The Millennium Explained: What Revelation 20 Really Teaches

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, it's good to have everybody in for another afternoon of taping. And we like our television audience to know that if you're in the area of Tulsa and you can ever spend an afternoon with us as we tape four of these programs right in succession. And I think I mentioned in our last taping that the television audience begins to get the idea, hey, this program is almost like the last one, except for the content, of course. It's just simply because for sake of time and budget and everything else, we come in and tape four of these programs right in succession. So anyway, we trust that those of you in television will take your Bible even as we have here, and we trust you'll just be part of the class. In fact, that's what we love to hear when people sort of let us know that they feel as though they're just right in here with us. And that's exactly how we want to come across. We are just an informal Bible study. We are not underwritten by any particular group. We have, as I've said so often, we aren't trying to run down or make anyone else look smaller. We just simply like to teach the Word and put it as simply as we know how so that folk can understand. Because I think there are so many Bible believers who read their Bible, and they just don't understand what they're reading. And this is all I'm trying to do. So anyway, for those of you, and every week we're getting letters and phone calls from people who have just now found the program. And I had to tell a lady the other night, if you're just coming in at Revelation, you're about like a kid that's been thrown into calculus without ever having had third and fourth grade arithmetic. Because that's about the way it is. And I love to have people start with me from Genesis and come right on up through, and then all these things just fall into place. So anyway, for those of you out in television who have just now come into our teaching, we always like to make it known that all the past programs, almost three years worth now, from Genesis 1 on up until the present, are available in videotapes. And we've started putting the earliest ones in the printed page. We now have three books ready. Number four is at the printer. And so if you're interested in any of that material, you write to us or call us on the 800 number. All right, so much for that. Oh, that's right. I've got the lady that does all our bookkeeping. All the checks that we get in the mail, we just forward on up to Margaret. She's sitting right here, Margaret Rainwater, and Margaret lives over at Tahlequah. And she's just been doing a fantastic job. She takes care of all the deposits, all the bill paying, and then she makes sure that all of you get a receipt and with a running account of how much you've contributed and so forth. And I've just thanked the Lord for her. And she, like all the rest of us in this ministry, she takes nothing for it. She does it as a love for the Lord. And of course, sitting right beside her is her husband, Harold. And I imagine she puts him to work stuffing envelopes and licking stamps and what have you. So anyway, all of those things contribute. And then of course, everyone that comes in for this taping, like I just told them before we went on camera, I could never do this without these people coming in and being part of our class. All right, so much for announcements and introduction. Now we're going to pick right up where we left off in our last program, and that was in Revelation chapter 20. We stopped at verse 6, but I want to come back to verse 1 for just a quick running review so we don't lose track of how we've arrived at some of these points in time. Now as the Tribulation has run its course, the Battle of Armageddon, of course, has taken place. Christ has returned and crushed all the armies gathered there in the Middle East. And we're now going to get ready for the onset of the Kingdom. I can hardly wait. In fact, as I was thinking all these things over the last day or two, I was wishing I had a four hour run now without an interruption to teach the Kingdom. Now most of you are aware that I like to teach two hours minimum, and then try to get down to a 30 minute format. Now that's pretty tough. But anyway, we're ready now to introduce the Kingdom. And Revelation 20 is the first place now that that Kingdom is brought down to a particular time frame. The Old Testament speaks of the Kingdom, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom, Paul makes reference to the Kingdom, but not in a time frame. But now Revelation 20 all of a sudden, here comes almost explosively the term 1,000 years. Now it's put in a time frame that we can understand and we can equate. Now verse 1, just for a quick review. Now I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. Remember I always qualify, Satan is a spirit being, he doesn't necessarily have to be bound with an iron chain, but it will be a chain of God's doing. It just simply shows us that God is going to confine him to where he can no longer carry out His work of opposition. So He puts a great chain upon him, and bound him for 1,000 years. Now I want to emphasize here in these next few verses, how many times the Scripture, the Holy Spirit inspired Word, is going to bring out this 1,000 years. Now I've stressed ever since we began back in Genesis, that whenever the Bible repeats something two, three, four times in short order, you sit up and take notice because it's doing it for a reason, and that is emphasis. They are emphasizing the fact here now that this Kingdom rule and reign of Christ will be a thousand years. Now then verse 3. So this angel will cast Satan bound into a special place, it isn't hell, it's not the lake of fire, but it's into a pit of some kind, shuts him up, seals him, that he should deceive the nations no more, but then comes another time word, and what is it? Until. Or until the thousand years, there's twice now in just two verses, until the thousand years should be fulfilled, after the thousand years, Satan is going to be released. Now we'll be coming to that somewhere down the road. I don't think we'll have time in any of these four half hours, but he will be released again, and I'll give you the reason and all that when we come to it. And then verse 4, John now sees the believers who've been resurrected and they're brought up into the very heaven of the heavens, and now he begins to list them, those who were beheaded in verse 4, and those who had been martyred, and then of course we come into the tribulation where they had not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands. And then all these resurrected believers, they're all grouped together here now, I'm quite convinced, and they lived and reigned with Christ, again what? A thousand years. There's the third one now in just these few verses. Then verse 5, and the rest of the dead. Now here's where I'm going to take my time now, and I guess in my last program I went a little too fast, and someone who was in the studio audience said, boy you lost me. So I'm going to slow it down, and I'm going to go over it again so that there is no mistaking these resurrections. Now we have all the believers, all the way from Abel through the tribulation, who are now resurrected, and they're in the Lord's presence. But it says the rest of the dead. Now you always want to remember there's only two groups of people so far as God is concerned overall, and what are they? The lost, and the saved. And so if the saved are already resurrected and they're in the Lord's presence, then the rest of the dead would have to be whom? Well the lost. And so the lost will not have anything happen to them until the thousand years were finished. Now that's plain English isn't it? So there they're going to stay in their original state, which of course is in hell as we understand it. And they're going to stay there all during the thousand years of the Kingdom rule. But now the last part of verse 5 says that this, now the word this is referring to the people up in verse 4. This is the first resurrection. Now in order to pick up the second resurrection, in other words of the rest who are going to remain where they are, or as it calls them here, the rest of the dead, pick them up at least in my Bible as you go across the page, and you'll find that in verse 14 of the same chapter, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. Now we'll be coming to all this in future lessons, the Great White Throne, but just to show you now that the two resurrections are separated by a thousand years. The resurrection of the just, as Jesus referred to it in John's Gospel chapter 5, will all be resurrected before the Kingdom begins, but the resurrection of the unjust, as He spoke of it in John, will take place after the thousand years are finished, and here it is now then in verse 14, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. In other words, the lost have died physically, but now they're going to experience their spiritual lostness, in other words their separation from God. And so here you have these two great groups of humanity, the saved who are resurrected before the Kingdom begins, and then the lost of all the ages who will be resurrected here at the Great White Throne, and then they go to their eternal doom. Yes, the unbelievers are going to be resurrected. They will have a body fit for their eternal residence, the lake of fire, even as we will have a body prepared for eternal bliss. All right, now then come back to verse 6 quickly in chapter 20, and so in this first resurrection, the resurrection of all the believers, Old Testament, Church Age, Tribulation, on such the second death as we just saw in verse 14 has no power, but they're going to be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with Him, and here it comes for what, the fifth time now? A thousand years. Now you see how plain all this comes out? And then verse 7, and when the thousand years are expired. Now I think that's six times here in about six verses you have that term, the thousand years. Now in order to qualify that, turn back a few pages, and again, I try to prepare whoever is watching the Scriptures for the camera ahead of time, but as everybody knows by now, when verses come to mind while I'm teaching, I don't go by a format. And so, honey, we're going to come back to 1 Peter, I'm sorry, 2 Peter chapter 3 for just a second. 2 Peter chapter 3, where again we have that term, the thousand years, and this is what I call comparing Scripture with Scripture. 2 Peter chapter 3, and come down to verse 8. 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 8, But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years, that is again picking up the subject, with the Lord is one day. Now, when we first started teaching Revelation, I think I made the point that all the seeds of what are finally coming to fruition in Revelation were sown in what book? Well, in Genesis. Everything that's now coming to full flower in Revelation was sown back in Genesis. Now, when you come into this matter of seven days back in Genesis, how are they broken down? Well, six days prepared all of creation for the appearance of man, and so six has always been the number of man all the way through creation and all the way up through Scripture. Six is the number of man. Six days and God got everything ready for mankind. But then we have what? The seventh day, see? And the seventh day was the day of God's rest. Now, we did this when we first started teaching here on television, that's a good three years ago now, believe it or not. And you remember we put the timeline on the board and I pointed out that for 6,000 years man has pretty much run the show, at least he thinks he does. But there's that 7,000th years left. Well, I think you can put all this together now that these are the seven days, so far as God is concerned, that we have here in Peter, and the seventh day or the 7,000th year period of time is the one that is right out in front of us. Now, I'm not one for setting dates and you all know that, but there are a lot of scholars who are frantically now putting some of these things together and I certainly won't argue the point with them and it's certainly their liberty to do so, and especially I can appreciate it if they make it very plain in their writings that they are not setting any definite date, but they are just showing how that the whole program of God from Genesis to Revelation seems to be set in a time frame of 7,000 years. A gentleman by the name of Grant Jeffreys in his book, I hope I can remember the title of it now, Armageddon and Appointment with Destiny, has come up with some interesting figures and he is basing some of this of course on the Jubilee period of time in especially Israel's history. You remember a Jubilee was 50 years, and every 50th year was called the year of Jubilee and according to God's law when He first began the deal with the nation of Israel the year of Jubilee was the year of new beginnings. In other words all debts were cancelled and all property reverted back to the original owner and it looked real good, but Israel as far as I know never practiced it. The year of Jubilee a lot of prisoners would be released and so forth. But anyway the thing I want to point out to you is that a Jubilee was 50 years. Now according to Brother Jeffreys then by the end of this millennium in other words by the end of the year 2000 it will have been, I've got to look at my note here just a second I had to write it in my margin, it would be the 120th Jubilee since Adam. That will be the fall of the year 2000. It would be the 70th, now as you write these numbers down you realize that these are numbers that are indicative of a lot of things in Scripture. For example the number 120 is three sets of 40 and 40 in Scripture is always a time frame that God has used over and over again. Then it's the 70th Jubilee that is to the same year 2000 now which is only 7 years in the future. In the same fall of the year 2000 it will be the 70th Jubilee since the year that Joshua led the children of Israel into Canaan. Now these are interesting figures if for nothing else to just show how completely God's time frames just fit together. And then the last one is that it'll be the 40th year of Jubilee or the 40th Jubilee I should say from the time of the crucifixion. That'll all come together in the fall of the year 2000. Now again as he says in his book we have to be careful that we don't tie ourselves to that and say well this is when the Lord is going to return and that of course refers to His second coming not the rapture. And then if we believe that the rapture takes place seven years ahead of the second coming as I do and as he does then we're getting awfully close. And again I say this cautiously because I don't want anyone to take me wrong but I've had a few people call and ask if I don't really feel that the rapture is awfully near. Of course I do. Of course I feel it's near. In fact I've told a few of them I'll be really surprised. I'm not disappointed but I'll be surprised if we're still here by January 1. Now that's how strongly I feel about it, but if it hasn't happened that's fine. Scripture doesn't set a date, it just simply says it's imminent. It could happen at any time. And I've had several calls just in the last week where they have expressed the very same thing. They said, Les do you really think we'll still be here by Christmas? No I don't, but on the other hand we may be. But everything is coming to pass so quickly. The world is falling apart so speedily, and we're reaching the perplexity of the nation. I'll write an interesting quote, and I'm not going to use her name, but one of our lady congressmen made the statement, and I read it in one of the news magazines, that she's finding as she travels around the world that nobody in any government on the planet is having any fun. You know what she meant? The problems of this world are so overwhelming that people in government are just almost pressed down. And isn't that true? I mean there is just seemingly no solution to the world's problems. Well it's all because we're winding down and we're getting closer and closer to the time when of course Christ will first take us out, we trust, and unto Himself, because a lot of things have to take place between us and the Lord before He comes back to rule. And one of those, and we'll be looking at them in a future lesson, is going to be the marriage of the Lamb. We're going to come before the bema seat for rewards. That's after all why we are to work in the Lord's vineyard in this life here, that we are to be expecting rewards someday. Now if you'll come back with me to verse 6 once again, and then if we have time I want to go all the way back to I Corinthians and back to Leviticus. But now it says here that after this first resurrection that all these believers of all the ages are going to rule and reign with Him for a thousand years. Now that's all in the first resurrection, as this verse 6 says. Now let's go back to I Corinthians 15, which is of course the great resurrection chapter, where Paul deals with resurrection in plain simple language, and he uses common ordinary everyday events to describe it. But I'd like to have you come in now in I Corinthians 15 verse 20. I Corinthians 15 verse 20. Where Paul writes, "...but now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits..." Not singular, but plural. "...he has become the first fruits of them that slept, or of those who have died. For since by man came death, by man..." And as he points out across the page in this same chapter, verse 47, so you'll know what I'm talking about. "...the first man is of the earth, earthy..." I'm in the same chapter, I Corinthians 15, now over to verse 47. "...the first man is of the earth, earthy..." That was Adam. "...the second man is..." Who? The Lord from heaven, Christ. Now jump back then again if you will to verse 20 and 21. "...for since by man came death..." That is by Adam. "...by man..." That is the second man, or the second Adam, that is by Christ. "...by the second man came also the resurrection of the dead." Now, I've been thinking again this past week, and I can't think of a single religion in the world that teaches resurrection as Christianity understands it. Now they all speak of a life hereafter, and of going to whatever they may call it. But I don't know of a religion in this world that teaches resurrection as we understand it from the Christian standpoint. Now you always have to remember that resurrection is simply unique. In other words, when Elijah raised the widow's son, that was not resurrection. He merely brought that lad back to life, and then what did he do? He died again. When Lazarus died, Jesus called him forth from the grave. He wasn't resurrected. He was merely brought back to life. So what did Lazarus have to do? He had to die. And so you have to keep this concept clear that resurrection is not just being brought back to life. Resurrection is that unique, sovereign act of God whereby He will bring back from the dead a human being who has died, not just to die again, but back to a life of eternity. And as I stressed back in Genesis, when God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and He became a living soul, that separated man from all the other categories of life, because man is immortal in the area of the soul. Now of course our body isn't, but the soul or the spirit, and I always say those two are so closely connected that you almost have to use them together, but that's immortal. And that's why Revelation speaks of the resurrection of the just to a life of immortality in God's presence. The lost are going to be resurrected to a life separated from God, or the second death, but they're still going to continue on through all eternity. Now I know there are groups that will disagree with that. They teach that when a lost person dies, they're annihilated, and that does not line up with Scripture. They're going to suffer, and they're going to experience regret, they're going to experience feeling throughout all the eons of eternity. Now that's resurrection. And Christ was the first person to ever experience resurrection, and that's why He's called here the first fruits, plural, of them that slept. Now I don't imagine I'm going to have enough time again, but for those of you in television, I'm sorry, you'll probably have to just be hanging by a thread until we come back again in our next program. But for those of you here in the studio, turn with me to Leviticus now. Chapter 23, where we have, at least as far as I know, the first mention of this word, first fruits. One minute. Sharon, you're not kind at all. All right, 23, Leviticus. Come down to verse 9. Now remember, this is just after Israel has come out of Egypt, they're gathered around Sinai, and they're being given the various aspects of the Law. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and ye shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheath of... What's the word? First fruits, plural. First fruits of your harvest unto the priest, and ye shall wave the sheath before the Lord. Now, is a sheath one stem of grain or many? Well, it's many. It's a congregation of many stems of grain that have been brought together, and we call it a sheath. All right, now she's counting down the seconds, so I'm going to have to stop, and we'll pick this up in our next lesson. But remember, we're talking about now the first fruits of the harvest. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.