The Millennium

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay, now I have a question today. Do you all know what generation you're in? There are no Betas in here. There are no Betas. Right. That generation just started. So, Margaret, is Gen Beta. I had to look that up. So we got Alphas. Who's Alphas? Who's the Alphas? Yeah, that, that, that name is not going to spread much humility, is it? Being from Gen Alpha, that's kind of cool. We got a lot of Gen Z people, right? We got Gen Z. Got Gen Z in the house. [00:00:45] Speaker B: No, he's Gen Z by a day. [00:00:47] Speaker A: By a day. [00:00:49] Speaker B: He was born a day before Gen Z ended up born, like August 2nd in, like, 2012. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Why is August 3rd the start of a new generation? I've never heard months. I've just heard years. I wrote. I wrote down years. I wrote down years separating, not months and days. I didn't know it was that precise. I figured it was just January to December. Yeah, I mean, we got, we got baby boomers. That was 1946-64. Gen X, 65 to 80. Millennials, 81 to 96. Gen Z, 97 to 2012. You guys know Gen Z years. Did you know that people from the 1900s are in the same generation as you? I was just told this week that you're. That they. People call it 1900s now, even though it's just the 90s. It wasn't that long ago. It was 30 years ago. [00:01:43] Speaker B: What? 20s? [00:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, we are sure we're in the 20s. Yeah, you could say that. That's fine. The 1900s. This is ridiculous. You know, I'm not going to ask what the best one is, although maybe you would be honest and say it's maybe not yours. My favorite one to make fun of of all time are millennials. I used to always do this to my friend Parker at Eagle Heights because he was a millennial. We would make jokes back and forth. And I think it's especially funny because I'm only in Gen Z by a year, so I'm just barely there. Now, today, we are talking about millennials of a sort, but not generations. We're talking about millennialists, we're talking about the great millennium that the Bible talks about. But before we get into it, let's review. It's definitely been, what, three weeks since we did one of these lessons? So first, let's remind ourselves the most basic question before we study theology. What is it? What is theology? It's the study of God and how to be more like him. Bingo. The study of God and how to Be more like him. And what kind of broad doctrine are we in? Doctrine of what? Yes, the doctrine of last things. What's the other name for it that you might hear? You don't necessarily need to know it. Yes, eschatology. That's right. Eschatos in Greek just means last. So that's why eschatology is the study of last things. Okay, now, what lessons have we covered in eschatology? We have done two. So let's see. Can we remember any? It's been three and four, maybe five weeks since then. Do you know either of them? [00:03:33] Speaker B: Like death and like the afterlife. Was that one of them? [00:03:38] Speaker A: Close. It's death and the intermediate state. So it's this. It is kind of like afterlife, but before the return of Christ. So people that die now, this is the intermediate state before Christ's return, but after their own death. Okay, so that was the first one we did. What was the next one? The return of Christ. That's right. And so now with the return of Christ, we necessarily are going to talk about this millennium, this millennium. Does anyone know what a millennium means or. Yes. Yeah, it's referring to the number 1,000. So that that is a millennium is a thousand years. Okay, now here's the summary. So definition of the millennium. The millennium is the period of time that Jesus christ reigns on the throne. This is something, I think, despite the different views we're going to cover today, I think we can all agree, hopefully, that the millennium is the period of time that Jesus christ reigns on the throne. All of the views, even whether they take the years literally or not, they all agree this is the time that Christ reigns on the throne. Again, we're going to kind of tackle this topic a little differently. There are various views, and I'm actually going to just go over each of them and try to make some applications or warn about some potential errors within each of them. Now, these are important. It's not unimportant. It is the doctrine of something important. How Christ will reign on earth or how he is going to reign or how he is reigning, however you might take it. But it's not the level of importance upon which we need to divide. So you could walk around the church now, there's going to be a lot of people that haven't decided or they've not really thought about it, and that's okay. But some people have thought about it, or maybe they've just been raised believing something. And you're going to find people that believe different things about this in itself. Those different views don't need to divide a church. They don't. Now, maybe there are some views that are based on that, kind of as an outgrowth that might make being in the same church a little harder. But for the most part we don't need to divide over them. That means if we disagree with one another, if you disagree with me or you find someone that disagrees with you. This is not a time to be mean, argumentative. It's not a time to be divisive. It's not an opportunity to think, man, they're dumb or they just don't get it or be angry. These are not wholly humble responses that we should have. So we should, we should take this with humility, understand where it kind of lines in order of priority. But we can still learn about it and still even hold to some views strongly. So I wanted to start there because I'm going to kind of teach these and I'll try to tell you if I think of you as maybe weaker or view is stronger, that is my opinion. You know, after studying it, that's what I think. You could disagree and you can ask questions and you can talk about later why you might disagree. I'd love to have a conversation about it. So here's the first view. So this is kind of like your main point. One says some believe Christ will return before the millennium. So before this 1000 years, Christ will return. And then there's this, this period of his reign. Now there are two expressions of this view and I don't know if I have those. I think I do have some sub pointed out. Yeah, there are two expressions of this view. So I don't think you have to spell them. That's good. That's good. Because these are long words. They're not necessarily hard to spell, but it's overwhelming if you're not much of a speller. They're similar, right? Because they're both pre millennial, before the return, before the millennium. But they are distinct. So the first is dispensational premillennialism. Don't need to get into what dispensational means, but that's just what it's called. There's a reason for that. But before we kind of talk about that, let's read kind of the primary biblical text. We can't read everything. Going to read the primary one, which is Revelation 20. So this is almost the last chapter of your Bible. So you go to the very end, which would be Revelation 22, and just flip back to Revelation 20. We're going to read the first six verses together. And we'll just try to keep these in mind as we go over all of it, because all these views believe something about how to interpret this passage. Revelation 21:6. John writes, Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God. And those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection over such. The second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him who for a thousand years. Because this is the key text on the millennium, you know, we could continue. We could jump around, like I said again, because it's not absent from the rest of Scripture. The Scripture does talk about this in other places, yet we must interpret it carefully. So we're going to try. So dispensational, premillennial. Premillennialism is, in my opinion, before I talk about it, I think it might. It definitely is one of the weaker viewpoints, I would think. In short, this view holds that the church will be raptured before a seven year tribulation. Tribulation is a period of chaos and suffering and tumult. And then Christ will return at the end of those. So people also tag in another long phrase called pre tribulation. Pre tribulation. So they called up before this tribulation and then they're gone for seven years. And then they, I think, come back with Christ seven years later for the 1000 year reign. I think that's how the view is understood. And it is a literal 1000 year kingdom on this earth. Does that make sense that there's. It is not figurative in any way? According to this view. They would interpret this passage literally. They would add The Rapture, based on some other passages that we've discussed a couple weeks ago. Now, the reason I said I think this might be a little weaker is because I don't find evidence for this pre tribulation rapture, this calling up of Christians before this period of tumult. I don't see it. The main Rapture text, which we've studied on Wednesday nights before is first Thessalonians 4. And that seems to me, if you can write it down and read through it later, just for the sake of time, it seems to me that what happens is the church is called up to Christ as he returns. The church is called up, you see in that passage, as he is coming down from the heavens to earth. So that would seem to be like his return, the establishment of the kingdom, the millennium. And that's when the church is called up, not before, by seven years. Now, the second premillennial view is, rather than dispensational, is called historic premillennialism. That's because of its historical precedent. It was, of these, at least by name, the most popular early view of this among Christians. So it has the longest history. So that is kind of probably a point in its favor. It gets this name again, historical reasons. They also interpret Revelation 20 literally. So the way that they're interpreting this passage is similar. But there are lots of other things that might kind of lead them in different directions regarding that tribulation and this rapture. Now both of them, they have to wrestle with how Revelation should be interpreted in the first place. Is Revelation an easy book to interpret? No. [00:12:52] Speaker B: Why? [00:12:56] Speaker A: Anyone? Why is it not? [00:12:58] Speaker B: A lot of crazy stuff happens. [00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of crazy. That's a fine way to put it. A lot of crazy stuff happens. Is this crazy stuff literally going to happen like this? Is this crazy stuff a vision that's supposed to kind of depict in a symbolic way, certain realities? Are these different visions, successive events? Or are these different visions, different viewpoints of the same events? These are questions we have to answer to interpret this book. It is a difficult book to interpret. And so again, we need to come humbly understand we might be proven wrong someday. This type of literature is called apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature typically is highly symbolic. So I think we should draw literal conclusions cautiously. So that doesn't mean nothing is literal in the whole book, but we should be cautious if we are taking it that way. I would think at the same time, historic premillennialism takes the Bible very seriously. It's reading the words and saying the words. Say they will reign with him for a thousand years. So they will reign with him for a thousand years. So they're trying to take the Bible seriously. That is to be commended. We should always try to take the Bible seriously. Now, again, the main difference between these first two views is the, the beliefs around this rapture idea. Historic premillennialism believes that the church will not be called up with Christ until after this period of tribulation. They would say we're living in a tribulation. They might say it'll get worse. Maybe there will be a period of time that it'll be really bad and after it Christ will return and call up the Church universal. Whereas the dispensational view believes that before this literal seven years of tribulation, [00:14:52] Speaker B: the [00:14:52] Speaker A: church will be called up and they will be spared from that. I think the historic view fits better because even in this very book, Revelation, John calls himself a partner in the tribulation that's in Revelation 1. So he seems to think that it's already happening. So I'm not very convinced that the church will be called up before it if John seemed to think it was happening in the first century. Now here's an application based on these views again, that faithful people hold both of these views. Application 1 is Hope in God's future activity on behalf of his people and his creation. All of the views have hope in God's work, His future activity on behalf of his people and his creation. All the views have hope, but the futuristic nature of his work according to this first set of views makes this especially true for them. Regardless of what we end up believing, we can trust all of us and have hope that Christ will save us if we are His. Through faith in His Son, we can hope in that he will return. He is the King. He is or will reign. The Devil will or is bound. And so we can have hope that God is in control. Satan is not in control. God is in control. This also leads us to an error to avoid. So the number the error first. The first error we want to avoid is we should not pretend to know too much about the nature of the millennium. If you're unsure, it's always safer to just take a step back, choose a humble route again. It doesn't mean you can't study and try to figure it out. And it doesn't mean we should be apathetic and never try to think about it. But we should be humble about what we do and don't know and how confident we are. We don't want to talk about this just for the sake of winning arguments. We only want to talk about it if we are thinking about the hope of Christ's return. So that's the first set of views. Some believe Christ will return before the millennium. The second main point is this. Some believe Christ will return after. Some before. Some think there is the millennium and then after it's over, he returns. This is called post millennialism. Post millennialist. So pre millennialism, post millennial. You kind of see before, after it's in the word. Kind of helps you remember the word and what it means. This view says that the world will be gradually Christianized by the gospel over time, until there is a time of total or almost total peace and harmony on earth, with most of the world becoming Christian. So they would think over time the gospel will spread. Even if it has setbacks, it will become dominant in all of the earth, or almost all of the earth. And after this happens, Christ will return. Now for this one, the 1000 years obviously is not literal, right? How do we know that? What year is it? 20, 26. So it's been like 2000 years since Christ went to heaven. So it can't be literal, right? Because it's been, it's already passed. We're at 2,000 years, not one. And so they, they don't believe that it's. They believe it's a symbolic figure symbolizing totality. When the totality of the work of the gospel is done, Christ will return according to this view. So they interpret what we read in Revelation 20 symbolically, which is totally fair, I think. And they also have a high view of what the gospel can accomplish on earth. I think that is a strength that they truly believe that the gospel will spread and Christianize the vast majority of the earth. However, there are many weaknesses with this view that I think it struggles to answer. Well, it is difficult to know how exactly this view came into being. There are also some errors often attached to this view that we should be careful of. So I'm going to tell us a couple errors to avoid. These are not inherent to post millennialism, but they often are associated with it, I would say very often. So error number two of the day that we should avoid. We should not have an exaggerated confidence that the gospel will penetrate the world so far as to Christianize it. This one is a little bit more inherent to the view. The second one not so much. But we shouldn't have an over exaggerated confidence. Now it's kind of hard to sit up there and say that you don't have confidence that the gospel can't do anything. It has more to do with what I think God has communicated to us through the Word. This belief seems to lack biblical evidence as the Bible depicts the state of the sinful world in mostly negative terms until Christ returns to redeem it. So there doesn't seem to me to be a lot of evidence that until Christ returns, the world will be full of sin and chaos and suffering and tribulation. I don't see evidence that it will be largely Christianized until after he returns, which does not fit in with this view. Then there's another error, associated error number three of the day. We should not interpret the Great Commission to mean that we must Christianize the nations. We should not interpret the Great Commission to mean that we must Christianize the nations. What is the Great Commission? What am I talking about? Who knows? Sounds familiar. Does anyone know where there's a pass? One specific. There's more than one, but one specific passage that might come to mind. What's the. Where is it? I'm not asking you to quote it if you're afraid to do that. Yeah. Matthew 28. [00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:18] Speaker A: The last few verses, 18 through 20. What's. You don't have to. You can paraphrase. What. What is. What happens in this passage, this Great Commission. What is the Great Commission? You can put it in your own words, although I bet more of you could quote it than you even realize. Yeah. Yes. The command to go and make disciples of all nations. Right. Jesus says, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. That is the Great Commission to his disciples before he ascends into heaven. Go make disciples of all nations. So when we say make disciples of all nations, what does that mean? That's kind of the main point in what I'm calling an error, what many post millennialists understand as the right interpretation. Many post millennialists, I'm just slurring through that word every time I think they believe that make disciples of all nations refers not to people groups but to political nation states. So the way that I believe is the right way to understand the word for nations, ethne, is it is talking of people groups, ethnicities, groups of people with a common language and culture that is an ethnicity. This is what Jesus has in mind to go to all peoples of the earth and make disciples. The error I'm telling us to avoid is we shouldn't think of it as going to nation states. We need to make China a Christian nation, Canada a Christian nation, Curacao a Christian nation. That is not, I believe, what Jesus is commanding his followers to do. So, you know, for example, instead of making Joshua a disciple, the ultimate goal for the some of these post millennialists is to make his country, let's say it's England Christian, which England would identify as a Christian nation, funny enough. But that I don't think is the commission. I'm not willing to say it is wrong for a Christian to or a nation to declare itself in that way, but I don't think that is the mission of the church. This view misunderstands the word nations because again, it refers to peoples, not countries. This idea of countries is something that we kind of understand as nations, whereas that Greek word much more was attached to ethnicities, not nation states. Does that make sense? That was a little dense. Well, we only have one more. So we've done kind of three. Two to three, like two that are halves and then a full one. Number three is that some believe Christ will return during the millennium. We have during now. So pre. Post. During what is during? You know, during it was. I was trying to fit the same format. It's not the clearest way to explain this view. This view is called amillennialism. So it's millennialism with an A at the beginning, which the word literally means no millennium. Now, they don't actually believe that because you read Revelation 20 and you can't say that there's no millennium. There is something. Revelation 20 is about something. Something is happening or will happen. So what this view really says is that it is symbolic and it's happening right now. It is symbolic. They would say that Christ is reigning. He's already on the throne and in heaven. So his millennial kingdom is now, and it's symbolic. So similar to post millennialists, they interpret Revelation 20 symbolically, which again, I think is fair. And I don't think this view has nearly as many questions or errors attached to it as post millennialism. Now here's some questions people might ask. They would say about this passage. How. How is Satan bound if st. Sin is still in the world? Right. Revelation 20 says that in this millennium, Satan will be bound to no longer deceive the nations. How can amillennialists be right? Is Satan really bound? Why is there still sin? Well, their answer would be that he is restrained. He is restrained and that is allowing the gospel to go forth to the nations. Otherwise it might be thwarted. One might also ask if the resurrect what is the first resurrection, if you remember? You can look at verse five again if you want to remember. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. So they would say that this first resurrection is spiritual reality. They say the first resurrection is when a person believes in Christ and is now a new creation. This is the first resurrection. And so the second one would be literal. What happens when Christ returns to earth and the dead are raised with him to go and live in glory in heaven with him? So it would be spiritual. So again, it is more of a symbolic spiritual reading of this passage. Now there are certainly difficult questions for each view to answer. I find this last one, amillennialism and the historic premillennialism to be the strongest. That is my opinion. And I think that would be a lot of historically most Baptists, maybe not most Southern Baptists today, but finally we have another application. So application number two again, I think we can all do this with all of that jargon you just heard and stuff you might have to listen to again or ask questions about again in the future. That's okay. We can do this. We can praise God for his reign in heaven. We can praise him that the gospel goes forward in the world even now. This is simple. And yet we can do this. We can genuinely praise God because Jesus is king. We can praise Christ because the gospel goes forth and he has chosen to use people like us as his instruments to spread the gospel to the nations. That is a wonderful privilege. So we can thank him, we can be honored. We can praise Him. Are there any questions? Okay. All right. If you end up having a question or you don't want to ask it right now, I'm all ears. Whenever. But let's pray. Then we can go worship. Father, we praise you today that you reign. You reign now, and you certainly will reign forever. We can have confidence in this. God, thank you that even though we are sinners in need of you to cleanse our iniquities, as David prayed, you have chosen that you can use us, if we have faith in your son, to spread the gospel of the kingdom to the nations. Lord, help us to be humble as we think more about this topic in days to come. Lord, help us to love one another regardless of what we might think. And God, help us to see the hope that we have in your reign. We pray this in Christ's name, Amen.