1. The view we will examine today is not new.
1.1. It is the oldest view and the most widely held view.
1.2. Also called Classic Premillenialism, Chiliasm and Monergism
1.3. For 19 centuries, this was really the only view.
1.4. Held by Papias, Iranaeus, Origen, Ignatius, Polycarp, H
ermas, Tertullian, and Justin Martyr.
1.4.1. Iranaeus - "In a still clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord's disciples what shall happen in the last times, and concerning the ten kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire which now rules [the earth] shall be partitioned. He teaches us what the ten horns shall be which were seen by Daniel, telling us that thus it had been said to him [see Rev. 17:12]. It is manifest, therefore, that of these [potentates], he who is to come shall slay three, and subject the remainder to his power, and that he shall be himself the eighth among them. And they shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast, and put the church to flight. After that they shall be destroyed by the coming of our Lord"
1.5. Well known adherents include Dr. Walter Martin. Martin Luther, John Knox, John Calvin, The Waldenses, The Hussites, Wyclif, Zwingli, Tyndale and John Wesley.
1.6. Catholic, Orthodox, all of the reform faiths and reformers.
1.7. All of these expected the church to face and deal with the anti-Christ. Nearly universally, they saw the pope, papacy and the Catholic Church as the anti-Christ. Rather than a single ant-christ, the church would be persecuted by a religio-political organization with the number 666.
2. Framework for today’s class:
2.1. There will be a physical millennial kingdom of 1000 years in duration
2.1.1. Part of the reason that the church was persecuted was because of the doctrine of a competing earthly king/not a heavenly king. As result of the persecution, this factor was coded or veiled often and ambiguous intentionally.
2.2. This is a “post-tribulationist” view. Jesus will return at the end of the tribulation, rapture the saints and set up his physical millennial kingdom.
2.3. The Rapture appears prior to the millennial kingdom and is simultaneous with the Second Coming.
2.4. Supersessionist in view of Israel and the Church
3. The case for a physical Millennium Rev 20:
3.1. Satan Bound
3.1.1. Rev 20 - 1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.
3.2. Judgment of the Christians
3.2.1. 4 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
3.3. Satan Released
3.3.1. 7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
3.4. The Judgment of the Dead
3.4.1. 11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
4. Now that we have established that there is a millennium, what about the rapture and the tribulation? So let’s begin with the words of Jesus:
4.1. John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
4.2. Amplified by Paul in Titus 2:13 “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,”
4.3. This is called the second advent.
5. What did Jesus say about the second advent: Matthew 24?
5.1. Destruction of the Temple
5.1.1. 1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
5.2. When?
5.2.1. 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
5.3. Jesus Warns against being deceived:
5.3.1. 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
5.4. Persecution of the Church
5.4.1. 9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
5.5. The Abomination of Desolation
5.5.1. 15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
5.6. There are three possibilities for this “Abomination” reference
5.6.1. The 70 weeks. Everyone agrees that the 69 weeks end up in Jesus’s Ministry somewhere.
5.6.1.1. Daniel 9:24 –24 “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish[d] transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
5.6.1.2. 25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.[g] The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[h] In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple[j] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”
5.6.2. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we find four royal commands issued by Median and Persian kings that could possibly qualify as the "commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem." The first command was by Cyrus in Ezra 1:1-11. The second was by Darius in Ezra 4:24 and 6:1-12. The third was by Artaxerxes in his 7th year in Ezra 7:7-26. The fourth was also by Artaxerxes in his 20th year in Nehemiah 2:1-8.
5.6.2.1. The command of Artaxerxes is most likely as it ends the 283 years in 27AD.
5.6.2.1.1. In the middle of the 70th week (3 ½ years), Jesus was crucified.
5.6.2.1.2. Titus destroyed the city and took some Jews into slavery, The Christians got out.
5.6.2.1.3. There was literally nothing left. They razed it to the ground and today to see the foundations of the old city, they are 50 feet underground.
5.6.2.1.4. Until 1948 the Jews were out of the land.
5.6.3. The six-day war was the beginning of the end of the “time of the gentiles” spoken of in Luke 21:24 24 They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
5.6.3.1. Daniel 11:31 31 “His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. 32 With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.
5.6.3.2. Daniel 12:11 11 “From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.
5.7. False Messiahs
5.7.1. 22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.
5.8. Don’t believe it’s Jesus until everyone on earth can see it
5.8.1. 26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
5.9. Worldwide Cataclysm
5.9.1. 29 “Immediately after the distress of those days “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
5.10. The appearance of Jesus
5.10.1. 30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
5.11. The fig tree lesson
5.11.1. 32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[e] is near, right at the door. 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
5.12. The Day and Hour Unknown
5.12.1. 36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
5.13. What did Paul say?
5.13.1. 2 Thes 2:1-4 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
5.13.2. 2 Thes 1:6-10 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
5.13.3. 1 Thes 4:13-18 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
5.14. Keep Watch
5.14.1. 42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
5.15. Be a faithful servant
5.15.1. 45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
6. Matthew 24:15: Parallel verse in Mark 13:14 – Mark 13 is a parallel reference
7. Can we place it’s timing?
7.1. No one knows, not even Jesus
7.1.1. Matthew 24:36 5.11.1. 36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
7.1.1.1. If Jesus doesn’t know, how do Hal Lindsey and other popular prophecy teachers know?
7.1.2. Matthew 24:44 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
7.1.3. The “holy place” in Matt 24:15 some would say is the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
7.1.4. Revelation 20: 1-6
7.1.4.1. Satan is bound after the tribulation- The millennial kingdom is after the tribulation.
7.1.4.2. John places the first resurrection after the tribulation and just before the millennium.