Sermon Central
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Strolling Down Millennial Lane Series
Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Jun 1, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: Knowing what God will do helps us tolerate an era when God’s will is typically ignored or mocked. The Bible is loaded with information about the Kingdom to come. Let’s note a few facts about what is to come.
Strolling Down Millennial Lane
(topical)
1. Consider the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail.
Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to ?type it in from memory. ??Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly pastor’s wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before.
When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look ?at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen: Dearest wife, just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.? P.S. Sure is hot down here.
2. Well, most Christians are aware of heaven and hell, but many are unfamiliar with something else in the future: the Coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth.
Quick overview of End Times Events
We are here somewhere!
Adam…Noah…Abraham…
Moses…David…Jesus Any time in
the near
future
CREATION UNTIL THE END TIMES
7 year TRIBULATION
The MILLENNIUM (Kingdom Age)
ETERNAL STATE
3. The curse is “undone” in several phases:
• It’s basis: the FALL of Man
• It’s reversal provided: the atonement of CHRIST
• Phases
• Our souls: when we BELIEVE and are saved
• In our lives: as we walk by the SPIRIT and at DEATH
• Our bodies; through RESURRECTION
• Nature (except man’s nature): the MILLENNIUM
Complete removal of curse: the ETERNAL STATE (Rev. 22:3)
4. Why study this? We endure trials through perseverance, and we persevere through hope; hope is based on anticipating what is to come, and part of what is to come is the Kingdom (cf. Rom. 5:1-5, I Thes. 1:3, Titus 2:13, I John 3:3).
Of course, if you think that life will never devastate you and you will not never need to subsist on hope, than this study may not be for you. But most of us need a stash of hope, and hope is nurtured when we consider what awaits in God’s plan.
E. W. Bullinger, a scholar from another century, wrote:
“If we were asked to name the subjects which are put forward to-day with the greatest frequency and urgency, we should say, they are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But note the place which these occupy, and the position given to them in the Epistles, which were written specially for the instruction of the Church. Baptism is mentioned only 19 times in 7 epistles (the noun 5 and the verb 14), and it is not once name in 14 out of the 21 epistles; and as for the Lord’s Supper there are not more than three or four references to it in the whole of the New Testament. In 20 (out of 21) of the Epistles it is never once alluded to! From the prominence given to it by man, one would imagine the New Testament to be filled with it. It is not a question of one subject being important, and another not; but it is a question of proportion and relation; and certainly if the Scriptures contain twenty references to the one subject of the Lord’s Coming, to one reference concerning another, we may say that God has settled for us what He deems profitable for us, and important.”
24 out of 27 New Testament books address end time events: rapture, tribulation, Kingdom Age, judgment seat, or the coming resurrection…
Main Idea: Knowing what God will do helps us tolerate an era when God’s will is typically ignored or mocked. The Bible is loaded with information about the Kingdom to come. Let’s note a few facts about what is to come.
I. The King’s INSTALLATION (Psalm 2)
Rev. 11:15 anticipates His reign:
“Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.’"
“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness, From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.
He returns at the end of the Tribulation, in the midst of the Battle of Armageddon:
