The Earthly Kingdom of Jesus Christ, Part 1
Selected Scriptures
We're coming to the close of our series on prophecy, and tonight we come in our sequence to the last great facet of what we have been covering in prophecy. We come to the earthly kingdom of Jesus Christ. Now as we begin our study, we're going to be looking in Revelation 19 and 20. But to begin with from the very remotest point of antiquity from the furthest historical point in time, men have longed for and men have asked about the possibility of a utopia. An age in which righteousness and peace should prevail in the world and which oppression and war should cease.
Poets have written about it. Folk singers still about it. Politicians promise it. Prophets forecast, and the world cries for it, but nobody ever brings it. But if you study the Bible, you again will find that the promise of God is that there will be such a utopia. And on the record of past performance we can believe what God says, if not, poets, folk singers, politicians and would be prophets.
God says there will be an earthly utopia. And there will be a king who will make it that and the king's name is Jesus. It will be the final phase of God's rule on earth. Now this particular age of blessedness is not just hinted at in the Bible, it is in many ways the theme. This particular kingdom, the thousand year earthly kingdom comes under various titles. For example, it is called in Matthew 19:28 the regeneration, and it certainly is the rebirth of the earth.
It is called in Acts 3:19 the times of refreshing. It is called in Acts 3:21 the times of restitution. It is called in Philippians 1:6 the day of Christ. It is called in Ephesians 1:10 the fullness of times. The concept of an earthly kingdom in which God rules directly on earth through the Messiah Christ comes in many different terms in the Bible. It's a repeated promise.
Now the coming earthly kingdom is just one phase of God's rule in the world. God has always mediated His rule on earth. One way or another, God always mediates His rule. When man fell in the very beginning, God still mediated His rule on earth. He mediated it through conscience. Originally, man was the king of the earth. Adam literally ruled in the earth. And then he fell and conscience became king and God ruled through man's conscience.
The conscience proved to be an inadequate thing. Every man going his own way and so God instituted human government and God mediated the rule through human government. God designed to control man through the use of government and He instituted capital punishment.
And then God mediated through the patriarchs and the men who really were the kings of the early years were Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. Following them, God again mediated His rule and He mediated His rule through the judges and the prophets and the kings. And these were specially chosen people who maintained God's ethics and God's morality and God's truth in the world. Then God sent His king. But as the indication is His king was rejected.
Now we're living in an age when God mediates His rule through the believers. The Holy Spirit in the world and in the believer. God is now mediating in this world through us. We are salt and we are light. But there's coming a day when God is going to mediate His rule directly through that man whom He has chosen even Jesus Christ.
And so I say then that the kingdom, this would be the kingdom right here, is the last phase of God's rule on earth. God has always ruled through one of these media. But lastly, He will rule through the actuality of Christ on the earth. That is the final phase. And it's interesting that in the kingdom period all that was lost in the fall is restored. That's why it's called the times of restitution or the regeneration.
Christ then is coming to recapture paradise lost. When Jesus comes and the kingdom comes it is going to be paradise regained. Now in the biblical doctrine of the kingdom of God we have the Christian philosophy of history. If we understand...there's two kingdoms, you need to understand this. God's universal kingdom means He rules the universe. That's just a great big general term for God's rule in the universe.
But then there is the term, and these are terms used by Alba McLean which have been picked up by most Christian theology, teachers, and students. The second kingdom is His mediated kingdom or His mediatorial kingdom. In other words, He has a very general universal rule, but He has a direct rule which He mediates. That means there's a mediator. He has somebody rule in His place on earth, whether it was Adam or whether it was conscience or patriarchs or prophets or kings or judges or whether it is the Holy Spirit in the believer or whether it is Christ. That is His mediatorial work and it has to do with His kingdom on earth.
Now when we look at the mediatorial kingdom on earth, we see the Christian philosophy in history. History is just God's rule starting with Adam and going right through until Christ restores the place that God intended man to have as king of the earth. Now it all ends, we believe, in the kingdom of Christ on earth. There has to be a restitution for the fall. There has to be a recovery of the mess that the earth is in.
Now it's interesting and I want to give you this because I think we ought to be aware of it that there are many different views about this kingdom. And I don't stand here representing all of Christian theology by any stretch of the imagination. A good portion of it, yes. Personally I believe those who are right, I represent. But I have to say there are other opinions and I want to just give you an idea what they are.
There are two opinions at least that believe that future kingdom is strictly spiritual. One group says when it talks about a kingdom it just means Christ's general rule in men's hearts or God's general rule in men's hearts. So anything about the kingdom could mean any kind of spiritual rule in anybody's heart. You couldn't narrow it down to a thousand years. You certainly couldn't necessarily narrow it down to an eschatological thing. That is something to happen at the end of time. It's just a general big sweeping thing.
There's a second group that say no the kingdom means the church. We are that earthly kingdom and that's it. It's just a spiritual church. Nothing literal, nothing physical on earth, not a real reign of Christ on earth, just as He reigns in the church. But secondly, there are two other groups that say it is not spiritual, it is physical. And this is the liberal end of theology that's even further out than the last group. There's some evangelical men in the last group. But this is the liberal group. They say that the kingdom promised in the Bible is purely social.
That it is a result of a social economic and kind of political evolution and it...we're just going...the world is going to get kind of a lot better and politically and economically we're going to bring in a sort of physical kingdom. And there's another group that says that the kingdom is nothing more than the nationalistic political rise of Israel.
So there are at least two groups that slap it in the spiritual dimension and two that throw totally into physical, we stand in the middle, not to compromise but we think that's scriptural. We say the kingdom is, yes, spiritual. It will be the reign of Jesus Christ in men's lives. Yes, physical. It will be the literal reign of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem on earth. And so we would then take that particular view that says it's spiritual and physical. It is the sovereign rule of God mediated on the earth through the actual person of Jesus Christ who will be here.
Now we said the Lord is going to take the church away, stay seven years and bring them back and set up His kingdom. And we actually believe that He will return. We say in our last few studies that He's going to come back and His feet are going to stand where? On the Mount of Olives, that's pretty clear to me.
There are all kinds of people who want to explain things away. I'd rather just take it at the fact that it's...God has communicated what He wanted us to know. Now when Jesus returns at His second coming, the church has been raptured, seven years later He comes back. It is then that He sets up this final phase of God's kingdom on earth. Paradise regained.
Now as we come to Revelation 19, we have some of the features outlined for us and we'll go as far as we can in understanding these various features tonight. And I won't even list them all. I have at least six point down here and I'm just going to give them to you one at a time because you'd only be confused if I was to rattle them all off.
The first thing, and I'm just going to give you characteristics of the kingdom and I hope when we're done you'll understand that it has to be earthly and it has to be spiritual as well, not just politically. The first point that we want to understand in Revelation 19 is the rule of the Son. Point one, the rule of the Son.
The first characteristic of the kingdom is that it is the rule of Jesus Christ on earth. The kingdom begins when the Son arrives. Now the time of the kingdom, you say when's it going to happen? I can tell you exactly when the kingdom is coming. You didn't know that, but I can. It's right in the scripture. It's in Matthew 24:29. Just listen, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days."
Now when is the kingdom going to come? Immediately after the tribulation, "then the moon will not give us light, the stars will fall from heaven, then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and He shall send His angels with a great sound of the trumpet to gather together His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other."
Now here it is that Christ gathers all the elect from one end of heaven to the other and He comes in glory. And it happens immediately after the tribulation. When does the rapture happen? Before the tribulation. So the time of the kingdom is at the second coming of Christ following the tribulation. Now just to give you a picture of what the king looks like when He arrives, let's go back to a familiar passage in Revelation 19:11.
Now Christ and the church have been in heaven for seven years during the tribulation, but all of sudden it's time for the kingdom. The tribulation is going to come to an end. And verse 11 says "I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and He that sat upon him was called faithful and true and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were like the flame of fire. On His head were many crowns and He had a name written that no man knew but He Himself. He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood and His name is called the Word of God." And we know who it is, Jesus Christ.
"And the armies that were in heaven followed Him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white, and clean. And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword that with it He should smite the nations and He shall rule them with a rod of iron. And He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture on His thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords."
Now that indicates He's coming to reign. Now you say who is this? Well, first of all His names show us who He is. He is called in verse 11 faithful one and true one. He is called in verse 13 the Word of God. He is called in verse 16 King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the coming king none other than Jesus.
But not only do His names show us who He is, so does His appearance. It says His eyes were as a flame of fire. And, of course, this speaks about His righteous judgment. It says upon His head, in verse 12, were many crowns. His right to rule. The king above kings. His vesture was dipped in blood, not so much His own blood as the blood of those that He has conquered. And not only His name and His appearance tell who He is, but so does His activities. He judges and makes war, verse 11. He descends from heaven, verse 11. Verse 14, and He leads armies with Him. And you see the sharp sword that goes out of His mouth in judgment.
This has to be a coming king and it has to be Jesus Christ Himself. At the inauguration then of the kingdom on earth, watch this, at the inauguration of the kingdom on earth our Lord will come down from heaven. Now listen, He will come exactly as He said He would, personally. Acts 1:11, "This same Jesus shall so come in like manners as you've seen Him go." He will come personally.
Two, He will come visibly. In fact, the whole world is going to see Him and they're going to be so scared they're going to cry for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them to hide them from His face. He is going to come gloriously in power and great glory. And He is going to come with hosts of angels, according to Matthew 24 and 25. And with the saints already raptured, Revelation 19:14.
Now who's going to be with Him? The saints who were raptured from the New Testament age and also the saints of the Old Testament and their spiritual bodies will return with Him. You say well, how do you know that's us? 1 Thessalonians 3:13, a wonderful verse don't ever forget it. It says this, "At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints." All who were in heaven, the spirits of the Old Testament saints and the resurrected glorified bodies of the raptured church will all be coming because He is coming with all His saints, you see.
There won't be any saints left out. And certainly the promise to the church is this in 1 Thessalonians 4:18, that once we go to be with Him, "so shall you ever be with the Lord." So where He goes we go. He comes, we come with Him.
And so Christ comes and He arrives on earth and He ends the tribulation in the holocaust that is described in verses 17 to 21. "The birds of the air are called together to have a great supper." And the Lord comes down, of course, in terrible destruction, verse 19, "saw the beasts and the kings of the earth." That's the antichrist, the beast. "And their armies gathered to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army. And the beast was taken with Him, the false prophets that wrought miracles before Him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."
"And the remnant was slain with the sword of Him that sat on the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." By the very word of His mouth He destroys the ungodly across the face of the earth in His return. I guess it is nothing could be more ironically appropriate