In Revelation chapter 20, the part that I want to focus on is the part about the millennial reign of Christ.
The thousand years that Jesus Christ will rule and reign on this earth.
And of course we know that his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, that he will rule and reign for all eternity upon the new heaven and the new earth.
But we're going to specifically talk about the millennium tonight, and I want to preach to you on this subject because of the fact that there are so many people that I find have been in church for a long time.
They've read the Bible a lot, but yet they're a little bit confused on this issue, and they don't really have this clear in their minds.
So I want to teach this to you tonight and explain this to you, what the millennium is, why it's there, what the purpose is, and just really go through this from one end to the other.
Now this is the most famous passage about the millennium, but what you need to understand is that this is not the only passage on the millennium.
There are lots of scriptures throughout the Bible. In fact, I'm not even going to be able to get to them all today just because there are so many, and I'm just going to hit the key points with this.
But this is when the millennium is mentioned in Revelation, because this is chronologically where it fits in with the book of Revelation.
Just to bring you up to speed, the whole tribulation has already happened.
The Antichrist has persecuted and beheaded God's people for refusing to take the mark of the beast. He killed anyone who would not take the mark of the beast.
Of course, his kingdom took over the whole world. They have a one-world government, one-world religion.
Of course, Jesus Christ came in the clouds and poured out fire and brimstone, the seven trumpets, the seven vials of his wrath.
At the end of all that, there was the battle of Armageddon in Revelation 19, where Jesus Christ destroys the Antichrist and his armies.
That's where we are in chapter 20. So we're through with all of that.
And the Bible says in verse 1,
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Now that angel that had the key of the bottomless pit, we know who that is from Revelation chapter 9.
His name is Apollyon in Greek, or Abaddon in Hebrew. I'm not going back to Greek and Hebrew, that's what God tells us in Revelation 9.
That those are his two names.
And this angel of the bottomless pit comes down and opens the bottomless pit,
and he laid hold on the dragon, verse 2, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
and cast him into the bottomless pit, talking about hell,
and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled,
and after that he must be loosed a little season.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.
And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God,
which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands,
and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
This is the first resurrection. We'll get into the rest of the chapter, of course we read the whole thing before the sermon even started,
but the part that I want to start out with talking about, the millennium,
because this is a millennial reign of Christ on this earth.
This is Jesus Christ setting up his earthly kingdom before the great white throne judgment.
This thousand year reign is going to take place. What's it going to be like?
Who's going to be there? What will the world be?
I mean, it's a really interesting subject, and there's a lot in the Bible if you dig in and find it.
There's not a lot in Revelation 20, is there?
He didn't give us a lot of details. He just said they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years,
the devil will no longer be deceiving, the devil and his angels will be in hell, confined,
and so there will be peace on earth and so forth.
We'll get a lot more details as we go, but let's start out by talking about this.
What is it going to be like?
Turn, if you would, to Isaiah, and we'll get just a little bit of a picture of this.
Look at Isaiah chapter 11.
Back in the Old Testament, Isaiah 11, we're going to talk about what it's like,
then we're going to talk about who is going to be there, why they're there,
what they're going to be doing, and so forth.
Let's go back to Isaiah 11, chapter 11, verse 6.
And of course, the teaching of Revelation 20 is pretty clear.
A lot of people will deny that the millennium will ever happen.
They don't believe in the millennium. They're called all millennialists,
but yet it's spelled out, isn't it?
And so we'll get into that.
Let's start out with just what it's going to be like in the millennium.
Look at Isaiah 11, verse 6.
It says, this is a passage about the millennium, it says,
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together,
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and the sucking child shall play on the whole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, talking about Jesus Christ, the son of Jesse,
which shall stand for an ensign of the people.
To it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious.
Look at Isaiah 65, go to Isaiah chapter 65.
It says in Isaiah chapter 65, verse 19,
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people,
and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her nor the voice of crying.
There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that have not filled his days,
for the child shall die a hundred years old.
Now, this is part of the reason we know this passage is talking about the millennium,
because, of course, after the millennium is over,
after the great wide throne of judgment,
the last enemy that shall have been destroyed is death,
and there will be no more death,
nor sorrow nor crying for the former things that passed away.
But this is referring to during the millennium.
Yes, there will be people dying,
and we'll get to that and we'll explain who it is that will live and die during the millennium,
but we see here that during the millennium, from these two passages so far,
you notice that some of the curse that's upon this earth will be lifted,
because if you remember, in the original Garden of Eden,
every animal in the Garden of Eden was an herbivore.
No animals killed each other or ate meat.
Now, Scott knows all about this, but animals in the wild, they really tear each other apart.
People are always worried about, oh, you're being cruel to animals,
or just because you butcher an animal and eat it,
just because obviously there's no pleasant way to kill an animal,
and there's no pleasant way to cut it up and eat it.
And people that do it, they're used to it, and you eat meat,
and then obviously you're enjoying the benefits of somebody else getting all bloody
and cutting up an animal and eating it.
But if you see what animals do to each other in the wild,
I mean, they tear each other apart, don't they?
Even my domesticated dog, one time there were these birds flying around,
and the dog just leaped into the air with some primordial instinct
and just bit this bird right out of midair.
My dog's a Labrador.
And I never thought that my dog was that fierce.
It just seemed kind of a weakling to me all the time,
but it just jumped up in the air and just bit this bird.
And started just tearing it apart.
I was looking at it like, wow.
And while I was watching it tear this bird apart,
all of a sudden, 15 of its friends, all these birds are going...
And they started dive-bombing this dog and trying to attack the dog,
and the dog's just shaking them off.
For once, my dog was living the way it was created to live.
But anyway, it's all domesticated, eating little kibbles and bits.
But anyway, it had its moment in the sun.
I was impressed.
It's better than catching a Frisbee, right?
But the thing is, in the Garden of Eden, though, all animals were herbivores.
Back then, there was no death.
Even the animals would just eat.
And like it says here, a lion will eat rats.
I mean, he said that the lamb and the lion will lay down together.
You know, there will be total peace on earth.
The Bible says they'll beat their swords and their plowshares
and their spears and their pruning hooks.
You know, they will not hurt or destroy.
I mean, it'll be basically peace on earth.
It'll be the animal kingdom, even at peace.
It'll be safe for a little child to play with snakes and ass and poison snake.
It'll just be a partial lifting of the curse, kind of back to the way it was
before the earth and the ground was cursed and so forth
when the animals are at peace and everything like that.
So it'll be a time of prosperity.
It'll be peaceful.
It'll be happy.
It'll be an idyllic circumstance upon this earth.
Now, let's keep reading.
We stopped reading in verse number 20.
It says,
For the child shall die a hundred years old,
but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be a curse.
So it's basically saying that this is a time
when people will live a very long time, okay?
It says in verse 21,
And they shall build houses and inhabit them,
and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
They shall not build and another inhabit.
They shall not plant and another eat,
for as the days of a tree are the days of my people.
Now, trees live to be what?
You know, hundreds of years old, a thousand years old.
So you're saying they're going to live really long like a tree.
And if somebody dies at a hundred,
it'll be like, oh, man, their life was cut short.
It was like a child, you know, almost.
You say, oh, man, the poor guy, the young pup died at a hundred.
That's the way people talk during this time.
Now, you remember in the Old Testament in Genesis,
that's the way it started out, too.
In Genesis, people were living to be hundreds and hundreds of years old.
But, of course, we've degenerated a point,
our bodies have degenerated a point
where now we only live to be about 70, 80 years old.
But in the millennium, it'll be back to like it was
in the days before the flood,
that close to the beginning of the creation,
when people will live a really long time.
And they'll be healthier,
and the curse will be lifted upon a lot of the things.
And so it'll be a really great time.
It'll be like a paradise upon this earth in many ways.
Let's keep reading.
It says in verse number 21,
they shall build houses and inhabit them,
and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
They shall not build another habit,
they shall not plant another eat,
for as the days of a tree are the days of my people,
and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
nor bring forth for trouble,
for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord
and their offspring with them.
And it shall come to pass that before they call,
I will answer, and while they are yet speaking,
I will hear,
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock,
and dust shall be the serpent's meat.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
saith the Lord.
Now, let's go back to Revelation 20 for now.
But the Bible's explaining here
that during the millennium, it's going to be peace,
it's going to be happiness,
it's going to be people going to work,
building houses, planting vineyards,
planting crops, enjoying the fruit of their hands,
enjoying the fruit of their labor,
just a paradise of what life should be like.
You know, it sounds great, right?
You go to work, you got your own house.
The Bible says every man will sit down under his own vine,
his own fig tree.
Everybody will own their own property
and just enjoy their own labors
and just live in peace
and a wonderful world that this world could be.
That's what the millennium is going to be like.
This is after the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Will there be an Internet?
Now, we'll get to that later.
Anyway, so in Revelation chapter 20,
let's go ahead and look at this one more time.
He says in Revelation 20,
it says in verse 4,
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them,
and judgment was given unto them.
And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded
for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God,
and which had not worshipped the beast,
neither in his image,
neither had received his mark upon their foreheads
or in their hands,
and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
But the rest of the dead
lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part of the first resurrection.
On such the second death hath no power,
but they shall be priests of God and of Christ,
and shall reign with them a thousand years.
Now, the next subject is this,
and this is really the key.
This is the key to understanding the millennium.
Who is going to be in the millennium?
Who's going to be there?
Well, there's going to be more than one group
that's going to be there,
and that's what we need to see.
So in order to fully understand that,
we need to understand how do we get to the millennium?
Okay, and I'm going to briefly go into that.
Turn back to Revelation 19,
and I'm going to briefly go into that.
I'm going to explain this just briefly,
but of course, we know that the tribulation,
read Matthew 24 is where that term comes from.
He said, then shall be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world
or on our own shall be.
And so we see the tribulation period.
We see God's people persecuted.
We see the antichrist with his one world government, okay?
And we see people being beheaded for the cause of Christ.
We see that you can't buy or sell
without having the mark of the beast,
and that was mentioned in Revelation 20, wasn't it?
Then of course, those days are shortened
for the elect's sake.
Jesus Christ comes in the clouds,
Matthew 24, 29 through 31.
He comes in the clouds, the trumpet sounds.
Of course, he gathers up his elect
from the four winds of heaven,
and we're caught up in the clouds with him.
The same day, he pours out fire and brimstone
upon this earth,
and for years, he pours out his wrath upon this earth,
the seven trumpets and the seven vials of Revelation.
This all culminates at the end of the seventh trumpet,
at the end of the seventh vial,
with Jesus Christ's return on the white horse.
Jesus Christ comes with the armies of heaven following him
and with all the saints.
We're going to get to that in a moment.
He comes with all the saints,
and basically at this point,
the Antichrist and his armies have gathered together
in a place called Armageddon, okay?
And they're basically gathered there
to battle against Jesus Christ, who has come.
And of course, he defeats the Antichrist,
kills all of his armies,
and then sets up his throne in Jerusalem
and sets up his millennial kingdom
and basically undoes all the damage that's just been done
where all the water was destroyed
and the trees are all burnt up and water turned into blood.
All the wrath that he's been pouring out
for the last three or four years,
he basically reverses all that process,
sets up his peaceful, idyllic kingdom
that we read about back in Isaiah.
And it says here that God's people
that have been beheaded
and that have stood up for Christ during tribulation,
he saw them sitting on thrones
reigning with Christ for a thousand years, right?
But who all is going to be there?
Well, let's look at Revelation 19
and see this part about Armageddon.
In Revelation 19, it says in verse 11,
And I saw heaven open,
and this is at the very end of it all.
He's already poured out all his wrath.
He's judged here.
It says, And I saw heaven open,
and behold, a white horse,
and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
This is Jesus Christ.
His eyes were as a flame of fire,
and on his head were many crowns,
and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself.
And he was clothed with a vesture,
dipped in blood,
and his name is called the Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven
followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword,
that with it he should smite the nations,
and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.
You remember that from Psalm 2?
Remember that from Revelation chapter 2?
And he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness
and wrath of Almighty God,
and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh
a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
And I saw an angel standing in the sun,
and he cried with a loud voice,
saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven,
Come and gather yourselves together
under the supper of the great God,
that ye may eat the flesh of kings,
and the flesh of captains,
and the flesh of mighty men,
and the flesh of horses,
and of them that sit on them,
and the flesh of all men,
both free and bond, both small and great.
And I saw the beasts and the kings of the earth
and their armies gathered together
to make war against him that sat on the horse
and against his army.
Now let's get the picture here.
Because in order to understand the millennium,
let's see how we go into the millennium here,
how the millennium starts.
Jesus Christ has been pouring out his wrath,
turning water into blood,
raining fire out of heaven for years,
sending all these swarms of locusts
and all the plagues we read about in Revelation.
I don't have time to preach that.
But the people did not respond by changing their ways
They're still just...
God makes it clear so many times.
They remained just as wicked.
They blasphemed God.
They cursed God who was judging them.
They still hated God.
They still hated Jesus.
They still didn't get the picture.
So when Jesus comes on this white horse,
basically their idea is,
let's gather ourselves and fight against him.
Let's defeat him.
So basically the antichrist leads this massive army
of people from all over the world
who gather together to fight against Jesus Christ
and to fight against his army of those
from heaven on white horses.
And when they come to this battle,
it says in verse number 19,
you know, they were gathered together
to make war against him that sat on the horse,
which is Jesus and against his army.
And the beast was taken,
and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him,
with which he deceived them that had the mark of the beast,
and then that worshiped his image.
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire
burning with brimstone.
This is the first time that anyone ever gets thrown
into the actual lake of fire in outer darkness.
Not hell in the center of the earth,
but the lake of fire,
the final resting place for hell.
And the remnant, verse 21,
were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse,
which sword proceeded out of his mouth,
and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Now, whose flesh did the fowls eat?
Because we have to look at this very carefully
to not misunderstand the passage here.
Whose fowls did the...
I mean, whose flesh did the fowls eat?
Those who were in this army that's gathered together
against Jesus Christ, right?
They're killed by the Lord Jesus Christ.
They think they're going to battle him,
and he basically just consumes them, okay?
Just with his word, he just destroys them all.
There's not even a battle, okay?
The Bible says...
He said you'll not have to fight him that day.
He said it'll just be over before he starts, you know?
But they're deceived into thinking that they can battle him,
so they're all gathered together and he just destroys them.
And then all the fowl comes and eats their flesh,
you know, as fowl always do after every battle.
Now, a lot of people misunderstand this passage,
and here's where the misunderstanding comes from,
and we're going to clear it up.
Look at verse 18.
Talking to the fowls, he says that
he may eat the flesh of kings.
Are you in verse 18?
And the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men,
and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them,
and the flesh of all men, both free and bond,
both small and great.
People will interpret that as,
oh, everybody's going to die in the whole world.
But no, he's saying gather here
and eat the flesh of all men that are here at this battle.
Does that make sense?
He's not saying that everybody in the world,
and a lot of people mistake,
and the reason that they have such a hard time
understanding the millennium,
is that they think that God will kill everybody on this earth
when he pours out his wrath,
and that is simply not true.
When God pours out his wrath,
about, you know, a third of the population is killed,
okay, on this earth,
and then other people are killed at various points.
But there are still going to be a ton of people
who survive all of the wrath that God pours out.
I mean, right now there are, what,
seven billion people in this world?
We don't know exactly how many people will be on this earth
when this happens.
It may happen soon.
We don't know.
It may be similar, seven, eight billion.
We don't know.
But the point is that even if he killed
a third of the population,
and even if he kills many other millions and millions of people
when he pours out his wrath,
and even if there are millions of people
gathered in this great army
with the Antichrist trying to defeat Jesus Christ,
there are still going to be a ton of people in this world
who will live through all of this.
There's no passage that says they're all going to die.
People often misunderstand that passage
and think that that's saying that they're all going to die,
but no, Jesus is only defeating those
who have gathered against him, okay?
So when Jesus Christ comes in chapter 19
and sets up his kingdom on this earth,
there are still going to be billions of people
in this world that are alive.
Now stop and think about this,
and I know this is kind of a deep sermon,
and so maybe we'll go a little deeper tonight.
Try to pay real close attention and see if you can follow this,
because, you know, blessed are your ears that hear these things,
because many people go to church their whole life
and they never understand them,
and they don't know any of this teaching.
A lot of pastors won't touch on this,
because it's a tough subject, maybe,
because it takes a little bit of studying.
But this is the strong meat tonight.
I want you to pay attention and listen to this.
It's a powerful thought when you get it.
Here's the thing.
Didn't all the believers already get resurrected
back when the trumpet sounded at the rapture,
or what the Bible calls the first resurrection, right?
So they've already been caught up together
with Christ in the clouds.
They've already been up in heaven for a few years,
and they just came down with him on white horses.
They just returned at this time.
So let me ask you something.
Are those people ever going to die again?
No, they've already died or been raptured,
depending on whether they were alive at that time
or whether they had been dead before that time.
Okay, they've already been resurrected.
They've already been given their glorified body.
Their body has been changed
that it might be like unto his glory as Bible.
Do those people have any sins anymore?
No, because the moment that we die, the flesh dies,
we'll never sin again.
When we get to heaven, we'll never sin,
because the flesh is what causes us to sin.
These people have already been given
a regenerated new flesh.
They will not die.
Does that make sense?
And they don't sin.
They've already been in heaven for years,
and they're returning with Christ to this sinful earth.
Is everybody getting the picture?
Now, there are many, many people on this earth at that time,
many of them believing on Jesus Christ possibly
after some of the things that they've seen,
many of them not believing on Jesus Christ.
Just like today, there are people who are saved.
There are people who are not saved.
It'll be the same situation at that time.
Many of them might have just been a really young child
or something when this started happening,
and now they've grown up a little bit.
They're kind of making their own choices at this time.
So there's going to be a variety of people on this earth,
just like there are now, normal, mortal man
living upon this earth, okay?
Jesus Christ comes, he sets up his kingdom,
and there will still be nations,
just like there are nations right now,
and Jesus Christ will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
Jesus Christ will be the leader,
and those who've suffered with Christ
and died for Christ or did great works for Christ
or won many people to Christ,
they will rule and reign with him for a thousand years.
Now, we know first of all,
because we want to figure out who's going to be in the millennium,
we know that there are going to be a lot of just random people, right,
that just lived through all the wrath of God,
and they're just still on the earth here,
and they're going into the millennium by the billions.
But then there's also this group that's coming from heaven.
The question is, is it every believer?
And the answer is yes.
Yes, it is every believer.
There's a heresy out there
that tries to teach that only certain believers
will be in this group that will come back and reign on this earth.
It's called millennial exclusion.
You know, like, if you're not a good enough Christian,
you're left out of this whole thing.
And it's not a new doctrine.
It's a false doctrine that's been around for a long time.
But people in our day are taking it to a whole new level.
There are certain cultic movements out there across this country
where people will teach bizarre, strange doctrines
like that Christians who were bad Christians
will have to go to hell during the millennium,
and then they'll come out of basically like a purgatory,
like the Catholics believe in, like a Baptist purgatory.
You know, and there are always going to be cults
and false teachers and false prophets in this world.
But does that line up with the Bible?
That not every believer will be there.
Now, the Bible says again and again that every believer will be there.
Let's look at some of those passages.
Go to 1 Thessalonians 3.13.
1 Thessalonians 3.13.
In 1 Thessalonians 3.13, we see this.
To the end, he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God,
even our Father, watch this last phrase,
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
So is Jesus Christ coming with some of his saints?
Or the best saints?
No, he's coming with all his saints, isn't he?
Another familiar passage.
Jude 14, you don't have to turn there.
It says, and Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saints.
Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints.
And we know from 1 Thessalonians 3.13, he's coming with all his saints.
Ten thousands, because the Bible doesn't really use the word millions.
It uses like thousands of thousands and so forth.
So he's coming with a huge group.
He doesn't tell.
We don't know how many people are saved in this world.
It's going to be millions and millions of people.
We don't know the exact number, though.
The Bible teaches clearly that it's multiple, multiple millions.
It could be billions.
We don't know how many people are going to be saved
in the whole course of the history up to this point.
But we know that it's a huge number, and we know that it's all the saints.
That's what we know.
So is there any saint that's going to be left behind in heaven
when he comes on the horse?
No, all the saints.
Now, that's not the only place that teaches that.
Revelation 11.18.
You don't have to turn there, but it says,
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come,
this is at the end of the seventh trumpet,
and the time of the dead that they should be judged,
and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets,
and to the saints, and them that fear thy name,
small and great, and shouldest destroy that which destroyed the earth.
So at the time when Jesus Christ comes on the white horse,
the Bible says that he will give reward to everyone
that fears God's name, small and great, and to all the saints.
Again, the Bible says in Daniel 7, go to Daniel 7.
We're going to be there in a few weeks.
I don't want to steal my thunder too much,
but there's so much in the book of Daniel, I don't get to it all anyway.
This will kind of relieve me a little bit when I get to Daniel 7,
something else I don't have to hit on.
Go to Daniel 7.
Daniel 7 teaches this in verse number 21,
talking about the Antichrist that says in Daniel 7 and 21,
I beheld in the same horn made war with the saints and prevailed against them.
That exact wording is found in Revelation 13 about the Antichrist
making war with the saints and overcoming them.
It says, until the Ancient of Days came,
and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High,
and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.
Over and over, I don't have time to turn there,
Deuteronomy 33 says the same thing.
Over and over again, it says that Jesus Christ is coming with his saints
and setting up a kingdom where his saints will be rolling and reigning with him.
Over and over, it's the saints, the saints, the saints.
Now people will try to say, wait a minute Pastor,
are you sure every Christian is a saint?
Maybe this is just a certain elite group of a few ten thousands of really great people.
You know the Catholic Church has certain saints?
Now first of all, they don't have ten thousands,
so they need to hurry up and saint some people,
if they're going to catch up with this,
because otherwise it doesn't jive with the Bible.
You know, they're a small number of saints.
But let me tell you something, the Bible teaches clearly,
I don't have time, I have pages up here,
but I don't even have time to go through all the pages that I put in my notes
proving that the saints are all believers.
I'm going to give you a few though, because I want to prove it.
I want to prove everything I preach.
I don't like to just get up and say stuff.
I like to show you from the Bible.
The thing is, if you do your homework on this,
and just look up every time the word saints is used,
no one can walk away.
You know, no saved person with the Holy Spirit inside of them
can read that and say, I don't think that's all believers.
I mean, it's so clear.
And we'll just look at a few examples that teach this,
but let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
It's so clear what it is to be a saint,
and the word saints is used hundreds of times,
and it's always just referring to believers.
All of us who are saved are saints.
It's not some special thing you earn
where you get sainted or decided that you're a saint.
I'm going to show you in 1 Corinthians 1 and in Hebrews chapter number 10
how you become a saint according to the Bible.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter number 1 verse 2,
unto the church of God which is at Corinth.
So he's saying who the letter is being written unto.
The church of God which is at Corinth,
and he says to them that are sanctified.
Now notice the word sanctified is the same rule as the word saint.
Sanctified means made a saint because saint means holy,
and sanctified means made holy.
So he says right here, God defines it for us.
He says to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.
So the people who are sanctified in Christ Jesus are the same people who are what?
Called to be saints.
With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.
So the saint is the one who's sanctified,
and the one who is a saint and that's sanctified
is the one who calls upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours.
Isn't that clear?
He spells out who I'm talking to. It's all the same group.
The saints, which are those who are sanctified by Jesus Christ,
which are those who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord all over the world, both theirs and ours.
Everybody understand that?
Look at 1 Corinthians 6, verse 2.
You're in chapter 6.
Go to verse 2.
Next place will be in Hebrews 10 if you want to start getting there.
But it says in 1 Corinthians 6, 2,
Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world?
Talking about what?
The millennial reign of Christ.
He says,
And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
Know ye not that we shall judge angels?
How much more things that pertain to this life?
If ye then have judgments of things pertaining to this life,
set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
Which means that the people who are least esteemed in the church are what?
Saints.
See how the Bible has all the answers?
In verse 1 of chapter 6,
He said,
Dare any of you have a matter against another.
Go to law before the unjust and not before the saints.
The unjust or the unsaved, the unrighteous.
And the saints are even the least esteemed person in the church.
He said you'd be better off being judged by the worst person in church than an unbeliever.
So the Bible is conclusively telling us right here in 1 Corinthians 6,
Look, the least esteemed guy in the church is still a saint, isn't he?
See how this false doctrine,
Well not everybody is a saint.
Because they want to twist what God said.
They don't want to believe that Jesus is returning with all the saints.
So they say,
Oh well the saints is a certain group.
No.
It's all believers.
I'm a saint and if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
both theirs and ours,
Hey, you're a saint if you're a saint.
You're a saint.
It's right there in 1 Corinthians 6.
Let's go to Hebrews 10.
And this is why I don't feel the need to go to every passage.
Because we can do this all night.
I mean if we look up every time it says saints,
It's just as clear as in 1 Corinthians 6.
We'll see it again, we'll see it again and again and again.
But we'll look at a few more because I want to prove this to you.
I want you to walk out of the sermon and say,
Hey, I know I'm a saint.
I'm not going to let somebody tell me that the saints are a certain group.
He says in Hebrews 10-10,
By the which will we are sanctified,
Same word found in 1 Corinthians 1-2,
Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
So it's not something we've earned by our good works or great things that we've done.
It's just that we're saved.
It's through the blood of Jesus that we're saints.
Look at Hebrews 13-24.
At the end of the letter, Paul says this,
Salute all them that have the rule over you,
And all the saints.
So the ones that have the rule are not the only saints, right?
Because he says, Salute them that have the rule over you,
And all the saints.
So it's not just the leadership that's the saints.
It's everybody that's the saints.
It's anybody who's sanctified through the blood of Christ.
Who called upon the immoral.
I mean, it's clear and again,
If you still don't believe me, just go on and look up the word every time it says saints.
And I mean, it'll blow you away how clear it is that, hey, you're a saint.
I don't know where these Catholics are getting this.
Or they're little Baptist pretend Catholics who believe in purgatory and that not everybody's a saint.
I don't know what else to say.
They're just not saved. That's why they're deceived.
That's why they haven't been led into all truth by the Holy Ghost of God like we have.
When we just open the Bible and just read it,
And it speaks to us.
So everybody got that down?
So Jesus Christ is coming with whom?
All the saints.
All of them.
I will be there. You will be there.
And we will show up at that time with Jesus Christ.
We will see him defeat the Antichrist.
And he will reward his servants, the prophets, the saints, preachers like me.
I'm a prophet because I'm a preacher.
Not because I'm some kind of a cult leader or making futuristic predictions like Nostradamus.
The Bible calls every preacher a prophet.
That's what the word prophet means in the Bible.
If I preach the word of God.
But not even just the prophet. All the saints will be rewarded.
You'll be rewarded. Male and female will be rewarded.
You see, when we get into the millennium,
Jesus Christ will reward us according to our works.
And I've got to hurry up to take time, but there's a parable that he does on this.
Where he explains a parable about the man who went into a far country to get a kingdom.
He returns and he sees what his people have done, his servants have done, while he was gone.
And you remember there was the one that had the five talents and he brought in another five.
There was the one that had the two talents, brought in another two.
There was the one that had the talent and he just buried it in the earth. Remember that?
And then you remember how there was the other story that he told in the book of Luke.
About how he gave them all one talent and one guy came back with ten talents.
One guy came back with five talents.
So they multiplied what God had given them.
And the guy who had the ten talents, he said to him,
Be thou over ten cities.
You remember that?
He said, be thou over five cities.
Now it's a parable.
It's just a parable. It's about a story that didn't really happen.
You know what I mean? It's just an illustration.
The kingdom of heaven is kind of like this.
Where a guy goes into a far country.
So it's an illustration, though, of the fact that Jesus Christ will reward us based upon what we've done with what we had.
He gave us certain talents. He gave us certain resources.
And what we did will determine our reward.
Now, everyone is not going to receive the same reward.
Jesus said, Behold, I come quickly.
And my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be.
That's told to believers. That's told to the Church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3.
He said, I'm coming and I'm going to reward you according to your works.
So basically, what you did for Christ on this earth will determine what level of reward you're going to get at the beginning of this millennial kingdom of Christ on this earth.
So, let's say you have been just the most lamest Christian.
I mean, you didn't go to church.
You never gave the gospel to anybody.
You were worldly. I mean, you were saved, but that's it.
You know, you're not going to be in the same position as like the Apostle Paul.
Or people who've suffered for Christ and been beheaded for Christ or preached the word of God faithfully and knocked doors and one's souls to Christ.
There's going to be a difference there.
Now, hey, you'll just be glad to be there, right?
It'll be cool just to be there.
But, hey, don't you want to be there and excel to the highest and get the rewards that God has for you?
I preached a few weeks ago about the rewards.
And we touched on this and that's why I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the rewards because I just did a whole sermon on the rewards and I went into the Millennium a little bit.
That was about three weeks ago, so I don't want to go into that too deeply.
But we see here that we're going to be rewarded and given authority based upon what we did during our life because it's going to be ruling and reigning with Christ.
Now, question. Will we, as God's people, when we come back for the Millennium, will we ever die?
No, because we've already died and been resurrected, you know.
We've already come up in that first resurrection, haven't we?
Number two. Will we be married and having children? No, because the Bible says in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven.
So, no, we're not going to be married. We're not going to be producing children.
I've heard a lot of these people who don't know what they're talking about with Bible prophecy get up and say like,
Oh, you know, the Millennium, because they think everybody's slaughtered, which is, you know, I proved that false in Revelation 19.
It was just those who had gathered at that particular... I mean, do you think the whole world was just empty?
Everybody was there? No, it was just an army that was assembled that consisted of people from all nations, but it was just a little United Nations army.
It wasn't, you know, every single person from the world.
Okay. They're mixed up on that, so therefore they say, Oh, it'll be the children of the Christians who rebel at the end of the thousand years.
No, because we're not going to be having children. Now, will I have children in the Millennium? Sure.
Because I have my children that are sitting back there in the back row, and because they're saved, you know, they'll be there with me too, right?
But am I going to be having any more children? No. Are my wife and I going to be having children? No.
Tell that to these Mormons, by the way, who think they're going to be having children for all eternity.
In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given a marriage.
And so the bottom line, my wife is not going to be eternally pregnant.
You know, I know it seems like it will come to an end.
It's funny, we calculated one time, I was like, Honey, you've been pregnant.
Not anymore, obviously, because we've been married for over ten years now, and our kids are about two years apart, approximately a little over two years apart.
When we were early in our marriage, I was saying to my wife, Honey, you've been pregnant more than you've been not pregnant.
You know, for the amount of time we've been married, you've spent more time pregnant than not pregnant.
You know, it's like when you're not pregnant, it's a rarity, but anyway, that's a little bit of an exaggeration.
She's always pregnant or breastfeeding, we'll put it that way. She's always eating for two.
But anyway, literally, the last ten, so long, it was almost.
But anyway, the bottom, is that too much information? The bottom line is, it's true.
The bottom line is this, we're not going to be having new children.
The only people who are going to be at the Millennium is those who survived the outpouring of God's wrath,
and those who came back on the horses, which is every believer who's ever lived,
that basically was caught up in the clouds in Matthew 24, whatever passage you want to look at that deals with the rapture.
1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 18, all that stuff.
That's who's going to be there, plus the people who survived, and that's the only group, okay?
Now, let's go to Revelation 20. I'm trying to prioritize here to get to the main information that I want to preach tonight.
I hope everybody's following the message so far in comprehending this doctrine.
It's not really that complicated of a doctrine, it's just there's confusion because you hear stuff from people who haven't really studied.
You know, and they haven't really looked at this and dug into it, and so therefore you can get a little bit confused.
But really it's not that confusing when you boil it down.
Let's get into some key verses in chapter 20 here.
He saw the devil cast into the bottomless pit, and he was sealed up for a thousand years.
Look at verse 3.
He cast him into the bottomless pit, talking about Satan, and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more.
Because that's what he's doing right now, he's a deceiver, he's deceiving everyone who dwells on the earth.
Till the thousand years should be fulfilled.
So at the end of the thousand years he will be released, and after that he must be loosed to a whole season.
He will go out to deceive the nations one last time, right?
In verse 4 we see those who were beheaded for Christ.
During the tribulation, who did not take the mark of the beast, they're on thrones rolling...
I mean, they got a great position for enduring that horrible persecution and tribulation.
But we know, of course, that all the saints will be there.
Here's the verse that people get confused about, verse number 5.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
This is the first resurrection.
Here's where people get confused.
They think, oh, the rest of the dead lived not again.
See? Not all Christians will be there, it's just these ones that were beheaded.
It was only the really good ones, the saints or whatever, which we already proved that false.
But hold on a second.
Are the believers who were resurrected years earlier dead?
No! Because they've already come back from the dead.
Now, the Christian never truly dies.
Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Your body dies, but your soul is still alive in heaven.
Before Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were resurrected, because guess what?
They still haven't been resurrected.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still in the grave. Their bodies are still in the grave.
Their soul is in heaven, though.
Jesus said, look, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
God's not the God of the dead, but of the living.
He said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and was glad.
So Abraham was looking down from heaven and saw Jesus Christ glorified upon this earth and rejoiced.
See, he's not dead. His body's dead, but he's alive in heaven, isn't he?
Well, here's the thing.
At the resurrection, our body will be resurrected.
Because before that, we're just going to be our soul in heaven.
When our body's resurrected, then we'll be body, soul, and spirit very much alive, not dead.
So when it says the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years are finished,
are we talking about believers who already were resurrected when the trumpet sounded?
No, of course not.
Who are the dead who will live again? Well, let me ask you this.
Are the unsaved, unbelievers ever going to live again?
No, they won't live again.
Because look at Revelation 20, verse 12.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened,
and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things,
which were written in the books according to their works.
And the sea gave up the what? The dead, which were in it.
And death and hell delivered up the what? The dead, which were in them.
And they were judged, every man, according to their works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
So, did they ever come back to life?
There's no mention of them coming living again. Do they live again?
No, they're standing before God as the dead.
They've been in hell for a thousand years.
Now they're standing before God as the dead, being judged by their works, and cast for eternity into the lake of fire,
which is also called hell in Matthew chapter 10.
So, we see here that the rest of the dead that lived not again
is the people who were not resurrected in the first resurrection
because of the fact that they could have gotten saved and died after the first resurrection.
Does that make sense?
Because throughout the millennium, remember, there's all these billions of people living and dying.
Many of them will be saved and die, and they will not be resurrected until the second resurrection,
because here's what you've got.
Go to 1 Corinthians 15. We're going to be back to Revelation 20.
1 Corinthians 15 is known as the resurrection chapter, kind of like 1 Corinthians 13 is the charity chapter.
Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter. 2 Peter 2 is the false prophet chapter.
You can go through all these different chapters. They're kind of famous for certain things.
This is the resurrection chapter. 1 Corinthians 15 deals with the resurrection in a powerful way.
But in 1 Corinthians 15, he explains the order of the resurrection.
It says in verse 20 is where I want to start.
23 I want to get to, but let's start in verse 20.
I just want to make sure I go back far enough and get everything here.
But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order.
So there's an order here of resurrection, isn't there?
Here's the order. Christ the firstfruits.
Afterward they that are Christ's that is coming.
That's the trumpet sounding in 1 Thessalonians 4.
The coming of the Lord as it's called in 1 Thessalonians 4.
So first we have what? The firstfruits.
Then afterward they that are Christ's that is coming.
Is anybody getting resurrected between those two events? No.
Christ the firstfruits, one guy, Jesus Christ, the Son of God being resurrected.
Afterward they that are Christ's that is coming.
1 Thessalonians 4, Matthew 24, etc. Scriptures on the rapture.
And then what's next?
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father,
when he shall have put down all rule and all authority,
for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
So there's going to be the firstfruits, the first resurrection,
and the second resurrection will be after he delivers up the kingdom to his Father.
Because first it will be Jesus Christ reigning on this earth,
then it will be for all eternity God the Father and Jesus Christ reigning upon this earth for eternity.
But we see at the end of the millennium, that is the time at which death will finally be destroyed
and the rest will be resurrected.
So we have the firstfruits, the first resurrection, and the second resurrection.
There's not five resurrections, there's not ten, there's not seven, there's not four,
there's Christ, then there's the first resurrection, second resurrection.
It's really clear. I mean, it couldn't be any clearer right here.
And John 5, 24-28 is another place where you can get more teaching on this.
So, everybody following this? So basically, here's the situation.
The resurrection is likened unto a harvest. That's why it's called the firstfruits.
The harvest usually takes place in three stages, just in farming.
The firstfruits, the first ripe fruits, are going to be the stuff that's ripe early.
They're going to go in and gather up some of that.
Then there's going to be the main harvest, which is by far the bulk of the harvesting, a huge amount.
Then there's what's called the gleanings, going back over it the second time.
So we have the firstfruits, the first resurrection, and the second resurrection.
So there are two resurrections of believers.
The first one is when the trumpet sounds when Jesus Christ comes in the clouds,
and the second one is at the same time as the great white throne of judgment.
Those who are, of course, resurrected at that time will not be the dead.
They will live again when the thousand years are over.
Remember it said the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years are finished?
This is the first resurrection.
Go back to Revelation 20, and we're not going anywhere else tonight.
We're going to stay in Revelation 20 for the rest of the sermon and really dig into this.
It says,
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.
On such the second death hath no power.
But they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
The second death is, of course, the lake of fire, and so forth.
Now, it says in verse number 4 at the end,
And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years,
but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
This is the first resurrection, and in John 5, he explains that in one day,
everyone will be resurrected, the just and the unjust,
the resurrection of damnation, and the resurrection of glory.
But,
what's going to happen at the end of the millennium?
So far, we've learned who is going into the millennium,
how we got to the millennium, what it's going to be like during the millennium.
Who's going to be there?
It's going to be Chris.
It's basically going to be two classes of people, right?
There are going to be mortal human beings,
which will be saved and unsaved, just like they are now.
Many saved, many unsaved.
You say, wait a minute Pastor, won't everybody in the millennium believe on him, though,
because he's on this earth?
He's already been to this earth before, and not everybody believed on him.
Remember that?
The first time he was here, not everybody believed.
Oh, but there will be supernatural things happening.
Do you remember the first time he came?
Do you remember him walking on water?
Do you remember him raising the dead?
I mean, he raised Lazarus from the dead, and they saw it,
and they walked away, and said, what are we going to do to stop him?
If we don't stop this guy, all men are going to believe on him.
They wanted to kill Lazarus, he said.
Because they said, this guy Lazarus is walking around,
making us look stupid.
Because we're saying Jesus is a phony, this guy was dead for four days, and he's alive.
John chapter 11.
They wanted to kill Lazarus, they wanted to kill Jesus.
They hated him.
And it all comes down to one thing in the book of Luke.
Jesus tells a parable where the men of the world say,
we will not have this man to rule over us.
We don't want him to rule over us.
We don't like, we don't want his rule, we hate God.
You see, there are people in this world who are atheists,
which means they just don't believe that God exists.
Right?
But then there are other people in this world who are Satanists.
They believe God exists, they just don't like him.
They just hate him.
And they want to worship Satan.
And they want to go to hell, because that's where their friends are going to be.
They're too stupid to realize what hell is really going to be like.
I've heard people say, I'd rather go to hell.
There's a famous quote that says, it's a satanic quote that says,
I'd rather rain in hell than serve in hell.
You're not going to be raining in hell, you're going to be burning in hell.
But, it's right, they are idiots.
And let me tell you something.
People will not all be happy,
even though everything's going to be great in the millennium,
even though there's going to be total prosperity,
the ground is going to be bringing forth healthy food like you can't believe.
The curse will be removed, the animals will be tamed,
beautiful nature, beautiful scenery,
everybody will have prosperity, they'll be able to keep their own money
and not be enslaved by wicked, tyrannical, despotic governments.
It'll be a righteous government.
It'll be freedom, it'll be private property,
it'll be like a paradise on this earth.
But yet, wicked man just will not be able to appreciate it for what it is.
Now, many people will appreciate it.
And as long as the devil's in hell,
most people will be pretty content with it to go with the flow and go along with it,
without the devil to deceive them.
Right? I mean, it's going to last for a thousand years,
peace, prosperity, everything will be great.
But there will be two classes of people,
because there will be the ones who have already been resurrected,
which will be us,
and then there will be the others who are mortal men.
Many will be saved, many will be unsaved,
they'll be living in great condition,
but the ones who are going to be in charge are us.
Does everybody understand that?
So we come to the end of the thousand years.
Thousand years of wonderful blessing and peace on earth.
You know, I'm looking forward to it.
You know, get to see the sights that maybe we didn't get to see the first time around.
You know, it'll be great.
Just really live life the way it was meant to be lived on this earth.
It'll be great.
It's going to be a wonderful time.
It'll be a wonderful time for us,
and it'll just be a wonderful time
for the people that are privileged to be born during that time.
But at the end of it all,
the devil's going to be released from hell
with all of his hundreds of millions of demons,
or however many there are.
I mean, we know that there's at least 33 million,
according to the Bible.
34 million, that is.
At least.
And he's going to go out and deceive the nations,
which are in the four corners of the earth,
to gather them together to battle.
I'm quoting right now,
you can look that in your Bible,
quoting verse 8.
Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle,
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
So is this going to be a big group
at the end of the millennium that rebels against Christ?
It's going to be huge.
It's going to be as many as the sand which is by the sea shore.
Innumerable!
So basically everybody will be pretty much placated
and going through life and living their life during this plane.
Doesn't mean they all believe on Jesus Christ.
Yet he's going to be physically on this earth in Jerusalem,
thousands of miles away, they'll know he's there.
They'll have their own people ruling over them in their area,
you know, of God's people that will be ruling over them,
me, you, and all the other tens of thousands
and hundreds of thousands and millions of people
that are Christians.
Some people will be like a janitor in the millennium
because they didn't bother doing anything for God.
So you're going to rule over this block.
Some people will be over ten cities,
some people will be over like from here to the end of the cul-de-sac.
That's why you'll be in charge of it.
But the bottom line is, at the end of the millennium,
the devil's going to go out and deceive a lot of people.
Tons of people.
So that shows that there's still tons of unbelievers on this earth
that still don't believe on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now the devil is going to deceive them.
What does it mean to deceive?
It's to get someone to believe a lie, right?
What is that lie going to be?
Well, we don't know exactly what that lie is going to be,
but we can get a pretty good idea.
Because if you stop and think about it,
in order for them to go try to dethrone Jesus,
basically they're going to get together a huge army of people
and say, we're going to go there and we're going to kill Jesus.
I mean, we're going to get rid of him.
We're sick of him reigning over us.
What is the deception going to be?
Obviously that he's not who he says he is.
Because if he was legitimately Jesus Christ,
the second coming, the son of God,
he's been reigning for a thousand years.
He never is dying.
They're living and dying, aren't they?
Now they're living hundreds of years, but still.
Other people aren't dying.
Who are those people?
Us.
The saints.
The saints aren't dying either.
So there's going to be some kind of a lie,
some kind of a deception put across on the people of this earth
that says, hey, this isn't God in the flesh.
This isn't the son of God.
He's an imposter.
And all these people that are under him, too.
The devil's going to somehow trick them.
What's he going to trick them?
Maybe they just have some technology
that they're withholding from you.
You're dying, and they have the fountain of youth.
They have some technology, or they're aliens.
Who knows what they're going to say, right?
He's a space alien.
We've got to kill him.
Who knows?
I'm just being kind of silly with that.
But there's going to be some kind of a deception put forth that says,
hey, Jesus Christ, it's not that he's God,
and it's not that all these people are the saints,
but rather it's an imposter.
They're just keeping us down.
They're just ruling over us.
They're just trying to keep us down,
and we should be running things.
We're going to go there and figure out what's going on type of thing.
I'm just kind of speculating,
but we know it's going to be some kind of a lie that he tells
to where people actually believe a lie
and think that Jesus is not who he said he is.
Because it's clear that they're going to be deceived.
They're not going to know what they're doing.
We're rebelling against Jesus.
Now, stop and think about this.
Try to put yourself in the millennium.
When the thousand years are up,
and the Bible says,
the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters come at the sea,
other passages on the millennium,
we have an entire time to turn to,
say, in that day they shall not teach every man his neighbor
and every man his brother,
saying, know the Lord.
For all shall know me from the least of the greatest.
He's saying, everybody in the world is going to know who I am.
They're going to know what the Bible teaches.
They're going to understand.
It's going to be common knowledge, is what he's saying.
He's saying, today you walk up,
and people go, who's Adam and Eve?
But at that time, biblical things will be common knowledge.
It'll be a wonderful world that we're going to live in.
But, but, this is what people are going to probably start thinking
after a thousand years have gone by.
They're going to say, wait a minute.
I thought this was the millennial reign of Christ.
It seems like it just keeps on going.
You know what I mean?
Because if you think about it,
the devil's going to be released after the thousand years are expired.
He's going to go out and deceive the nations.
How long is that going to take?
Is that just going to take one day?
To deceive everyone and round up a number of people
as the sand of the sea?
This could take years.
We don't know how long.
But it's probably going to take some time.
So people might say, and again, I'm speculating,
but I'm just trying to put a little skin on the Bible here.
I'm just trying to get you to comprehend.
Because a lot of people look at the millennium and say,
I don't get it.
How could that happen?
We don't know exactly how it's going to happen.
We don't know what the technology is going to be like
after a thousand years of peace and prosperity.
What kind of technology?
People 200 years ago couldn't have imagined the world we live in, right?
So we see through a glass darkly.
But we trust God's Word to be true here.
So we can do kind of a little make believe here
and just try to get a feel for what it could be like.
Thousand years are expired is the word that God uses.
Think about when milk is expired.
And people are going to look at it as an expiration
and say, wait a minute.
I thought this was going to last for a thousand years.
Here we are.
It's been a thousand and twelve years
or a thousand and eight years.
And this just keeps on going.
And then he'll have his lies and whatever deception.
They're going to say, this is going to go on forever.
He's an imposter. It's not Jesus.
It's not the Son of God.
It's faith, whatever.
Whatever the deception is,
I'm not going to pretend to know what it is.
That's when they're going to say,
you know what, we are sick of this.
We want to have porno theaters.
We want to have the things the way they used to be.
What we read about in the history books.
Back when there were fags and porno bars and booze.
You're thinking, who in their right mind would want to go back to that filth and smut?
We used to watch all these people.
Of course, we lived during the millennium.
Obviously, they'll be a new generation.
But they'll say, we're sick of all your rules.
We're sick of one people being over us.
And we're sick of being told what to do.
And we're sick of rules.
Of course, it'll be total freedom.
But they won't recognize that.
They'll see it as bondage.
Let me explain something to you.
You don't think God's laws are going to be the laws of the land during the millennium?
Because they will.
I mean, God's laws are perfect.
And guess what?
There's not going to be a bunch of homosexuality.
They're going to be stone with stones.
Because that's what the Bible says.
All that stuff is going to be enacted.
Murderers will be killed.
Adulters will be killed.
Guess what?
A lot of people don't like those kind of rules.
Even though this provides way more freedom than our US government.
That has laws so big we couldn't even fit them in this building.
People still look at this little thin black book.
Too restrictive.
But some cop telling me I'm going 72 in a 70.
That's not too restrictive.
You didn't wear your seatbelt.
You didn't fill out this form at the right time.
You didn't sign this and pay your $100 fee to exist another year.
You're not licensed to be alive right now.
You're not in compliance.
It's going to be total freedom.
Except for there will be certain rules like no adultery, no murder, no filth, no smut.
It's going to be a clean and godly environment that we're going to be living in.
Thank God.
Looking forward to it.
But let me tell you something.
People aren't going to like it.
They're going to say, we don't want this man to rule over us.
And just like they rejected him the first time on this earth,
there will be people who reject him the second time.
When they come to defeat him, they're following the devil's plan of deception.
How does it all end?
It says in Revelation 20, verse 9,
They went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about.
Now, the way I interpret this is that it sounds like the saints at this time,
because remember, they reigned for a thousand years.
Well, after the thousand years when the devil comes out, basically there's going to be rebellion.
So it sounds like the saints have almost circled the wagons.
They're with Jesus in Jerusalem, basically.
That's what it seems like to me, that they're all there.
They're all in this camp.
They're encamped for battle, apparently, because that's the word camp.
Isn't that what the word camp would indicate?
You know, that they're there, assembled for battle.
And the beloved city, and then, boy, their battle doesn't go too well,
because fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire.
He was in the bottomless pit.
Now he's being thrown into the lake of fire, where the beast and the false prophet are.
Notice, not where the beast and the false prophet were,
where the beast and the false prophet are.
A thousand years later, those two men will still be burning in hell, because hell's eternal.
And it shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
I memorized that verse when I was just a tiny little kid.
That was the first verse that I remember ever memorizing on hell.
And I think it might even have been the first verse I memorized, period, Revelation 20.
The first verse that I on the moon picked up a Bible and memorized was Revelation 20.
And then we have the great white throne.
We have the judgment of the unsaved, their eternal positioning in the lake of fire in outer darkness.
Then in chapters 21 and 22, we have what?
The new heaven and the new earth, which does not have hell in it, and which has zero unbelievers.
You see the difference between the millennium and the eternal reign of Christ on this earth?
The millennium, there's going to be all kinds of mortal man, unsaved people.
It'll be more like the world we're living in today, except it'll be clean, nice, godly, wonderful.
But then there'll be the new heaven and the new earth, where there's no death whatsoever, no one unsaved.
Everyone is the saints. Everyone is immortal.
And we reign forever and ever. We live on happily and go on for eternity.
We don't know what all is going to happen, but it's going to be a wonderful eternal destiny.
So, what's the moral of the story?
The main purpose of tonight's sermon was just to help you to understand the truth about this.
The millennial reign of Christ is very real teaching.
It's doctrinal. Do I fully understand exactly what things will be like during that time?
No, but I strove tonight to show you some biblical evidence of some of the different characteristics of the millennium.
We see through a glass darkly, then we'll see face to face.
People probably couldn't have understood the mark of the beast 200 years ago.
We look at it and say, oh yeah, it's just a microchip in your hand, as the King James says, in your forehead or in your hand.
I mean, we say, that's easy. Can't buy or sell without a mark in your right hand.
Well, that's a piece of cake, you know. You just scan your hand under a scanner.
You think people knew about that 200 years ago?
So, there are other things that we don't know about today about the millennium because it's so far away, we can't really totally picture it.
Does that make sense? Just like people back then couldn't picture today.
But the moral of the story is, a thousand years is a really long time.
Seventy years is not that long.
So, why would you waste your life now?
Why would you live a life gratifying the flesh and living for yourself now so that you can be the dunce of the millennium?
You know, and God's not going to make fun of you or make you wear a dunce hat or call you names or criticism.
The Bible says it's going to be all positive. You'll only get rewarded. You'll only get praised.
All men shall have praise of God in that day.
But let me tell you something. Do you really want to be on the bottom or would you rather be closer to the top during that time?
I mean, my favorite character of the New Testament, you know what my favorite character of the New Testament is?
John. The Apostle John is my favorite New Testament character.
Has been for a decade.
I love the Apostle John. I relate to him. I just love the character in the Bible.
You know, you have your favorite Bible characters, right?
Favorite Old Testament characters, favorite New Testament characters.
But you know what John, his attitude was?
John and his brother James went to Jesus and said,
Hey, I want to be sitting in the throne.
He said, I want to be sitting on your right hand. I want James to be sitting on the left.
That was the attitude, right?
Those guys were smart enough to realize, hey, that's what it's all about.
Not this short life that's going to be over before we know it.
Don't waste your life. You're going to be on this earth for a thousand years.
Then you're going to be eternally ruling and reigning with Christ.
And not everyone's going to be equal. This isn't a communist, utopian, Marxist paradise.
You're going to be rewarded according to your works. So get to work, is what he's saying.
I wonder if God will look down at pastors of churches and say,
Okay, show me which doors you knocked. Show me what part of the town that you knocked.
And that's what you'll be over in the millennium. And they're over one block.
You know what I mean?
I wonder if God will look down at so many Christians and see that you've knocked huge amounts of doors and say,
Okay, take Mammoth. You know what I'm saying?
Take Kearney. Take Hayden. Take Winkelman. Whatever. I'm just kidding, of course.
But the bottom line is, I'm not kidding when I tell you that you will be over cities if you serve Christ to the fullest.
And let's face it, most Christians don't do anything for God.
So it's probably not going to be that hard to at least get a couple cities under your belt.
I'm serious.
I mean, the bar's pretty low today, folks.
You know, you may not be able to be the Apostle Paul. You ought to strive to be the best you can be.
And to be like John.
And to be like James. But let me tell you something.
It won't be... Don't just throw in the towel and say like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to achieve anything.
You know what? If you're a soul winner, you're one of the few.
So don't quit.
Don't go soft.
Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
He will crown you when he comes. He will reward you.
And it'll be worth it.
He said in Romans 8,
For I reckon that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
And we let so many dumb things, so many sufferings in our life give us down.
But this life is as a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
You know, endure it.
It's worth it.
And when you see Jesus Christ, you don't want to be ashamed before Him at His coming.
You want to be glad to say,
Lord, you gave me ten talents and here are ten talents beside.
And to hear Him say,
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Thou hast been faithful in a few things.
I'll make thee ruler over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
It'll be a glorious thing, won't it?
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for your word.
And God, thank you for the Holy Spirit because I know that without the Holy Spirit I would not be able to understand the Bible
because I look at all the people who are not saved and who don't have the Holy Spirit
and I see that they don't understand the Bible at all.
They scoff at it. They're confused by it.
But Father, even many of God's people are confused.
Just from false teaching or just a lack of Bible reading, a lack of study.
Help us to be those who understand and know the truth.
God, I can tell you right now, I can understand why people would come to the end of the millennium
and be confused and deceived by Satan if they're not saved
because even Christians are confused on the millennium.
And so people will be confused at the end of the millennium.
But God, help us to understand these things so that they can help motivate us
to serve you and to look toward this future of time
and not just live in this present world with no regard to the future but rather
to suffer now so that we can be glorified later and rule later.
We love you and thank you for our church, dear God,
and help our church to continue to grow and thrive as it has thus far.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.