ungodly world. What else can we believe? Well, the Lord is going to reign, and we with him. Two Timothy chapter two, to go no further, says that if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him. So, we're already going to reign.
Can be absolutely certain of it. And if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him. What can I be certain of about the Lord's coming? Well, the Lord's coming will involve the burning up of this world altogether. Let me quote you from the, uh, second epistle by Peter and chapter one— Uh, sorry, chapter three, Verse three. says Peter, we are to know this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming?
Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Well, they haven't actually, says Peter. They are willingly ignorant that, uh, there's been catastrophe before this. But, uh, the day of the Lord will come. So the coming of the Lord will involve the complete, uh, burning up of this present world and the heavens that are now. Believe it. And the book of the Revelation says that there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. Thank God for that. And I believe that as well.
And these are vast things and big things and important things. There is no doubt about them. And if we haven't done it thus far, let us take a half hour second and tell the Lord right now, right, Lord, you said it. I believe it, and I know therefore that the Lord is coming to take the believers first, and I know the Lord is coming to judge the world, and I know the Lord is coming, and when he comes, he's going to reign, and I know that then in him through his coming, heavens and earth that are now shall be burnt up, and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth.
You say, yes, I've known that a long time. My problem is how to put it all together. Hardly, yes. But before you start putting it together, will you let me say it again? Believe it. And you'll find it remarkably simple. Believe it. And what I am in process of saying is the simple thing that we all know, at least we should know, far more than we think we do, which is always a comfort to discover. We needn't be cynical. The major things are explicitly said, and if once won't do, well, then the Holy Spirit says it four or five times.
And they are explicitly said, and you may believe them and therefore know them. But somebody is going to tell me now, but two problems. How do you fit all those things together? Coming to take the believers home, coming to judge the world, coming to reign, coming to throw the earth to smithereens. But... all at once? And anyway, as somebody said this morning, very properly said, what do you mean by coming?
Isn't it true that the Lord comes on your deathbed? But what do you mean by coming? So here comes one of those deliciously complicated things. Isn't it marvelous that it's complicated? You mean all sorts of things by coming. The Old Testament looked forward to the coming, as Drew is telling us this afternoon so clearly, looked forward to the coming of the Son. What did it mean? What do you mean by coming? Let's take, uh, the Gospel of Luke for a moment and see how Luke sketches in, uh, three comings.
The Gospel of Luke, we will begin at chapter nineteen and verse twenty nine. I want you to, uh, notice in this following passage the little phrase, draw near. We'll find it because. And it passed when he drew near unto Bethphage and Bethany at the mount that is called Olives. He sent two of his disciples saying, go and get this coat. And they went and got the coat, and they, uh, Jesus rode it, and they put their garments on the colt and sat Jesus there on, and uh, uh, they threw their garments in the well.
Verse thirty seven: and as he was now drawing near, even at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the people said, verse thirty eight: blessed is the king that comes. He was drawing near. Verse forty one, and when he drew nigh, you say, where's he drawing nigh to? Well, he's drawing nigh to Jerusalem. Draw nigh. He saw the city and wept over it. Verse forty five, he entered into the temple and began to cast them out. One set of goings near. Now look at, um, um, chapter twenty one, if you will, please.
Verse twenty: when you see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that her desolation is near. Verse, um, twenty eight: but when you see these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. Verse twenty nine. and he spake to them a parable, behold the fig tree and all the trees, when they now shoot forth, ye see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now near. Even so ye also, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is near.
At the twenty fourth, the will be. Verse fifteen, on the two, of the two of the road to Emmaus, it says, and it came to pass while they communed and questioned together, that Jesus himself Go grew near. Luke is telling you of the coming of the Messiah. What do you mean by coming, Luke? Oh, he says, I mean this. Our Lord Jesus, he got as far as Bethany. He got as far as Bethany and Bethany. He told his disciples to go and get a colt.
They got on this, uh, they got this colt, put their garments on it, and Jesus sat on the donkey, and he drew near to the city, Jerusalem. It was the coming of Messiah. Zechariah had prophesied it long, long centuries before. Zechariah chapter nine: behold, thy king cometh, meek and lowly as sitting upon an ass. Now the crowd meet him as he comes down the side of the mountain, sitting on the donkey, and they said, Hosanna, blessed is the king that comes.
This was the coming of the Lord Jesus. So I think that's what's meant by the coming, coming on a donkey to Jerusalem. So that's already passed it. Well, yes, that's the coming of Messiah. Well, that's just a half minute, that isn't the end of the story. He wept over that city and he said, at last, if only you had known the day of your visitation, the day when Messiah would visit you. In his official capacity as the coming Messiah. But they rejected him and cast him out. So what? Well, he's coming. And what should be the sign of thy coming?
Well, says our Lord, when this and this and this happens, then you know it is now. And when this and this happens, then you know it is now. And you shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. When you see these things come to pass, lift up your heads because your redemption draws nigh. This is the coming of Messiah. So this was a coming on donkey. This one coming on how? clouds. None would, I hope, confuse the two.
No. And please don't tell me that I have invented the term second coming, and it isn't in the Bible, and therefore it's invalid, or I would do away with the second coming. But will you strictly, will you seriously, uh, argue that when he came on the donkey is the same thing as coming on the clouds of heaven? No, sir, the scripture itself makes it fairly abundantly clear that these are two, call them separate stages in the one coming, if you like, or call them the first and second coming, call them what you like, but they're two different events. They are both the coming of Messiah. But Luke uses the term in the third sense.
After our Lord died and rose again, there were two believers walking on the road to a mass, and as they walked, Jesus himself, same word, drew near. You say, what was that special about that? Well, there was something very special. Nothing to be surprised at if in during the days of his flesh before the cross, he drew near to some of his disciples. But he died. He risen again. Already with the body no longer subject to the laws of o- o- o- o- of gravity and such like things.
He could go through doors without their opening. He could disappear out of sight immediately. He already was, so to speak, belonging in that other world. And yet, as alive from the dead, he came to these two people, fulfilling what he had promised. John chapter uh fourteen tells us about it. He said, look, a little while, and the world won't see me, but you see me, and I will manifest myself. And Judas, not the scared one, scratched his head and said, Lord, now please, Lord. You know, it's all right to talk like that, but um, um, but how on earth are you going to manifest yourself to us and not, and not to the world, Lord?
I won't leave you orphans. I come to you. Ah. Might he be pleased while we sit here talking about his first coming. This first thing is not to be confused with the second one. And if it is the fact that when a believer dies, the Lord comes to him on his deathbed, well, that's delightful. Don't know any particular scripture that says he will, but I wouldn't say it, uh, uh, doesn't seem to me to be impossible. It's rather good stuff then. Huh. So don't let us confuse things and say that he comes on a donkey to the deathbed.
That wouldn't be helpful. Or that, uh, he comes in the clouds of heaven to the deathbed. No, let's, uh, let's stretch our minds a bit and see that scripture uses these terms in different senses. Let's believe a whole lot. Because they are in scripture. Not only comes to commune with us, but as he warned a certain church in a letter he had personally written to them, if they didn't pull their socks up, repent and behave, he would come to them and discipline them. Long before the second coming.
Well, now you say, if that all be so, right coming, well, I shall have to sort out in my mind, and particularly when I'm reading the Old Testament, it's talking about the coming of Messiah, but which one is this? Yes, I hope you will. Makes it more interesting, doesn't it? The more complicated it is, is it? We're not dealing with Red Riding Hood and Aesop's table. We're dealing with the plan of the Almighty God. You think it's going to be... other than detail. But you say, Bible give us any help to put all these things, I mean, coming for the believer, coming to judge the world, coming to reign, coming to to burn the whole world up.
Bible put them, give us any help to, you know, to see where they're going to happen? Yes. Some help. And now I ask you, therefore, to attend upon a little reading of the Bible in the book of the Revelation. For the purpose now of trying to get, uh, in our minds some things about the timetabling, if you will. The timetabling of, um, property. I want us to start in Revelation twenty one, and I'm going to work backwards.
Part of the reason for that is that I've now been living in Ireland nearly fifteen years. And so it appears to me quite a sensible thing to do. What I'm going to do is to start where the Bible ends here, at the end of this world, and the coming of the new heavens and the new earth. And I'm going to work backwards to the events that precede it, and see how far we get.
Let me hasten now to add that I do not myself believe that the whole of the book of the Revelation is in chronological order. Maybe there are big parts of it which, uh, go over the same ground from different points of view. But my argument is now going to be that what we have here must be strict chronological order. And when we match it out, we shall have before our eyes a scriptural timetable, the preferable source for timetable, a scriptural timetable of the order of events that lie in the future.
So, new heavens. New heavens and new earth. When is that going to happen? Well, obviously, the old heaven and old earth will have to be done away with before we can get a new heavens and new earth. And that's not just an inference on my part, the Bible tells us that.
I know you will tell me, perhaps, that the Book of Revelation is full of symbols. So it is. That doesn't mean you can't trust it. And the Bible says it is the fact that the first heaven and the first earth flee away before the new heavens and the new earth come, which isn't surprising, but needs to be said. Some people think you can take the Book of the Revelation just because it's a book of symbols and mishmash the chronology up just as you breathe because it's symbolic. That's nonsense. The new heaven and new earth is painted for us in symbols. But, uh, it can't exist before the first heaven and first earth are passed away, and they pass away. Why do they pass away?
Verse eleven of chapter twenty tells us, I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. Oh yeah, great. White. Cloud. Leaves fall, heaven and earth flee away. The sea gives up the dead which were lived in the earth likewise, and death is finished as an institution and is cast into the lake of fire. And the great final judgment, FJ for final judgment there. Uh, when does the final judgment take place?
Well, Revelation obliges us and tells us. If you look to verse, chapter twenty and verse seven: and when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall come forth to the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, God and made of, to gather them together to the war, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up, and they compassed the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented there night forever and ever. We have described for us what you may call the final rebellion.
When does that happen? After the... um, yeah. And the revelation can be as full of symbols as it can possibly be, from the beginning word to the last full stop, and after will still mean after and won't mean before, and it won't be concurrently with. Yeah? That's moderately simple. After is after, and the final rebellion takes place after the thousand years. So here we've got to put the thousand years in, haven't we?
This, my dear good brethren and sisters, is not my inference. You require to believe this. This is inspired over scripture. This much you, you, you must believe. That there's going to be a final rebellion after the thousand years. The book says so. And after that final rebellion is dealt with the great white throne, you've got to believe that bit. The book says so. You say, when is the thousand years going to happen? Well, let's do that. Um, uh, let's read what happened anyway.
Let's look at the beginning of chapter twenty. And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and cast him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no longer. What you say, had he been deceiving them before then? Well, he had. Oh, so he isn't going to do it anymore? No. Something that was happening, but isn't happening anymore. Yeah.
Well, it says, put him in, chained him in, sealed him in. You get the point, don't you? He's not there theoretically. He's not there or to be there if the believers would pray hard enough. And the believers that put him there, the angels that put him there, sealed it over him, that he shouldn't deceive the nations anymore. Had he been deceiving them before? Yeah. So we'll put up here to see, shall we? Deceive. That happened in before to the years?
Would you seriously like to, to suggest that when the Bible says he's put in the abyss so that he shouldn't receive any more, that actually, in fact, he still goes on deceiving? That, ladies and gentlemen, would make utter nonsense of holy writ. That he should stop deceiving means that he should stop deceiving. So the thousand years comes after that deceiving business. And, uh, what was the deceiving about? Well, it might be a lot of things, but it reached its pinnacle just before the thousand years because we look backwards in chapter nineteen, I saw the beast and the king's army, you see, and all that crowd, and they were taken.
Verse twenty, and the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that brought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. They twain were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone, and the rest were killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse. You see? These sad false prophets, the and FP, FP, along with the help of Satan, have been deceiving before the thousand years, yeah?
And then they got stopped. Words mean anything at all. Here is timetable. This thousand years is going to happen after that deceiving, when the deceiving is put a stop to. You say, what's going to put a stop to the deceiving? Are all the believers praying right hard and trying to find safety? No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. Uh, they, uh, verse nineteen, see how he's done.
I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered against, to make war against him that sat on the horse, and who's that? They were killed with the sword of him that sat on the horse, verse twenty one. Well, who's he? Well, we better go back, find out who he is. Verse eleven of chapter nineteen: And I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse and he that sat there on called faithful and true, and in righteousness does he judge and make war, and his eyes are as a flame of fire, and upon his head a many diadems. And he hath a name written which no one knoweth but he himself, and he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood, and his name is called the Word of God.
Verse fifteen: and out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, he should rule them with a rod of iron. He bedeth the winepress of the fierceness of the rock of Almighty God. He hath on his garment and on his thigh a name, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Surely, you say, the rider coming out on a white horse with the name, the Word of God written on him is a picture of our Lord carrying the gospel for the world. And the armies that follow him are all the evangelists and personal witnesses. And you see they're coming up with the word of God in order to do away with the deceptions of Satan.
And this is a picture of the church with the Lord preaching the gospel to the uppermost ends of the earth. Because you will notice it says that he's going to, with his sharp sword, do what? Convert the nations? Or smite the nations? And he shall save them? No. Rule them. How? He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
You say, when is that going to take place? Is that now? No. Would you look, please, at Revelation chapter two, Revelation two twenty six. We're now wanting to know when it will happen that Christ is going to rule the nation with a rod of iron. Revelation two twenty six, and he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter have broken to shivers. As I also have received of my father, and I will give him the morning star.
Not a description of the going forth of the gospel, the description of our Lord coming out to judgment and breaking the nation. Ruling with a rod of iron, vessels of a potter broken to stone. And he takes the winecloth, fierceness of the rock of Almighty God. Oh please, this is not a description of Calvin, when he was pressed. The figure is of a wine press filled with grapes, and uh, in order to produce the wine, men have to get into the wine press and stamp it with their feet and make the blood of the grape run out.
When it comes, the great vine press of God's wrath should be there. He should get into that wine press, and with his holy feet he shall stamp it and tread it. And the wrath of God will flow out. Coming, setting fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God. Executing the holy wrath of God. New heavens and new earth.
They only happen when the old heavens and the old earth pass away. When do they pass away? At the great white throne. When does that happen? After the final rebellion. When does that happen? After the thousand-year millennium. When does that happen? Well, when the old beast, the old prophet, and Satan have, have been forcibly stopped from deceiving people. And when does that happen? It happens at the second coming of Christ with power and great glory to execute the rock of God. What happens before that? And as you will see from your short scriptures, chapter nineteen verses one to ten describe the judgment upon Babylon and the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Her wife, his wife has made herself ready. There I leave it. I'll continue if the clock says five minutes past I've I've got to sit down. But in all seriousness, this we can believe. You say to me, does that mean then there's going to be a period in the future of a thousand years reign of Christ.
Yes? Not literally, you say, well, how else would you take it? But anyway, you better believe it first, and then take it whichever way you think you ought to take it. Oh, but some people say, no, this is a book of symbols. And you can't take it just like that. That, uh, it's under understood. It's a spiritual thing.
So let's see if we can understand it, do our best to understand it as a spiritual thing. And with that, we come to chapter nineteen once more for our final lesson. For description of this millennium. Verse four of chapter twenty. I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them. I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and such as worshiped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand, and they lived. They lived. And reigned with Christ a thousand years.
The rest of the dead lived not. Until a thousand years were fulfilled. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that had part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. Let's take our bearings in this passage of scripture. What is said to be happening during this thousand years on God's side is that our Lord Jesus Christ is reigning, and that these people here mentioned are reigning with him.
One way of checking when that is, is to consult your epistles and your gospels to find out when it should be that the church reign will come. Are you reigning now? With some sarcasm in his voice, one Corinthians, he had a four. If you were reigning now, he said, there might be a chance for the likes of us. At this moment, I'm not doing much reigning, he says. I'm being cuffed about and pill at the post, fed to lions for their breakfast, beaten, put in prison, mangled, uh, uh, fasting, laboring, the off scouring the world.
Pretty little reigning I'm doing at the moment. You've reigned as kings without us, he says. With God, you would reign. But we're suffering at the moment, says Paul. But if we suffer, that is now, we children. Can I read you another scripture? Chapter eleven of the verse of, uh, of Revelation, verse fifteen.
Seventh angel sounded. They followed great voices in heaven, and they said, the kingdom of the world is become, has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign. All twenty elders would sit before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces and worship God, saying, we give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, which art and which was, because you always have been reigning. No. Because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign.
In the Greek sense of that verb, thou hast taken thy kingly power. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath came in the time of the dead to be judged, in the time to give the reward for thy servants to prophets, and thus and thus and thus. And then Christ shall reign in the senses yet future. And these shall reign with him. How shall they reign? Because, uh, to be factual, they've had their heads cut off, these particular folks who are mentioned here. The beast that beheaded them. How will they reign with Christ? Well, the answer is, raised.
So the verb lived is used here, as in the epistle to the Romans. They lived after they had been beheaded, and they lived again. They were raised. All that you say, no, I dispute that. Look, there's another way of looking at it. Thousand years. Here, first resurrection. Here, the rest reign. There are many serious exegetes whose views are largely founded on other parts of scripture.
But when they come to this passage, find it difficult a little to fit it into their theological scheme, and feel that it would be lawful, therefore, to to to say, look, the first resurrection is a spiritual resurrection. And then he lives and reigns with Christ, you know, a la Romans six: how much more shall they that receive the gift of grace and the abundance of grace reign in life through Jesus Christ? Reigning now, victorious Christian living life with a capital L. Then, this being the period of the church age, believers in Christ know victorious living throughout their generations here.
Then there comes the next resurrection. The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years were fulfilled. They were raised to stand before the great white throne to be judged, that a literal resurrection. So that is the view very commonly, uh, held. The first resurrection before the thousand years, a spiritual resurrection. The rest of the dead being raised, a physical resurrection. Late then. It is utterly impossible. Matters not that this book is a book of symbols from end to end.
Greek still means Greek, and English means English. Let's try to make it mean first a spiritual resurrection and then a literal resurrection. So first of all, we get a spiritual resurrection of the spiritual dead. Never mind they've been beheaded by Antichrist, which will be rather literal. We'll take it it really meant the spiritual thing. And they were spiritually raised. It is a, it is a figure of speech, isn't it, that our Lord uses. John chapter five, the hour cometh and now is when they that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. A spiritual resurrection.
Yes, you can describe being born again as a spiritual resurrection. Our Lord does so. John chapter five. but let's try to put it in here. We are explicitly told in these verses that at the beginning of the thousand years, some of the dead are raised, and the rest of the dead are not raised until the thousand years are finished. Now, that means that to start with, the dead are all dead in the same way. The expressions are quite clear.
The rest of the dead are not raised until the thousand years are fulfilled. So they belong to the whole company of the dead, but some of that great company were raised, the rest were not raised. And the very fact that they are described as the rest of the dead shows that they belong to that same original company of the dead and were all dead in the same sense. So then let's put our suggested into these verses. Let us suppose that the first resurrection, the first company who are raised, are raised in the sense of being raised to a spiritual life, in the sense of which our Lord speaks in John chapter five.
That will give us the following result. I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. That is, they lived spiritually. They were born again. They received eternal life. Now, at once, that gives us an extraordinary result, because these people, we are told, had already, uh, been alive once and had been beheaded, uh, under the beast's rule, and now they are raised again and they live.
But if we're going to say that, uh, their resurrection is a spiritual resurrection, this then is the moment in which they are raised to walk in newness of life, they receive eternal life, and apparently, even before they received eternal life, they had been witnessing for Christ and had been beheaded by the beast. That at once, uh, shows us that something has gone awry. But leave that difficulty. Let's just suppose it could possibly mean that these people, after having lived physically and been beheaded by the beast, are now, uh, enjoying the receipt of eternal life and are raised to walk in newness of life.
They have experienced, in other words, a spiritual resurrection. They have been born again. The rest of the dead, that must now mean the rest of the spiritual dead, are not raised until the thousand years are fulfilled. And that must mean that the rest of the spiritual dead are not born again until the thousand years are fulfilled. Why wait so long? Does it imply that these people, for some reason, is it that they didn't hear the gospel or that they rejected the gospel, or for what reason is it? For some reason, they were not born again like the others until the millennium is over.
And then what? They are born again when the millennium is over. It is, of course, uh, quite absurd and fantastic when we argue the thing logically through in this fashion. It cannot mean that the people that are raised at the end of the millennium are raised in a spiritual resurrection, that is to say that they are at that point born again. But, uh, just let us see that the scripture itself indicates that this cannot be so. In verses eleven to fifteen of this same chapter, we are told in what sense the rest of the dead are raised.
They are raised to stand before the great white throne, and the sea gives up the dead, and death and Hades give up the dead which are in them. That surely must be a physical resurrection. The sea does not give up the dead which are in her in order that they may be born again in a spiritual sense, and certainly Hades doesn't give up the dead that they may be born again in a spiritual sense. It is then impossible to think, and all seem to agree, in fact, upon this, that the rest of the dead, when they are raised at the end of the millennium, the rest of the dead are raised in a physical sense.
But now, working backwards once more, that must mean that those who are raised at the beginning of the millennium are raised in a physical sense, because I recur to the point I made that you start off with a general body of those that are dead, some are raised, and the rest of them are not raised until the end of the millennium. And if those that are raised at the end of the millennium are physically dead and are physically raised, then the others, uh, likewise must be understood as having been physically dead and having been physically raised. And of course, that makes excellent sense of the, uh, ideas with which verse four begins.
These people who are raised at the beginning of the millennium, they are physically dead for the simple reason, as we are told, they had been beheaded for the testimony of the Lord Jesus. That is, physically beheaded, and therefore they were physically dead, and therefore they were physically raised again at the beginning of the millennium. I submit to you, therefore, that to try and interpret the first mile- first resurrection at the beginning of the millennium as a spiritual resurrection makes nonsense of the whole passage. A nonsense which you can only avoid if you are prepared to argue that the first resurrection at the beginning of the millennium is a spiritual resurrection, and that the resurrection at the end of the millennium is a physical resurrection, in spite of the fact that both the dead at the beginning and the dead at the end are all dead in the same sense, and the second group are the rest of the, the whole group from which the first part were taken at the beginning of the millennium.
That leads us on then to a final question. Some people will argue, but if this is the true interpretation of Revelation chapter twenty, namely that there are two resurrections, one at the beginning of the millennium and one at the end, why is it that this fact is not taught us clearly in the epistles? But the fact is that if we read carefully what Saint Paul says in one Thessalonians chapter four, for instance, we shall find that he is in total agreement with what the Apostle John is saying in the Revelation chapter twenty.
Paul does not preach a general resurrection at the last day of both believers and unbelievers. He preaches a resurrection that is selective. Let me read you his words from one Thessalonians chapter four. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Will you please notice, he does not simply say the dead shall rise first, but the dead in Christ shall rise first. Not all the dead, but a selection of the dead, namely the dead that are in Christ.
Then we would are alive that are left shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. And again, I want to urge that we are not entitled to read into those words more than they say. It is not all the living that are at that stage caught up to meet the Lord in the air. It is we which are alive and remain, the we referring to the Christian community, uh, about whom, uh, the passage is concerned. So that what Paul is saying is that when the Lord comes, dead believers shall be raised physically.
Living believers at that same moment shall then be caught up, and together, uh, they shall meet the Lord in the air. He is not talking about what shall happen to the impenitent dead or the unbelieving living. He is preaching a resurrection that is selective, every bit as much selective as the resurrection that John is talking about in the Revelation chapter twenty. Finally, and this is the second time I have said finally, I normally say it three times. People will say, but in the Revelation chapter twenty, we are told that at the first resurrection, those merely that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus during the reign of the beast shall be raised.
At least they are the only ones that are mentioned. Now, it is true that they are the only ones that are specifically mentioned in these verses. But then it seems to me that the verses themselves explain to us why it is that only these are mentioned here. When verse five says, this is the first resurrection, it is making that comment in this context. Such and such people, namely those that had been beheaded unto the beast, were raised, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished.
This is the first resurrection. That is to say, this now completes the first resurrection. After this, no more companies of dead shall be raised until the thousand years are fulfilled. In other words, this comparatively small number of people, those that had been beheaded under the beast, they are raised and complete the first resurrection. They are, so to speak, the final gleanings of the great harvest of those that have been raised at the Lord's coming. And therefore, the verses do not mean that the first resurrection only comprises those that have been beheaded under the beast, but simply that when those that have been beheaded under the beast are finally raised, then they complete the great number of those who shall be privileged to take part in the first resurrection.
