The Earthly Kingdom of Jesus Christ, Part 2

Selected Scriptures

Can you imagine a world where justice always prevails.  Where righteousness and goodness is always the rule and there is never an exception.  Where there is total and lasting peace where joy is the dominant attitude.  A world where health is so widespread that if somebody dies a hundred years old, they'll be said to be dying as if they were a child.  A world where children can play in snake pits and not be afraid of being bitten or poisoned.  A world where lions and lambs walk together with bears and cows and a little child leads them all. A world where agriculture is so effective and products are so profuse and food is so plentiful that even with a fantastic population explosion everybody has enough of everything.  In fact, more than they could ever ask for.

Can you imagine a world ruled by a perfect ruler, loving, saving, caring, all wise, all knowing?  That's the real world of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and it's coming to this earth.  Now last time we began our study, just the beginnings of the study were indicated to us in Revelation 19 and 20 and I invite you to turn there again in your Bibles.

People are looking for a new world.  They always have been.  But as they look for this new world, they're not convinced that this Jesus is the one who's going to bring it about. In fact, in most cases they are convinced that that is not the case at all.  And even in the time of Peter in 2 Peter that most familiar passage, Chapter 3, "the scoffers come in the last days saying where is the promise of His coming?"

People have always doubted that Jesus will return.  There are some Christians that really aren't too sure about it.  There are people who have always held the kingdom of Jesus Christ somewhat suspect.  And while they're looking for a new world, they're not sure that it's going to come in the terms that the Bible presents it.

Now as we come to Revelation 19 and 20 again, we find a very clear picture of the kingdom.  Not in great detail, but really in kind of overview and yet it does give us some specific insights.  Now we told you last time that there were six basic points that we were going to cover and we covered three last time.  We'll cover the final three tonight.

The kingdom, according to Revelation 19 and 20, includes the rule of the Son, the removal of the serpent, the reign of the saints, the return of Satan, the revolt of society and the resurrection of sinners.  Now let's review with some additional thoughts those first three.  The kingdom to begin with is the rule of the Son.  Chapter 19, in verse 11, "heaven opens, behold a white horse, He that sat on him was faithful and true, He comes to judge and make war."  Describes Him in verse 12.  Verse 13 describes His vesture dipped in blood and gives His name the word of God and we know that to be Jesus Christ.

He's given another name in verse 16, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  And so here we see the picture of the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom.  And if we were to compare Matthew Chapter 24, we would read that immediately after the tribulation of those days, "the sun shall not give its light, the moon shall turn to darkness, the stars of heaven shall fall, then shall the sign of the Son of man be revealed and we shall see Him in heaven coming with His angels and power and great glory."

So it is immediately after the tribulation that Christ comes back to set up His kingdom.  The promise is that Jesus, the very same Jesus that walked in this world, is going to be the one who comes back to set up the kingdom of promise that all men are looking for but that not all men will experience.

In Daniel 7:13, it says, "And I saw in the night visions and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days and they brought Him near before Him and there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom.  That all people and nations and languages should serve Him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

Now there Daniel says the Son of man was granted by the ancient of days, the Son of man is Christ, the ancient of days is God the Father, a kingdom and He will bring that kingdom to pass.

In Revelation Chapter 11, verse 15, the promise again is repeated regarding the kingdom.  "The seventh angel sounded and there were voices in heaven saying the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever."  Now though the kingdom specifically on earth last a thousand years, the reign of Christ is forever.  And the kingdom merely phases into the eternal reign of Christ.

So the first phase of the kingdom that is so very important for us to recognize is that is the rule of the Son.  That the earthly kingdom is going to be the place where Jesus Himself rules.  Now we saw last time from Psalm 2 that it's going to be a universal rule.  The Psalmist says in Psalm 2 very specifically in verse 6, "I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion."  This is God talking.  "I will declare the decree the Lord said unto me thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee.  Ask of me and I'll give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."

The Psalm then promises that the kings rule will be universal.  He will give, the Father will, to the Son, the rule of all the nations.  It also will be an absolute kingdom as well as universal.  It says in Psalm 72:10-11, "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents.  The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.  Ye all kings shall fall down before Him all nations shall serve Him."

And verse 9 says, "His enemies shall lick the dust."  So it's universal and it's absolute.  And then in Isaiah's wonderful prophecy, Chapter 11 in verses 3 to 5, just again reviewing, it says, "In the kingdom the Spirit shall make of him, make him of quick understanding in the fear of Lord and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor and reprove with equity or equality the meek of the earth."

And so it's going to be a just kingdom.  Absolute, universal, and just and Jesus Christ will reign.  Now the second feature we saw of the kingdom was the removal of the serpent.  We know that today the prince of this world is Satan.  He is the ruler.  He is the god of the age.  And as we look at our world today, we see Satan in control and we know that when Christ comes the control must change.  And if Christ is to take control, He has to deal with Satan.  And He does, and we begin in Chapter 20 and we read this.

Revelation 20, verse 1, "I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, who is the devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him that he should deceive the nation no more until the thousand years shall be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season."

During the thousand year kingdom, Satan is going to be chained in the abyss which is the bottomless pit.  The word in the Greek is abussos.  Now let me give you a little word study that I think might help to clear up some confusion.  If you're like most people who read the Bible and study the Bible you read about Sheol and you read about Hades and you about Hell and you read about the pit and you read about all of these things and you're not quite clear what's what and what's where.

So maybe I can just give you a little look at that.  What is the abyss?  And where is the abyss?  Or as it's translated here, the bottomless pit, which is literally what abussos means.  The word abussos is used nine times in the New Testament.  It is a Greek word which means bottomless pit.  Now if we were to look, for example, at one and seven times in Revelation twice outside Revelation, but one of the times outside Revelation gives us a good indication about it. 

In Luke 8:31, you remember that Jesus had cast the demons out of the mad man of the Gadarenes, remember?  And where did He send those demons?  Into pigs, a herd of swine.  And they besought Him the demons did, they were talking to Him and they besought Him that He would not command them to go into the abussos. 

And there it translates it into the deep in the King James.  I don't know why it takes the...that particular translation.  It's rather arbitrary, but it's really the same word, bottomless pit.  Now that gives us an idea what the bottomless pit is.  The bottomless pit is where demons don't want to go.  You say well, that's not a very clear definition.  The bottomless pit is a place where demons are chained.  That's what it is.  It's not for people who die, the souls of men, it's for demons.

Now, it has the very same meaning every other time that it is used with no exceptions.  In the book of Revelation it is once used in Romans 10:7 with the same meaning.  In Revelation seven times it has the same meaning, abussos.  Someone asked me this morning why I believe that in Revelation Chapter 9 the locusts...the locusts that came out of the pit were demons.  And someone said that has been interpreted to be Muslims.  Others interpret that to be a helicopters because it describes them like grasshoppers and all those little things.

And they said well, why do you feel that it is demons described like locusts?  And I said, very clearly the answer is this, it is the word abyss that is used again.  It says that the bottomless pit is opened up and they come out of there and all other times that that word is used it speaks of the place where demons are chained.  So if somebody is unlocking the pit the only thing in the pit is demons.

And so the word abussos then is used to speak of the place where demons are bound.  Now you say well which demons are bound?  Well, if you were to read Peter and you were to read Jude, you would find that God has chained demons there since clear back in Genesis 6.  Remember the demons in Genesis 6 who cohabitated with women?  And He has reserved them in everlasting chains.  See?  And so there have been demons bound since Genesis 6.  And apparently throughout history whenever God so desired, He could send other demons to the pit and so there is in this place the pit, a group of bound demons from Genesis 6 a pile of them and whoever else has been sent there since.

And you see that's why Revelation 9 says that when the tribulation begins in all of its terror, God lets this angel unlock the pit and the demons who have been bound from whenever they were bound, as far back as Genesis 6 come gushing out of the pit and overrun the earth.  And that's what makes the intensity of the tribulation so much greater than any other time of evil in the world, because there will be more demons then there have ever been overrunning the earth.

The abyss then is not a place for the souls of men.  It is a special place for bound demons.  Now that is the place where Satan is going to get chained.  Look verse 3, "and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up."  Now that is what the abyss is.  Now let me hasten to say this.  There are other places besides the abyss, and we need to understand that.

I'll show you another one.  Back up to Revelation 19:20, "And the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles," that's the antichrist and his religious cohort which he..."which he deceived them that received the mark of the beast and them that worship their image.  These both were cast alive," not into the pit, not into abussos, "but into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."  Now the beast is a man, right?  He's a human, the antichrist.  The false prophet is a human.  They don't go into the pit. They go into the place called the lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Now you say well what is this place?  Well, look at that.  It's a rather ultimate place isn't it.  The first ones that are ever said in the Bible to go to that place are these two.  This beloved is Hell.  And I hasten to add this, and then I qualify it,  as clearly as I can understand the Bible, no one at the present time is in Hell.  Now hang on to your hat.  No one at the present time is in the lake of fire as we see it here.  And I'll try to defend that.

Notice here the beast and the false prophet are thrown into a lake of fire.  Now go to Chapter 20, verse 10 and I'll show you something else.  "At the end of the kingdom," now the beast and false prophet were sent there at the beginning of the kingdom, at the end of the tribulation.  A thousand years later after the kingdom is over, verse 10 of 20, "The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone."  Now it says "where the beast and the false prophet are and they've been there a thousand years and they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Now here is the final Hell, see?  The beast and false prophet are there.  Notice how interesting it is that he says the devil was only...was cast into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet are.  It doesn't say anybody else is there.  Interesting.

Now that's an argument from silence and not a heavy one, but it's interesting that it does exclude anyone else in statement.  And so the devil is going to go to the lake of fire.  You say anybody else going to the lake of fire?  Go to verse 13.  Here we are at the great white throne judgment of all the unsaved human beings of all time.  And the sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hades delivered up the dead that were in them.  Oh isn't that interesting.

Do you know where the dead have been until the great white throne?  Not in the lake of fire, but in what, Hades.  "And they were judged every many according to their works and death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire."  Now you see then all these people are into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire then is the technical term for final Hell.  Verse 15, "And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire."  Now the problem comes up and the reason everybody gets confused is because the King James translates so arbitrarily the word Hades.

Do you remember an Old Testament word Sheol, S-h-e-o-l?  Sheol simply means the world of the dead.  That's all it means.  It doesn't have any more specific meaning than that.  It simply means the world of the dead.  Now in the Old Testament Sheol had two parts didn't it?  A person who died could go into the part where evil men were separated from God and believe me there was torment there in the absence of God.  Or one who died as a Godly individual would go into the good part which Jesus called paradise. 

Remember what He said to the thief, "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise."  Which was the good part of the place of the Old Testament dead.  Now watch when Jesus died on the cross, Ephesians 4:8 says, "He led captivity captive."  And we've interpreted that in our study and if you want more detail on it, you can get that tape or study a commentary on that passage, but in...what happen was while Jesus was physically dead on the cross, His spirit descended into that place into the paradise and scooped up the good folks, the souls of those who were righteous and took them up to heaven.  So then Hades only had one compartment left. See? 

Old Testament saints their spirits waiting for the time when Jesus died and when Jesus accomplished salvation on the cross He went right down scooped them up and took them to heaven, led captivity captive.  And then Hades only had one part.  Now Sheol in the Old Testament and Hades in the New Testament, same thing, just a Hebrew word and a Greek word.

Now watch, when anybody dies since Jesus' death right on out or since the very beginning of death in the world, they go into a place called Hades.  That is not to be confused with Hell.  Let me hasten to say this, Hades is bad.  It is very bad.  But Hell is different.  In the Old Testament it is a completely different word.  It's the word tophet.  And in the New Testament it is a completely different word is the word Gehenna.  But the King James fouls it up because the King James translates Hades, Hades sometimes and Hell some other times.  You see?

Now stay with me on this.  In Matthew 5:29-30, I'll give you a scripture that you can kind of sink your teeth into a little bit here and maybe get some clarity on it.  Matthew 5:29, "If thy right hand offend thee, pluck it out.  Cast if from thee for it's profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not thy whole body should be cast into Hell."  Now watch, now watch, what does he say there is going to be cast into Hell?  What?  Your body. 

People say John, do you believe in a literal Hell?  How could I not believe in a literal Hell.  I says right there your whole body would be cast into Hell.  Now watch, There is no unsaved person dead now in a body, right.  Where are the bodies of the unsaved?  They're in the grave. When are they going to get resurrected?  At the great white throne judgment.  Therefore, they don't get their bodies until the great white throne.  They couldn't be cast into the final Hell until that time.

So they're not in Hell today, they're in Hades, which is a spiritual waiting place, but believe me it is a tormented place.  It is a place of burning in a spiritual sense.  Now verse 30 says "if you're right hand offend you cut off and cast it from you for it's profitable for the that one of they members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell."

Hell is a literal place.  Do you believe that heaven's a literal place?  Do you believe you're going to go to heaven in a literal, glorified body?  Jesus is there right now in one, isn't He?  And Hell is a literal place.  Now the term Hell here in this passage is the Greek word Gehenna, G-e-h-e-n-n-a.  Now Gehenna was the valley of Hinom.  It's just a term for the valley of Hinom.  Now the valley of Hinom was outside Jerusalem.  You can go to Jerusalem today and it'll be pointed out to you, the valley of Hinom.

In that valley, first of all, idolaters burned their children to the god Molech.  So it began as a place of burning and God cursed the valley of Hinom. And you know what happened at the valley of Hinom?  The people of Israel then since God cursed it wouldn't use it for anything except the city dump. And so the valley of Hinom became the dump for the city of Jerusalem.  And for centuries and centuries filth and garbage and animal carcasses were thrown into the fire of the valley. 

Now watch, they made sure that the fire never died out.  There was always something new being thrown into that valley.  And the worms never died either because there was always enough new stuff for the worms to thrive. See?  And when our Lord describes Hell, He said it is a place that the fire never ceases and the worm never dies.  See?

And you remember that you if you look back in history and see such a terrible place, you would know that would be a place where scavenger animals would gather and the jackals would gnash their teeth as they ate the garbage in the terrible place called the valley of Hinom.  That's Gehenna and that is the picture of Hell that Jesus chose.  And whenever He wanted to speak of Hell, in the final sense, He chose the word Gehenna.

Now from that background the word Gehenna was used to describe the everlasting damnation of Hell where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched and that is Hell.

You say then John, do you mean that my particular friends who die today without Jesus Christ go into some kind of a nice little waiting place?  No, that...they go into a waiting place, not the final Hell, but it's not nice.  I'll prove it's not nice.  I'll show you a man who went there.  And he not only went there, but he told us what it was like.

Luke 16, verse 19, now listen, "There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.  There was a certain beggar named Lazarus who was laid at his feet full of sores.  And desire to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.  Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores."  He was in bad shape.  "It came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom."  Do you know what that is?  That's the good part of Hades.  You see Christ hasn't died yet, so He hasn't emptied that part.  But here's a godly beggar who dies and he goes into Abraham's bosom.  He goes into a place of blessing.  He goes to be with blessed Abraham whose waiting yet the death of Messiah, but that place that Abraham was in place of blessing and joy.

"But the rich man died and was buried," and watch, "and in," and your Bible might say Hell, that's unfortunate, "and in Hades."  The word is Hades, not Gehenna.  "He lifted up his eyes being in," what, "torment."  And in verse 24, he says, "send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger and water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame."  It is not the eternal lake of fire, but believe it's the absence of God and it's the presence of punishment. 

So just because I say that the people who die now do not go to final Hell, they do not go to the terrible, fearful Gehenna does not mean that they're waiting in some waiting place that's about as comfortable as a lounge.  They're as apart from God as they'll ever be and they're in the pain and the agony of punishment and mostly the remorse of conscience for knowing that they have sealed their eternal doom by a wrong decision.

Now, I say all that because I want you to understand that though there is no one in Hell, to die without Jesus Christ now is to be in a place of terrible torment.  Only to await the final lake of fire.