The Millennium

We are to look now at the teachings of the Scriptures concerning the millennium, The word signifies simply a period of one thousand years. In itself it means no more than that, and is derived from the repeated measure of time given to this period in the xx:1-6 chapter of Revelation.

In this we have a period of one thousand years mentioned four times, coinciding in the prophetic order with the time of blessedness on this earth under the personal reign of Messiah long ago foretold by the Old Testament prophets.

So much for the word. It is to be regretted, however, that this word “millennium” ever supplanted the old Biblical word “kingdom.” A great many misconceptions that are

in the minds of people might, perhaps, never have been there if we had always referred to this period as the kingdom period — the time when the kingdom of heaven foretold by the prophets will have its manifestation.

I have no doubt that most of us when we pray “thy kingdom come’ really have in our minds the wish that there may be more people converted. Some perhaps, mean the bringing in of that time of which we have been told (but not by Scripture) when all the people in the world will be members of the church. Scripture, as we have abundantly seen in the previous articles, never speaks of a time in this age when the whole world would be a converted world; it is always in the kingdom age that every intelligence is to be subject to God; and that is what our Lord had in mind when He told us to pray “thy kingdom come” — the kingdom foretold by the prophets; the time when the earth “shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” ee)

Remember that the Scriptures always distinguish between the church and the kingdom. Let me, just rapidly, give some distinctions which you yourselves may verify by recourse to your Bibles,

In the first place, then, we have in Scripture the expression “the kingdom of God,” and indeed, we may say that the expression gives its own definition. It includes whatever God rules over; whatever intelligences, in any world or in any sphere, are willingly subject to the rule of God. If there are to-night, in the most distant star, intelligent beings who submit themselves to the rule and will of God, there the kingdom of God is established, there the kingdom of God exists.

Then, secondly, we have “the kingdom of heaven” mentioned in Scripture. That’is, so to speak, a more limited term; it refers to this period which we have come to call the millennium. The “kingdom of God” is a great inclusive expression, which takes in the whole sphere where God rules. The “kingdom of heaven” is the establishment, through Christ, of God’s righteous reign on the earth; it is always limited to the earth, that is its sphere — though glorified saints of this and past ages are concerned with it.

Thirdly, we have the church. The church is composed of those who are saved, mostly out of the Gentiles, between the first and second advents of the Lord Jesus Christ; more strictly speaking, between the day of Pentecost and that day when “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them

in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”~(1 Thess. iv:16, 17). Between those two points, the day of Pentecost and

‘the descent of the Lord into the air for the saints of this / dispensation, the church is gathered out. The Apostle Paul says, you remember, that the church was a mystery: hidden from the Old Testament writers. To him was given the unfolding of that mystery, and he tells us that the Church is the body of Christ and the bride of Christ. The saints who compose it are kings and priests, and to them is reserved the unique distinction of reigning with Him “over the earth.”

“Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign over the earth” (Rev. v:9, 10).

Notice the limitation of the reigning of the saints. We shall not reign in heaven; we shall not reign in that wide sphere which is called the kingdom of God, but we shall reign over the earth.

Pardon me if I dwell yet a moment upon these distinctions, for they are fundamental to any clear understanding of the Scriptures. The kingdom of God is the great inclusive term. The kingdom of heaven has its full manifestation in the thousand years’ reign of Christ over the earth. The church is a distinct body of saved ones between Pentecost and the descent of the Lord into the air just before the great tribulation, who are to be associated with Him in the rule when the kingdom of heaven is set up.

The kingdom of heaven is in the kingdom of God, but it does not follow that the two terms are synonymous. For example, the State of Texas is in the United States, but it is not the United States. Because it is in the United States it has much in common with the United States. It has the same president; the same constitution is the supreme law, the same language is spoken, but it would be mere confusion to speak of the State of Texas and the United States interchangeably. The kingdom of Scotland is in Great Britain, but it is not Great Britain.

The kingdom of heaven is in the kingdom of God. Therefore, we may expect to find in the Scriptures a great many things which are common to the kingdom of heaven and we cannot make apply interchangeably to both.

The church is in the kingdom of God, but the church is ° not the kingdom of God; neither is the church the kingdom of heaven, although for a time the church is to be in the kingdom of heaven. The church is in the kingdom of heaven which is in the kingdom of God, just as the royal family of Great Britain, for instance, may be said to be im the kingdom of Great Britain. The church is a body of royal priests called out during this dispensation to be co-rulers with the King over the millennial earth during a period of 1,000 years and to be forever with Him after that period is ended. I trust the ground is now clear so we may come to some questions.:

I. First of all, when does the millennium begin? The answer is that it begins immediately after the great tribulation has run its course — that period of time which was the subject of the last article. Immediately after the great tribulation the Lord Jesus returns in power and glory to this earth and sets up the millennial kingdom, Let me read one or two passages upon that point:

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and 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” (Matt. xxiv:29, 30).

When? “Immediately after the tribulation of those days.’

You perceive the distinction between this coming of the Lord in power and great glory to the earth, after the period called the “great tribulation,” and that other coming of the ‘Lord into the air to take away His own before the tribulation. That coming is immediately after the tribulation. One is visible only to those who are caught up to meet the Lord

107, in the air. It will be known to the dwellers on the earth only by the absence of those who have been taken. The ‘other coming shall be “as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west;’’ it will be witnessed by all tongues and nations and will be for them an awful event. That, certainly, is clearly established by the words of the Lord Himself.

II. In the second place let us trace from Scripture the order of events in the establishment of this millennial kingdom.

Here I shall confine myself almost entirely to the inspired”

words, and I am sure I need make no apology for reading upon such a subject as this exclusively from Scripture. It would be mere impertinence for me or any other man to ask his fellow-mortals to hear his theories about the future. We do not know, except as God has revealed it, what may occur one hour hence: To Scripture, then, we turn to learn how the millennium will be introduced.

“And I saw heaven opened, 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 as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written that no one knew but Himself. And He was clothed in

a vesture dipped in blood; and His name is called the Word of God” (Rev. xix :11-13).

Who is this personage?

You know that in the first chapter of the Gospel of John we have precisely this name, “the Word,” applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” A little later we read: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.”

Where is Jesus now? In heaven, at the right hand of the Father. In the passage read we see, prophetically, through ie ee the vision of the apocalyptic seer, the moment when heaven is opened, and Jesus Christ, “the Word” issues forth, not now to become the babe of Bethlehem, the man of Calvary, but armed as for war, “His vesture dipped in blood.”

And next the prophets describe the arrival of the Lord Jesus with the “armies of heaven” (Rev. xxix:14) upon the earth. It is the time when the seventieth week of Daniel, anti-Christ’s week, the “great tribulation,’ ends. Against the Jewish remnant in Jerusalem is gathered the host of the beast and false prophet.

“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up; beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about” (Joel iii:9-11).

“For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle,” etc. (Zech. xiv:2).

“And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army” (Rev. xix:19).

Just at this crisis the Lord appears in glory and delivers the beleaguered Jewish saints.

“And I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came” (Dan. vii:2I, 22).

“Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against these nations as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon 1 the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, * * * and the Lord shall be king over all the earth” (Zech. xiv:3, 4, 9).

“And the beast was taken, and with hhimthe ialse prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his Amage”’ (Rev. xix:20).

/ “And 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, which is the Devil, land Satan, and bound him a thousand years” (Rev. xx:I, 2).

Now keep the connection. We have seen in the vision of John on the Isle of Patmos, heaven opened and the Lord descending with His mighty ones to the earth. He comes at a time of crisis on the earth, when the saints who have turned to Him during the tribulation are at their utmost extremity, and delivers them. He wins the great final victory.

The next act in the mighty drama is the re-gathering of dispersed Israel. A remnant has been in the land through the tribulation, but now the nation is to be brought back. Observe, as I read the Scriptures, how this follows the coming of the king:

“Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto

David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jer. xxiii:5).

Not in Heaven. It is not a question of the reigning of God in heaven. His throne is in the heavens, and it has never been shaken and never can be; but here we have the promise that in David’s great Son there shall be one who will reign and execute judgment and justice in the earth. Let me ask: Did He do anything of that kind when He came before? Was there any reigning in prosperity of the one of whom, it is said, He was crucified through weakness; that He had “not where to lay His head,” so that the very fowls of the air and the foxes of the earth were better off than He? Was there any ‘fulfillment of this promise then? Do you not see that the fulfillment of this prediction imperatively requires the return of David’s Son to this earth?

IIT. In Matthew xxv:31 to 34, we have the next event in order; “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him; then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, “(Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

So it is that class upon His right hand which forms the Gentile nucleus of the population of the millennial earth. Those upon His left hand go away into eternal punishment. The basis of judgment is the treatment they have accorded His “brethren,” the believing Jewish remnant during the tribulation just closed.

I am perfectly well aware that this judgment of the xxv. of Matthew — the judgment that our Lord Himself declares to be the judgment of the “nations’ — has been confounded in the minds of many with the judgment of the great white throne recorded in’ the xx. of Revelation. But surely no one need make that confusion. Note, first, the difference in time of the two judgments. The judgment of the living nations takes place when Christ comes in glory. The judgment of the great white throne takes place after a thousand years 6f His presence on the earth. Note again, that in the judgment of the great white throne only “the dead” are raised and stand before God. In the judgment of the xxv. of Matthew there is no resurrection at all; it is simply a judgment of the “nations.”

It should ever be borne in mind that these prophecies deal with the nations of christendom, to whom the gospel has gone,

What follows?‘“In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely” (Jer xxiii :6).

Did that happen when the Lord was here before? On the contrary we know that almost immediately after his final rejection and crucifixion, the Roman armies came up to Jerusalem and destroyed the city with nearlylhalf of the inhabitants and carried away into captivity the remainder. Nothing in all the calamitous history of this wonderful city was so terrible as was the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. But read again Jerem. xxiii:7-8.

Is not that explicit enough? Has that ever been fulfilled? Remember a remnant of the Jews are to be in the land during the great tribulation when they turn to the Lord Jesus as their Messiah. When He comes back, it is first of all for their deliverance; then, for the judgment of the Gentiles, according to their treatment of Israel.

It is such a wonderful regathering!

“It shall no more be said, The Lord liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.”

That was a wonderful deliverance. To an old shepherd, an old Jewish man eighty years old, with just a shepherd’s staff, without a soldier or a spear, to bring those millions of slaves out from under the power of the mightiest monarch of those times was wonderful. You remember the divided waters of the Red Sea and Israel passing through and into the wilderness dry-shod; and how, forty years after, the waters of Jordan were parted asunder and they passed into their own land dry-shod. I repeat that these were wonderful deliverances, yet so much greater and more marvellous will be the coming deliverance of Israel that, so to speak, the wonders of the first exodus and deliverance will be forgotten.

Then, in “the wilderness of the people,” Jesus meets them and they receive Him as the Christ.

That introduces the millennium.

Now remember that nearly a thousand million of the souls now living have never heard the gospel. To them, or to so many as may at that time be unevangelized, Israel becomes a missionary nation.

“And it shall come to pass that as ye were a curse among heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, in those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold, out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before the Lord” (Zech. viii:13-23).

And so, at last, there is a converted world, but it is in the kingdom of heaven, not in the church.

You know how wonderfully the whole period from the rejection of our Lord at His first coming, to the full blessing of the earth at His second coming, is bridged in Acts xv 314-17,

IV. What will be the form of government, and what the order of society during the millennium?

The government will be a theocracy. It will be the ruling of God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, over the earth:

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jer. xxiii:5).

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father, David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luke i:30-33).

Here the question is answered as to the form of government — a theocracy.

Where will be the seat of that government? I will read from Isaiah ii:1-4, “The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.” (Not concerning Washington, or London, or Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin, but concerning Judah.and Jerusalem. Let us, at least, take it for granted that the.Spirit of God knew

/ how to dictate His messages):

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain

of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains,

and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, ‘and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Jerusalem then is to be the seat of the government.

As to the national order, I will not weary you with quotations. Suffice it to say that Israel has the first place among nations during the millennium, Did you ever think that at the present time the nations are a headless body; that there is no chief nation now? We cannot point to one nation and say, that is the head. The claim would instantly be contested. To-day Gentileism, the whole sphere of the Gentile world, is divided up, localized, with no nation at the head; and there never will be any nation at the head again until Israel is the head. We could abundantly prove that from the prophets.

The theocracy, or the rule of Christ over the whole earth during the millennium, is made effective in this way: First, He says in Isaiah i:26 of Israel: “And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning; afterward, thou shalt be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City; and to the apostles He said: “When the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of His glory, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. xix:28). The office of judge in Israel, as you know, was not a judicial office, as we have it, but an administrative office.

As to the manner of the governing of Gentile nations during the millennium, we gather a hint from the xix. chapter of Luke. We read that a certain nobleman goes into a far country to receive a kingdom, and to return, etc. After a long time the nobleman, having received the kingdom, returns and then he reckons with his servants. To one who had received ten pounds and had gained other ten pounds, the king says: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, have thou authority over ten cities.”” Do you catch the idea? Where is this authority to be exercised? Up in heaven! Are there a great many cities in heaven? On the contrary, heaven is one city. It could not be anywhere but on the earth. Then we have in Hebrews the distinct statement that “Unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world — or age — to come, but unto us.” We have, in short, this thought: The administration of the kingly authority of Christ over the earth during the millennium is through restoration of the administrative office of judge over Israel, and through the personal service of saints in their glorified bodies over the Gentiles; the heavens and the earth, so to speak, come together during that period of one thousand years,

V. What will be the condition of the earth during that period?

When the prophets paint the picture of the millennial earth, they dip their pencils in the rainbow. You know how incomparably beautiful their descriptions are, considered simply as poetry.

Hear Isaiah: “For there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit ef wisdom and — understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. And shall make him of quick understanding; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes; neither reprove after the hearing af his ears, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor.”

Dear friends, it is a very hard thing forlthe poor to get judgment with righteousness now. Just las difficult a

IIS thing as it is to give judgment with righteousness to a millionaire. What a blessed time it will be when the poor get their rights:

“And reprove with equity for the meek of the earth, and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.”

That is to say, while on the one hand it is a condition of tranquillity, blessedness and peacey on the other hand it is instant destruction of the insubordinate’ or rebellious. We are living in a time when God is forbearing with wicked men; it is the time of His patience. The millennium is the “kingdom and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and whatever wickedness shows itself is instantly judged.

Even the nature of the animal kingdom is to be changed. “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”

There was no ferocity among what we call wild beasts in the garden of Eden. Ferocity has come in with the fall; all creation fell with man. We learn that from the viii. of Romans. We learn, too, that it is going to be delivered out of the bondage or corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

“And the cow and the bear shall feed; and their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They

shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth

shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Is not that beautiful?

“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall

stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious.”

That is just one of the little prophetic pictures of the 116

Sg ait condition of things during the millennium. Of this age of blessedness the prophets give picture after picture. I will let you look them up for yourselves. Let me turn only to Romans vili:19-21:

“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creation itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”

Creation delivered! Creation set free! All the forces that we feel somehow, vaguely, all about us, which we cannot grasp, mighty energies of nature, all are to be put to the service of man.

You ask what will .be the manner of worship on the millennial earth? Ezekiel describes to us, not only the distribution of the Holy Land to the tribes of Israel, but the erection of the magnificent millennial temple. There are to be offerings, memorial sacrifices, not expiatory sacrifices. Zechariah adds another significant truth with regard to the Gentile nations: “And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations which come against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of. Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zech. xiv :16).

Pilgrimages out of all the nations of the earth wending their way annually to that most magnificent city, as it will then be, the centre of the millennial earth’s splendor, civilization and worship. Every eye directed there to the worship of the King, the Lord of Hosts.

Now, in conclusion, are you asking me to tell you what is to be the end of all this? Alas, dear friends, one shrinks from opening that page, but it must be. Is it then to be ever true that man, tried in every way, is a failure? It has been true, has it not? Man, put in the garden of Eden, in a patadise where every right wish was anticipated, disobeyed the only command God gave him, and his life. there closed in judgment; he was expelled. That man’s descendants became so wicked that it was mercy to blot them out by the great judgment of the flood.

Again there was the dispersion caused by the confusion of tongues at Babel. Was it not judgment that sent them forth wanderers over the whole earth? Then,the Lord finally sent His Son — perfect loveliness — into the world. He was spiked to a cross. The world had that as a deathbed for the Son of God. The picture which the prophets give to the close of this present age repeats the same story of apostasy, turning finally to the anti-Christ, the man of sin; all the world wondering after the beast, and judgment closing this.age. And so will close the millennial age. “And when the thousand years are expired Satan shall be loosed out of prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (Rev. xx:7, 8).

No sooner is Satan loosed than he finds a vast multitude ready, as now, to obey him and to believe his lie rather than God’s truth. After a thousand years of the manifestation of perfect righteousness and perfect peace and perfect blessing on the earth, there is still latent in the human heart that pride which is ready to become insubordinate to so gentle a ruler as Jesus.

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed

the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them,”

That is the last of the earth judgments.

“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I saw a great white throne and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.”

This is not the judgment of the living nations when the Lord comes. That is on earth, this is in space; the heaven and the earth have fled away.

“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened; and another book was opened which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And

death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev. xx:9-I5).

Then what?

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away” (Rev. xxi:1).

The long, strange, tragic drama of earth finished — eternity begun.