The Perfect Government - Part B

As good as the earth is now, and it is a beautiful place, even in its fallen state, even in its confused state, even though the governments of humanity have ruined it, we have ruined it.

Still a pretty awesome environment. You ain't seen nothing yet. And when you think of your future, and that includes the future kingdom, realize this, this is something that all redeemed people of all the ages have dreamt of long before. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip concludes his message, The Perfect Government, and shows you that the future for Christians is even better than you can imagine.

Now, here's more about this special resource that will guide you through the past, present, and God-ordained future for the nation of Israel. How have conflicts and wars in the Middle East set the stage for a future apocalypse? That's the question Ron Rhodes takes head-on in his new book.

Listen to this. What do you see coming in the next five or six years that might do injury to the church? And without hesitation, I said, I really feel like we're going to see an explosion of subjectivism, experientialism, and mysticism, along with occultism and some paganism. How conflicts and wars in the Middle East have set the stage for the end times? This new book by Ron Rhodes addresses issues such as understanding Islam, rebuilding the temple, and the annihilation campaign from the Antichrist.

Here's Ron Rhodes commenting on Middle East events. Did you know that in Revelation 2 and 3, we read about the church 19 times? And then in the discussion on the tribulation in chapters 4 through 18, you don't see the church a single time.

It is gone. In 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 10, we are told that the church is to be delivered from the wrath to come. That word, delivered, literally means snatched, snatched away from.

We are to be snatched away from the wrath to come, which is a reference to the tribulation period. With your gift of $50 or more to connect with Skip Heitzig, you'll receive a copy of this new book from Ron Rhodes. Your gift will support the production and expansion of the Connect with Skip broadcast. Call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com with your donation, and we'll thank you with a copy of Ron Rhodes' new book, How Conflicts and Wars in the Middle East Have Set the Stage for the End Times.

That's 1-800-922-1888 or connectwithskip.com. Okay, let's turn over to Revelation 20 as Skip gets started with today's lesson. All of those ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ are resurrected believers.

Got it? Resurrected, glorified believer. Now this brings up another question. We're doing all this talking about ruling and reigning and ruling and reigning. Who are we going to rule and reign over?

Right? You want to know that, right? If you're going to rule and reign, what am I going to do? Who am I going to rule over? Let me give you the short answer. You're going to rule over those who haven't been glorified. That's the short answer.

Now let me give you the long answer because I need to explain the short answer. So when the kingdom age starts, no unsaved person will enter the kingdom age. It's pretty clear from the end of Revelation 19 that when Jesus comes back at His second coming, that all of those unbelievers in the tribulation will be destroyed so that when the kingdom opens up, only saved people enter the millennial kingdom. But there's two groups in that larger group. There are those in glorified bodies and there are those in unglorified bodies.

So in the first group, those in glorified bodies, there's three subgroups. There's the church resurrected at the rapture. There are tribulation saints resurrected at the second coming. And there are Old Testament believers also resurrected at the same time at the second coming. The second group are unglorified earthly human beings, believers, believing Jews, 144,000 Jews, an innumerable group of Gentiles. Those or some of those at least will survive the tribulation and those that do will be admitted into the kingdom. So essentially, as the kingdom begins, you have a mix of people, resurrected, glorified saints and unresurrected, unglorified saints. Now, I know you listen and you go, I don't get that.

How could that be? Mixing glorified, resurrected saints and unresurrected? Actually, you know the answer to this. It's not as weird as you think it is.

So here's the answer. When Jesus rose from the dead, He was able to eat, talk with His disciples, walk down the road with them, have conversation and relationship, be in different places. He was in His resurrected body and He was hanging out with people in unresurrected bodies. At first, they didn't recognize Him. Then they came to recognize Him. So don't imagine, oh, if I'm going to be in my glorified body, it's like the movie Avatar.

I'm on the planet Pandora and everybody's sort of blue and translucent. It's going to be normal looking people, but resurrected at their genetic peak of development, physical and yet eternal. You know, the Bible says that in Philippians 3 21 that He will transform our lowly body, that it might be conformed to His glorious body. So you're going to be able to do the kinds of things Jesus did in His resurrected body. We have gone into depth in this in the past.

I'm not going to go through that again. So you've got glorified beings, unglorified beings, resurrected, unresurrected, glorified, resurrected versus just normal people like you and I. Those in natural bodies are going to have kids. And I'm imagining they're going to have lots and lots of kids, because keep in mind, there's going to be no war.

They beat their swords into plowshares. There's going to be worldwide peace. There's going to be health, no disease. There's going to be prosperity and longevity.

So the conditions will be perfect. So I'm guessing that they're so perfect that people on the earth in their normal bodies are going to be proliferating exponentially. They're going to have lots of kids. So by the end of a thousand years, there's going to be a huge population.

Now, that's unglorified, unresurrected people. We, on the other hand, will not be proliferating. The same number that goes into the millennium will end the millennium, because Jesus said in the resurrection, there is neither marriage nor given in marriage. We don't die. We're like the angels in that. So those in human bodies are going to have kids, going to have a lot of them.

So this is what it means. At the beginning of the millennium, the number of glorified people are going to greatly outnumber those in unglorified bodies. Keep in mind, those in glorified bodies are all the Old Testament saints, all the New Testament saints. All the people who have believed from that far back will be resurrected in glorified bodies. So you have a lot of people ruling and reigning over just a small amount that probably we don't need that big a government. We never have, and we won't then. So probably not everybody is going to be employed the same as they will later on, when the population of the earth through those natural bodies is greatly increased and proliferated.

And they're going to need more management. So glorified saints are going to be ruling unglorified people, believers and non-believers. I'm going to get to that in a minute. Believers and non-believers. If a sinless king is required to manage the millennium, then sinless helpers are going to be needed to help him manage the millennium. So we'll rule and reign with him.

So we have sovereign authority, social stability. Let me take you to the third, spiritual invincibility. Spiritual invincibility. Verse six, blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power. The second death is described in verse 14 as the lake of fire. But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. So if you're saved, and I hope you are, you will experience a resurrection in the future at the rapture. The resurrection to life. When that happens, you never will be susceptible to experiencing eternal death. Now this answers the question for those who wonder if they would ever blow it in the millennium. So if I'm like ruling and reigning and I do something really dumb and make a mistake and blow it and sin, not going to happen.

Not going to happen. Once you're in the millennial kingdom as a resurrected, glorified individual, you can't sin. You can't sin. There is no probation period, no trial period, no purgatory. You're in like Flynn, Jesus said in John 5, 24. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and will not come into judgment, but passes from death into life. So we have three marks of this governmental structure.

Sovereign authority, social stability, spiritual invincibility. Once you're there ruling and reigning, glorified state, you're not going to blow it. You're not going to falter. You're not going to sin. You have escaped the second death. Fourth and finally, and this is where it's a little mystifying, is that there will be a satanic mutiny. You go, satanic mutiny? Satan's bound. He's in prison for a thousand years.

Yeah, but look at verse 7. Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire. Remember before he was kept in the pit for a thousand years. He's out of the pit. He rebels.

He's thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beasts and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Now here we have all this peace and all this perfection. And this, somebody last week's first service was walking out and this lady said, Skip, I have a question. And it was about verse 7. She said, so why does God let Satan loose? I said, tell you what, if you can tell me why God let him loose the first time, I'll tell you why God let him loose the second time. Because it's the same answer. Why did God let him loose to begin with? To cause all that. And there's good answers for that. I'm not going to probe that right now, but let me give you a little bit.

Let me fill in some of the blanks here. The people during the thousand years in their natural, normal, unglorified bodies are going to have babies. Those babies are going to be by nature sinners.

That's all we can produce. We have a sin nature. So normal, natural, unresurrected, unredeemed people, good or bad, produce by nature sinners.

It has always been that way. Those who are born in the millennium are going to need to be saved, just like at any other time in history. And many will be saved. I mean, it's going to be perfect conditions. But even though there's perfect conditions, apparently many will not be saved. You say, wait a minute, how can that be? If Satan is bound, then there's no problem.

That's not true. When Satan is bound, only part of the problem is removed. So, you know, you've heard this, right? You know about the world of flesh and the devil, right?

You've heard those three grouped together sort of as a trifecta against all of us. So you've got the devil. He's the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world.

He helps create the world system whereby we are tempted in fall and all the mess that we have. Well, if you incarcerate the devil for a thousand years, you've eliminated part of the problem. You've still got the world and the flesh. Okay, so now it's a perfect world. A thousand-year perfect world. Jesus is reigning. We're ruling and reigning with Him in glorified bodies.

Sounds pretty perfect. So you've got the devil removed. That makes things better. You have the world fixed. It makes things much better, but you still have the flesh. You still have innate sinful humanity, the problem in the heart.

So you go, yeah, but come on. With Jesus visibly there, they can see that's Jesus. It's a miraculous time of peace and prosperity and health. Surely everybody's going to believe, no, they won't, and here's how I know. They didn't believe Him when He came the first time and did miracles and made sick people better and effectively eradicated disease from Israel by His presence and rose people from the dead and rose Himself from the dead. There were enough people who rejected Him even seeing that. Why? Because people love their sin.

That's why. Romans 8, verse 7, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. This is where the rod of iron comes in. Remember, that's the description that He's going to rule with the rod of iron. It's mentioned in Psalm.

It's mentioned in Revelation, in the Epistles. The rule of Christ in the millennium is going to be a judicious one. He's going to adjudicate with a rod of iron that is a very stern, immediate response to any possible rebellion, any kind of insurrection at all. Some are going to refuse to believe in Jesus. They're going to bristle against His authority. When they do so, they're going to receive swift judgment. It says in Isaiah Chapter 2, He will judge the nations during that time. They're going to receive swift judgment.

In some cases, even environmental judgment. Let me explain that. Zechariah 14, one of the interesting things about the millennium, it says that all the nations of the world are coming to Jerusalem once a year, some emissaries from those nations, but all are going to participate. They're going to come to Jerusalem every year for the Feast of Tabernacles to worship God, to worship Christ. It says those who refuse to come to Jerusalem to worship.

So it indicates not everybody is going to want to do it. There's going to be sinful impulses that say, I don't want anything to do with God. Those who refuse to come and worship, God says, I will send no rain on their nation. So that'll be a swift, immediate rod of iron implementation of justice. So then at the end, Satan is released, and that serves a purpose. He's going to be loosed to bring together all the rebels who have harbored rebellion in their hearts. Darkness has been lurking in their hearts.

Now it'll be out in the open. And Satan will coalesce that rebellion like he did, like he has been doing in this dispensation. And God will then have a final judgment. So in the final heaven called the eternal state, new heaven, new earth, nothing that defiles, nothing sinful will enter that realm.

Now, here's why that is important. People often say, well, the reason there's problems today is because of the environment we're in. Change the environment, you change the person. So if you have a perfect environment, you have a perfect person. If you have a bad environment, you have bad people.

I've seen good people come out of bad environments, and I've seen bad people come out of good environments. And, well, you know, I get angry at people because I have a Latin background. You know how we are. That's just the way we are.

I'm very precise in particular because I'm German and, you know, we like to blame other things or exigencies or people rather than ourselves. So God's going to incarcerate Satan, give him a perfect world, and still there's going to be a rebellion because it's not the environment. It's the heart. The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? And that will be manifest during this time. Now, just a quick note about verse eight where it says Gog and Magog. You read that and immediately, especially this crowd, because you know what that is in a previous study, you immediately, your mind goes back to Ezekiel 38 and 39, right? Some people actually think, well, that's the same war. I don't think it is because if I were to overlay Ezekiel 38 and 39 Gog and Magog battle and Revelation 20 Gog and Magog battle, it's very different, different participants, different staging, different outcome, a number of different things that could be shown. I believe it is used here, Gog and Magog, it's used here emblematically. It's a tip to the previous battle, but it's very different like it, but markedly different in scope, et cetera.

And here's why. We still use terminology like this today. If a general goes into a battle and it's a fiasco, we often say, yeah, that was a bad war. That was his Waterloo, even though Waterloo was a historical thing that happened with Napoleon and that's over, but we still use it as happening or the crossing of the Rubicon. We know about that historically, but we'll say if somebody makes a decision today that is life altering, we say, well, he's crossed the Rubicon, no turning back. So let me just bring this to this conclusion.

As good as the earth is now, and it is a beautiful place, even in its fallen state, even in its confused state, even though the governments of humanity have ruined it, we have ruined it, still a pretty awesome environment. She ain't seen nothing yet. And when you think of your future, and that includes the future kingdom, realize this, this is something that all redeemed people of all the ages have dreamt of, longed for. And your future is not going to be you die, sit on a cloud, play the harp, in the white robe, to the Gregorian chant, forever, you're bored after two minutes, at least give me an electric guitar. But that's not going to happen.

Here's what's going to happen. There's several phases. If you die today, and I hope you don't, but if you do die today, you go to heaven immediately. We call that the intermediate heaven.

Why? Because it's only a phase. At some point in the future, the rapture of the church will happen, on that day, you'll get a resurrected body at genetic perfection, your spirit joins with your body. In that state, glorified body, you'll go be with the Lord, I believe, for seven years. And you'll enjoy His presence in heaven, but at the end of that seven-year period, you're going to come down with Jesus to the earth, where He stops the battle of Armageddon, He comes again, He comes to set up His kingdom. Then you, on this earth, and I, along with Old Testament saints, are going to rule and reign for a thousand years.

You're going to help administrate that rule. And then, it's not over. There's a whole other phase, called the eternal state, that we're going to look at next time, because we don't have time today.

But that final phase will be left, and we'll look at that next time. Here's the good news. You're in the family. You're in God's family. And as members of God's family, you don't just have heaven awaiting you. You have heaven. You have a job coming up on earth.

I don't want a job. You will in your redeemed state. It's going to be so cool. And if you're wondering what your body will be able to do, go check out 1 Corinthians 15 sometime.

You'll be able to see what you can do and what your body will be like. And then, you'll enter into the eternal state. So, during the millennium, the nine most terrifying words today are, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help. In the millennium, the nine most terrific words will be, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

Because the government will be Jesus Christ, and you'll help Him pull it off. That's Skip Heitzig. With a message from his series, The End is Near, find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. We hope today's program has encouraged you in your Christian walk, and we'd like to invite you to help encourage others to do the same with a gift to keep these biblical teachings on the air. You can play a vital role in this life-changing work today with a generous gift to support this ministry and help expand its reach into more major U.S. cities. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give generously and share God's love with others.

That's connectwithskip.com slash donate, or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888. Thank you for changing lives. Be sure to join us tomorrow as Skip's son Nate shares a message titled, What Happens After You Die?

from our current, The End is Near series. Think of the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your life. Heaven's going to be better than that. I think every sight we see, every sound we hear, every sense we take in, it's going to be breathtaking.

It's going to be the most beautiful thing we've ever experienced in life. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.