Why Every Calvinist Should Be a Premillennialist, Part 2
Selected Scriptures
Tonight we want to go back to our study of sovereign election Israel and eschatology. That's a rather technical title but that really is what I'm trying to convey to you. A bit of a theological lecture more than anything else. So take you to school a little bit, not in the normal preaching style but maybe a little bit more like the classroom.
Certainly the nation Israel is at the center stage of history in the world. It has been for a long, long time, particularly since it was reestablished as a nation last century. But even before that, Israel was always a preoccupation for the world. That little country tucked there in the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea on the western border of the Middle East has been a focal point for world history in many, many ways since it was chosen by God to be the land of promise for His people and since it is the very place where He sent His Son to do His mighty work of redemption and salvation. Israel is still center stage in the world. They are in the newspaper every day, on the news every night. Their...their particular place in history is by all human reckoning a very tenuous one, a very fragile one. They look like at any moment they could be completely engulfed and swept into oblivion by the surrounding enemies, the massive Islamic world. But that will not happen..that will not happen. They are not now under the protection of God because they're apostate and they've rejected their Messiah, but they will be preserved as an ethnic people because God does have a future plan to save a generation of them to give them the promises that He made in the Old Testament. So the history of Israel will continue to be at the center of world history, going forward, and it will even become a bigger point at the very end when the Lord returns to the earth and places His feet in Israel, in Jerusalem on the Mount and sets up His Millennial Kingdom. And from that place, rules the entire world.
So when you think about Israel, you have to understand that currently they are under divine chastening for rejection of the true and living God and the Lord Jesus Christ but they will be preserved to the fulfillment of God's promises to them. This, as I told you last time, is one of the great defenses of the truth of the Scripture, that Israel exists, that Jews exist, that that ethnic people who came out of the loins of Abraham is still here in the world. This has been, I suppose you could say, a racial anomaly throughout all of human history and even in the Middle Ages people were wondering why while no other ancient people could be found, you could always find the Jews. It is evidence visible, tangible that God wrote the Bible and that He is protecting His people for His future purposes.
Now talking about eschatology is an important thing because the end of the story matters. Every story is written really because of an ending. Every story is written for an ending. And God's redemptive history is written so that it might be brought to pass and so that we might understand how it's going to end. We have the beginning in the book of Genesis. We have the early years of God's redemptive history in the pages of the Old Testament, the subsequent years in the pages of the New Testament and God continues to write His history since the close of the New Testament up until now and we await the final chapters in the end. And much of that has been written down in Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that we can know exactly what the future holds insofar as God has revealed it.
This also assumes that God is in control of everything. God could not write the end of human history unless He was in absolute control of it. He could not pre-write it. He could not prophesy it, He could not predict it down to minute details unless He was in control of everything. And He is, in fact, control of everything. History is controlled by God as to culminate in the accomplishment of His purpose for His own glory. It will end with the same perfect precision and power with which it began and by which it is being continually sustained.
There are some people who think, however, that the end of the story is very vague, that the end of the story is somewhat obscure and oblique, and almost any view will do, almost any idea will do because it's so unclear. That is not the case. The end of the story is not vague. It is not unclear, nor is it unimportant. I was talking to another pastor recently and I asked him about his view regarding the coming of Christ's earthly Kingdom and the future fulfillment of God's promises to the Jews, to which he said, "I really don't care about any of that." That was a rather surprising answer to me, you really don't care about that but that is something God cares greatly about and that is something God has written very clearly about. And we are accountable to give the whole counsel of God, and that's part of it. Or to put it another way, God doesn't waste words, God doesn't say what doesn't matter. If He said it, it's very important. And the end of the story, in one sense, is more important than any other part of the story. In any book, in any story, the end is the purpose, the reason, the motive for the story in the first place, therefore it's the most crucial, compelling and important element. And so it is with the Bible. Everything has been predicted and planned and is being executed by a sovereign all-powerful, all-knowing God to bring it to a glorious end which He planned before anything ever began. And He wants us to enjoy the anticipation of this along with Him. He wants us to be able to enjoy now something of the foretaste of the glories that are to come. He tells us about heaven. Why? So that we can enjoy the anticipation of it now. He tells us about the future glorious return of Christ. Why? So we can live in the anticipation of that glorious hope now. And we saw last week how many benefits come from that. We are blessed and we are purified and we are comforted and we are encouraged in knowing what is to come.
Now when you think about eschatology, there's a little sequence of events that are relatively simple for you to think about, and this is the way the Bible lays it out. If we wanted to use technical theological terms we'd call it the ordo(?) eschaton, that is the order of last things, the ordo eschaton. And it kind of goes like this. In the end, everything is begun by the Rapture of the church, the collection of the church, the gathering of the church into the presence of the Lord. That is followed by a period called the Tribulation.
So Rapture, Tribulation. Tribulation is a period in which God brings horrific judgment on the world, the details of which are described in Revelation, starting in chapter 6 and running through chapter 19. Rapture, followed by Tribulation...Tribulation ends with the Second Coming of Christ, when He comes to earth bringing His church, those of us who have already been with Him, having been raptured before the Tribulation, we come back with Him to earth, He returns, He destroys the ungodly and sets up His Kingdom...Rapture-Tribulation-Second Coming-Kingdom.
At the end of the Kingdom you have the Great White Throne Judgment which is the final judgment of all the ungodly who are raised from the dead and brought before the Great White Throne, the tribunal of God, where the final sentence is rendered and they are sent forever into the Lake of Fire. Rapture-Tribulation-Second Coming-Kingdom-Final Judgment...after the final Judgment the universe as we know it is uncreated and God creates a new heaven and a new earth, the eternal state in which we live forever.
That's it. Rapture-Tribulation-Second Coming-Kingdom-Final Judgment-New Heaven and New Earth...that's the chronology, that's the ordo eschaton. And if you follow the book of Revelation, that's exactly the way it's laid out. It is precisely how it flows. You see the church on earth in chapters 2 and 3, which describes the present church age, immediately you come to chapter 4 and you see the church in heaven which is indicative of the fact they were on earth, they're now in heaven though it doesn't describe the Rapture, it's described in other places, it's clear that that is what happened. And after looking at the church worshiping in heaven in chapters 4 and 5, in chapter 6 the judgments on the earth begin as the Tribulation takes place. At the end of that, the Lord Jesus comes in chapter 19, sets up His Kingdom after His return in chapter 20, then calls all sinners to the final Great White Throne Judgment. Then in chapter 21, sets up the New Heaven and the New Earth. It really isn't that difficult, just take it at face value.
All history then is headed toward this final sequence of events. And the first of these events, the Rapture, is what we call imminent...imminent meaning it is next. And its exact timing is unknown to us. It could happen at any time. People say to me, "Well, what needs to happen prophetically before the Rapture of the church?" Answer: absolutely nothing. All the prophetic elements of eschatology really are triggered by the Rapture of the church. It can happen at any time. Even the Apostle Paul lived in the light of the reality that the Rapture could have happened in his lifetime. It can happen at any time.
So all history is headed toward the eternal reign of the Lord Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords in His earthly Kingdom, first of all, for a thousand years, then in His eternal Kingdom forever and forever. It is not that complex. That is the point of the book of Revelation. And as you read it, you'll see that sequence unfolding.
Now the major...the major focus for us in this initial study as we look at those events of the end time, is to look at the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. This Millennial Kingdom described in Revelation 20 which lasts for a thousand years. Six times in the opening verses of Revelation 20 it says it will last for a thousand years. It's not a mistake. It's not a symbolic number. It means a thousand years. So we read there about the Kingdom that will exist in the earth over which Christ Himself will rule as King of kings and Lord of lords for a thousand years, followed then by His eternal reign, so that really His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom.
Associated with that Kingdom will be the Rapture of the church, the Tribulation, the Second Coming, the Final Judgment. And then after that, the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. And the Old Testament says a lot about the things that are going to take place in the Kingdom. It talks about the salvation of Israel. It talks about salvation of Gentiles prior to the Kingdom during the Tribulation as well as in the Kingdom. It talks about the renewal of the earth, the restoration of the earth, paradise regained. It talks about the removal of the curse that has been upon the earth. It talks about the bodily resurrection of the saints who are going to rise from the dead and come to dwell on the earth with the saints that are still alive on the earth, both together in the time of the Kingdom. It describes the Kingdom as a time of righteousness, peace and joy.
The New Testament also describes these events very clearly, as I pointed out. Not just in the book of Revelation but in the book of Revelation you have the sequence and the chronology, but the New Testament talks about the Rapture, about the fact the Lord's going to come and take us. There's going to be a trumpet, the voice of the archangel, we're going to be taken up into heaven...that's the Rapture. The New Testament also talks about the Tribulation time. Jesus talked about it in the sermon called the Olivet Discourse which in Matthew 24...or...yes, in that part of Matthew is basically 24 and 25, His own sermon on His own Second Coming, and He talks about certain events that are going to take place in the Tribulation, including the abomination of desolation when the sacred place, the holy place in the rebuilt temple is desecrated, for example, and persecution breaks out against the Jews during that Tribulation. So the New Testament adds to our understanding. The New Testament talks about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus talked about it, how He comes in the clouds with great glory, accompanied by angels who gather His elect from the four corners of the earth. And He comes to establish the glory of His rule. The New Testament talks about the fact that the twelve tribes of Israel will be identified. Over each of the tribes will rule in the behalf of Christ, one of the twelve Apostles and we as believers having been glorified coming back to earth will even under the leadership of Jesus Christ rule over the earth and over the living people of Israel as well.
The book of Revelation says Satan will be bound for that thousand years, released at the end because during the Tribulation...I should say, during the Millennial Kingdom Satan is bound during that thousand-year Millennium, at the end he's released because people will be born during that time and they will not all believe. And so there will be a rebellion at the end of the thousand years, Satan will come back, lead the rebellion which will be the final rebellion in history, crushed by the Lord. All those who are in that rebellion sent into hell, in the Lake of Fire with all the rest of the ungodly of all the ages and then the New Heaven and the New Earth. All that is given in detail in the New Testament, as well as in the Old Testament which also talks about the New Heaven and the New Earth, especially in the book of Isaiah.
Now if you would like to get a better handle on that, take your MacArthur Study Bible, not now but some other time, and look at the back and you will find a doctrinal statement in the back. If you have one of the newer editions, or one of the older ones, the doctrinal statement is in each one. You can read the section and last things and you'll have a detailed understanding of what I've just said to you with the related passages that you can look up. If you have one of the new MacArthur Study Bibles done on the NAS, or one of the new New King James versions that has a concordance, you will also find a topical index which has a whole section on matters related to eschatology or last things. So you can look in the back of the Study Bible, you can look at the Index, you can also look at the doctrinal statement and get a lot more detail.
Now, what we're going to do in the future, and I gave you, that's the sweep. In the future, we're going to kind of pick that all up one thing at a time, one element at a time, one component at a time and survey that so we have a better understanding.
Through the years I have taught on all of these things many, many times. In teaching through the entire book of Daniel, and teaching through the entire book of Zechariah, in teaching selected portions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, in teaching through Matthew and Luke and teaching through 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Peter, Revelation twice, all of that material has been covered in those messages and the commentaries that have been written on the passages that relate to eschatology. So they have a lot of material if you want to pursue. There's also a book on the Second Coming and we'll be giving you, coming up pretty soon, the new condensed, compressed commentary on the book of Revelation so you'll have tools to dig a little bit deeper.
Now, remember that this is a particularly great fascination for people to know about the future. Everybody wants to know about the future. It is a massive industry resting on people's interests in what is coming, the science fiction industry with books and movies and videos, horoscopes, palm readers, tarot cards, all kinds of false prophets and false prognosticators even in the name of God and Jesus Christ abound and they make a fortune because there's such an immense interest in this.
Now they all guarantee, and I will also guarantee you, one thing, I will guarantee you one thing about the future if you follow them...you will have less money. And that is all I will guarantee. You will not know anything about the future but you will have less money. However, God who alone knows the future has revealed much of it to us, all that He does want us to know and what He has revealed is absolutely the truth. So for the next number of weeks, oh there are obviously some misses as we go for the next few weeks anyway, we won't be doing this on Sunday night, but as we get going and gather some momentum in this, you can tell your friends and acquaintances to come and hear the real truth about the future. So I'm giving you kind of fair warning, this is a great opportunity for you to captivate these people who are already preoccupied and interest with the future so that they can know the truth about the future.
All right, that's all kind of introductory and what we have begun with is this important linch pin that holds everything together, God's purpose for Israel, God's purpose for Israel. If we get this right, then we get the Kingdom right and everything moves or works around the Kingdom. So we have to get God's promises to Israel right and the Kingdom right and then bas