Premillennialism Part 5

1. The Physical Kingdom in Premillennialism

In our discussion of premillennialism, is it true? Lesson five. Of course, premillennialism is the theory that one day Christ is going to come and he’s going to establish a kingdom on the earth. And that the kingdom has not been established as of yet. So, is this theory true? Well, I want to focus on in this final lesson different questions about the kingdom. Beginning with this matter of the physical kingdom in premillennialism. You see, according to dispensationalism, which I use that term interchangeably with premillennialism, because that is the specific form of premillennialism that is most popular and that is popularized in the left behind series and so forth is dispensationalism or premillennial dispensationalism. Try that one. That’s a tongue twister. But according to this theory, when Christ returns, he’s going to set up a physical kingdom on earth.

Is this what the Bible teaches? In Revelation chapter 20, that’s the main text for the dispensationalist. This is where they get that thousand-year reign from. In verse 4 of Revelation 20, it says this. Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them, and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus, and because of the word of God and so forth. So he saw souls. So this reign that we read about in Revelation 20 is a spiritual reign. It is a heavenly reign. This the key text for the premillennialist.

Passages that clearly deal with that, such as Luke 17, verses 20 and 21. Now, having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed. Nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there it is, for behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. It’s not something you can observe. They they had this misconception of the kingdom that uh was uh apparently common among the Jews. Even Jesus’ own apostles apparently had this mindset that the kingdom is this physical thing. You’re supposed to come and establish a kingdom and take over the Romans, and when Jesus was arrested, that just sent them into a tailspin, the apostles.

And so Jesus’ uh enemies had this mentality uh that the kingdom of God is some physical thing. Jesus said, You can’t observe it, it is in your midst. So he uses the term kingdom, but in a totally different way than the Jews were using it. In John 18, Jesus is questioned by Pilate as he stood on trial before this Roman governor of Judea. And Pilate had asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight, so that I will not be handed over to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not of this realm. Pretty plain and simple. Therefore, the kingdom is spiritual, it’s not physical, and it is not both physical and spiritual, as the dispensationalists would like to make it.

2. Is the Kingdom Future or Present?

Uh, there’s this political aspect and a spiritual aspect, like the the the old uh you know, united and divided kingdoms and in the old testament. No, it’s not that way in the Messianic kingdom, totally, uh totally different. And so uh the dispensationalist has this view of they want this physical kingdom. And sometimes people are just longing for the wrong thing and looking for the wrong fulfillment. Well, what about this matter of the future kingdom? According to dispensationalism, when Christ came, he offered the kingdom to the Jews, and they rejected it. They rejected him as king. And so instead of setting up his kingdom at that time, it was postponed, and it will be set up at some point in the future, according to this theory. Is that what the Bible teaches?

Is the kingdom future or is the kingdom present? In Daniel chapter 2, this is when Daniel is interpreting the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had, the king of Babylon. He had this dream of that great big statue with the four composite parts, which I’ve talked about more than once in the series. And the legs were the legs of iron and feet of iron and clay mixed, which represents the kingdom of Rome. And in Daniel 2 and in verse 44, Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, now in the days of those kings, now that means the kings of Rome, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. And that kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these other kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.

So in the days of Rome, the kingdom was to be established. Well, Jesus was born in the days of the kingdom of Rome. And Galatians 4 4 tells us he was born in the fullness of the time. And Jesus himself said this in Mark 1 and verse 15 the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So that kingdom is at hand. This is that great messianic kingdom that was anticipated. It’s coming soon. In fact, Jesus said that it’s going to come during the same generation in Mark 9. And in verse 1, truly I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.

And so the kingdom of God did come. It was inaugurated on the day of Pentecost when the church began. And we see that there is the fulfillment of the kingdom in the idea of the church. And we are part of the kingdom today. In Colossians 1 and verse 13, for he rescued us from the domain of darkness and has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. And so when you become a Christian, you are transferred, translated into that kingdom. Right here, the kingdom is in your midst. Right here and right now. And so therefore, the kingdom is a present reality. Now, this next thing I don’t have on your notes, but you can put it in there if you want.

3. The Throne of David

Paul says there, but each in his own order, talking about the resurrection, Christ the first fruits, after that those who are his at his coming. Then comes the end. When he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father. When he has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, which he is doing until he has put all enemies under his feet. So when he returns, he’s not going to be establishing over the kingdom. Delivering the kingdom to the Father. Now, what about this matter of the throne of David? This is connected with the kingdom. According to dispensationalism, when Christ comes and establishes this kingdom in Jerusalem, he’s going to reign on the literal throne of David and fulfill the prophecies, like in 2 Samuel 7.

Is this what the Bible teaches? Has the promise of the throne of David been fulfilled? You recall that promise in 2 Samuel 7, where Nathan, the prophet, said to David that you are going to have a descendant who is going to build a temple, and he is going to be king, and I will establish the throne of your kingdom forever. So, is that something that has happened? Well, in Acts chapter 2, and I don’t have this one on the actual verses on the slides. In Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, Peter was preaching about David. And a prophecy David had made in Psalm 16. This prophecy that you will not allow your holy one to undergo corruption. And he says in verse 29, behold, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

So we know that David wasn’t talking about himself when he said, Your holy one will not undergo corruption. And so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ. That he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffered decay. This Jesus, God raised up again to which we are all witnesses. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear. And here, you should read what dispensationalists say on this passage. I mean, they’re just everywhere.

They don’t know what to do with that passage. Well, he’s king, but he’s not reigning as king. How can we say he’s king, but he’s just not reigning as king? He’s he’s it’s this now but not yet thing that just complicates and muddies the water. And so he is king and he is reigning as king. He sat on the throne of David when he was risen from the dead. And he is the king of kings right now. Can Christ be on David’s throne and not be on the earth? The dispensationalist says no. This has to be a literal earthly political fulfillment. But the rule of God’s people is in heaven. A beautiful passage in Daniel 7 is a prophecy of Jesus receiving his kingdom. In verse 13, I kept looking in the night visions.

4. The Church Being a Parentheses

And behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. That’s Jesus. And he came up to the ancient of days, that is the Father, and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. It is a spiritual, heavenly reign. And Jesus is on the throne of David now. Well, what about this matter of the church being a parentheses, period? You might not know what I’m talking about. According to dispensationalism, since the kingdom was postponed, the church was established, the church age was established as a parentheses.

And a sort of a mystery. Well, not sort of, they call it. A mystery which was not at all talked about in the Old Testament and which was totally new. Well, here’s what could have happened according to premillennialism. Christ came the first time. He offered the kingdom to the Jews. And according to them, that offer was conditional upon their repentance. So here’s the offer of the kingdom, and I will be your king if you will repent. And if they had repented, then according to dispensationalism, what would have happened? The kingdom would have been established. The millennial kingdom would have been established, it would be over by now. But that’s not what happened. According to them, what they say is instead what happened is he offered them the kingdom.

He told them that if you repent, this will be yours, and I will be your king, when in fact Jesus refused to let them make him king in John 6, but that’s another matter. But since they refused the offer, well then he didn’t get to establish his kingdom. They put him to death on the cross. And the kingdom was postponed. So rejected, postponed. That’s the language of the dispensationalist in this matter. And so there you see the church as this parentheses. Now that might sound almost unbelievable to you. But when you mess with one part of the Bible, it’s going to have ramification somewhere else. And that’s what has happened with premillennial. You mess with Revelation 20, and then you have to tie everything and force it in there, and then you have to rearrange all this other stuff, and you end up with this very complex, hard to understand doctrine.

I want to just read something to you. If I can find it here. John, Dr. John Walford, former president of Dallas Theological Seminary, titled a section of his book, The Church Age as a Parenthesis. So I’m not just using this term because I think it fits what they believe. This is their terminology. He described the church as the body of Christ and then stated the concept of the body is foreign to the Old Testament and to Israel’s promises, something new has begun. Now here’s another chart of dispensationalism to show you what they believe. Dispensationalism means there are the seven dispensations. And you kind of zoom in here to this dispensation of law, and you see that there’s this sort of interruption in there, this age of grace.

And then once that’s over, it can get back to the dispensation of law. This is literally how they understand. How it fits together. Was the promise of the kingdom conditional upon Israel’s acceptance of Christ? Did Jesus say, repent? And the kingdom of heaven will come. What did Jesus and what did John the Baptizer say? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is coming. It was stated without condition. In fact, the repentance was given as a warning. The kingdom’s coming one way or the other. What you need to do is get ready for it. You need to repent. Premillennialism turns that promise into a lie. That Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Well, the kingdom didn’t come. So what of that promise of Jesus? Well, it was a conditional promise.

No, it wasn’t. That is not in the context whatsoever. Now, are the words church and kingdom sometimes used interchangeably? That’s really how I should have put this question. Can the church and the kingdom be referring to the same thing? Yes, the terms can be used interchangeably. Now we just saw that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and then the kingdom was established on the day of Pentecost, and we understand the kingdom to be the church. Another passage where we can see this idea of the kingdom and the church being interchangeable is Matthew 16, 18 and 19, where Jesus said to Peter, I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. Now he didn’t only say that to Peter later, he says that to the rest of the apostles, but it’s this authority that he gave to his apostles. And so he says, I’m going to build my church, and then he says, I give you the keys of the kingdom. You might tell your 16-year-old child, I’m going to buy you a Honda. A beat up old Honda. And I will give you the keys to the car.

Keep in mind that the kingdom of heaven throughout Matthew is used in the sense of this kingdom as it concerns God’s people on earth. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And in the Lord’s Prayer, or in the model prayer, as people call it the Lord’s Prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. So here, this kingdom of heaven is being talked about is uh apparently the same thing as the church. If they’re not interchangeable, they’re at least intimately tied together at the hip and uh connected together. But the primus says no, they are absolutely totally complete polar opposite ideas, the church and the kingdom. They have to say that. Uh now, the term kingdom doesn’t always refer to the church, but it often does in the New Testament.

So the church is not a parentheses before the kingdom. The church is the kingdom that was established. And it happened just the way that God said it would. It happened just the way it was prophesied to happen in Isaiah 2 in verses 2 through 4, and in Daniel 2 and in verse 44, that the mountain of the house of the Lord has been established, and all the nations will flow unto it. And that’s what has happened. It was established on Pentecost in Jerusalem as was prophesied. It is this kingdom of God that is growing into the mountain that fills the whole earth. It is this kingdom that we are a part of. It is this kingdom that is not bound by land. It is this kingdom that is not political, it is the spiritual kingdom that can never be destroyed, and that will last for all eternity.

And it happened just the way that God said that it would.

5. The Death of Christ Turned Into Plan B

Ways. They say it happened for two reasons. First, they say it happened because Israel rejected Jesus’ offer of the kingdom. They rejected him as king and they put him on the cross. If they hadn’t rejected him, they would not have crucified him. That’s what they say. Well, the Romans would have, or something like that, they end up saying. But they want to say this and at the same time say it happened by God’s predetermined plan. The kingdom was postponed. Jesus offered it. But they want to say it happened by God’s predetermined plan, that Jesus died on the cross. But the thing is, you can’t have it both ways in their mentality. Logically. You just can’t. Premillennialism effectively turns the death of Christ into a plan B.

And they will deny that. They don’t like that terminology. They say that’s an unfair accusation, but it’s absolutely fair, and it’s completely logical that that’s what they end up saying. And that’s really to me the nail in the coffin for this whole theory of premillennialism.

Conclusion

Now, let’s just quickly review what we’ve talked about in these five lessons. We talked about the key text for premillennialism, Revelation 20. This is where they get the thousand years, but we saw that that thousand years is a symbol and is not being used as a literal thousand years.

In fact, none of them are. We talked about the rapture and how that cannot be true because the Bible teaches there is only one resurrection. And that will involve all the living and the dead, the righteous and the wicked, and nobody will be left behind. We talked about the great tribulation and how that’s not talking about something that’s yet future in the context. It’s talking about in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in A.D. 70. We talked about the revival of Rome and how that is not taught in Scripture. You have to twist and totally destroy Daniel 9 in order to do that. That the kingdom did come in the days of Rome, as was prophesied, and that Rome has been destroyed as was prophesied.

We talked about the Antichrist. And now the Antichrist does not refer to one specific individual, but it refers to anybody who does not believe in the Father and the Son. And the sea beast of Revelation 13 is not the Antichrist, but is Rome. It is a symbol for Rome. We talked about the reoccupation of Palestine. That the Bible does not prophesy that the Jews will one day get Palestine back. The land promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been fulfilled. It was fulfilled in the days of Joshua. And the return from the captivity, the remnant that will return, already did. That happened back in the time of the return from captivity. We talked about the temple and sacrifices and how that’s not a future thing.

Because the church has fulfilled this idea of the kingdom. And Jesus’ death on the cross has ended animal sacrifices once and for all. We talked about the battle of Armageddon and how that’s not some future World War III. But it’s simply talking about a battle between good and evil that is a spiritual battle between Christ and Satan. And we talked today about the kingdom, that it’s not some future physical thing, but it is a spiritual, present reality. I want to read a quote from David Farr in his book, Thy Kingdom Come. And I’ve been the most direct in today’s lesson out of all the lessons. Without wanting to seem harsh, we must insist that every peculiar component of premillennialism is a fable. Not only does it lack any foundation in the scriptures, it is blatantly contrary to Scripture.

Texts cited in support of it are taken out of context, used in contradiction of other plain passages and explained in ways contrary to their plain meaning. And that is absolutely the case. Why did I go to so much trouble to preach on this? Because premillennialism is everywhere. It is all around us. It’s in the movies, it’s in the bookstores. Most people who claim Christ believe in some form of premillennialism. And so it’s a big deal, and we need to be aware of it, and we need to know what to believe and how we might answer someone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us. Well, as I’ve done the first four lessons, let me finish with three quick practical points of applications.

Number one, beware of any isms. Pre means before, millennial means a thousand, and ism means it ain’t so.

And don’t create any of your own. Secondly, seek first the kingdom of God. This kingdom, it is a present reality. And it is also a future reality. This kingdom is going to be forever. We need to seek first God’s reign, his will. That’s the idea of his kingdom. And put it before all things. Put it before work. We put it before money. We put it before recreation. We put it before family. We put it before our own needs, not just once. We put it before our own life. That it must be the absolute top priority to us. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Third and finally, bow before the King of kings. The fact that Jesus died, even the death of the cross, is why he was glorified.

Therefore, God has also highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is his kingdom. And this is not a democracy. We don’t get a vote in the matter.

He gets to say how things are going to be. He gets to state the rules.

To submit. And we have the choice, the gracious offer to do it willingly. Out of the love of our heart. And out of faith. But one day we will not have that choice anymore. One day we will have no choice but to bow down to the King of kings if we do not choose to do it now. Everyone will bow before the King of Kings. All the wicked people who have ever lived, there are people that you would have to gag to humble them, to bow down before anything or anybody. But in that day, they will bow before the King of Kings. So make the choice to do that today. Won’t you do that today? And it is actually a life of freedom. Because you’ll be part of the greatest kingdom that could ever be.

Won’t you become a part of the kingdom of Jesus Christ and submit to Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, King Jesus, today. You can do that by repenting of your sins, by believing in the name of Jesus Christ, by confessing his name and being baptized, continuing to obey the gospel to the day you die, being saved by the grace of our Lord through his mercy and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Won’t you do that today as we stand and sing the song of invitation?