The Glorious Return of Jesus Christ, Part 3

There is no way around this. This is the execution of everybody who is not redeemed. Everybody. Nobody escapes. Free men, slaves, small, great.

Nobody escapes. They all become food for the feast. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Stories of conflict fill the annals of human history, as mankind has battled for power, fought for freedom, and struggled for change.

So what will history's final battle be like, and will you be on the winning side? Find out today as John MacArthur continues his study titled When Jesus Comes. But before today's lesson, John, in our part of the world, summer is in full swing. And for many listeners, this time of year means vacations and family trips.

And with that in mind, a practical question for you. How can a believer think biblically about vacation? How can we honor God while we're away from the normal routine?

Well, vacation really isn't any different than any other day in your life. You're going to have those intense moments when your mind and your body is engrossed in activities that dominate you. But in any day, you're going to have those moments when the tasks ease up or when you're between responsibilities and tasks. And when you're not completely dominated by some thing at hand that you have to do, what do you do with those moments?

Do they honor God? Are your thoughts where they should be? Are you thinking on things that are lovely and pure and of good report?

Are your affections set on things above? You know, all vacation does is extend those times. When you're a little more free to choose your thoughts, to choose your activities, to choose the formations of ideas and notions and plans and perspectives that guide you. And I would hope that if the pattern of your life is to be immersed in the Word of God and to be loving God and putting your affections above and setting your mind on heavenly things, that giving you more time to do that is just an enriching experience. For me, when I get away from the dominating tasks—of course, mine are different in the sense that they're all around the Word of God— but when I get away, I get books and I pile up the books that I want to read that expose me to more truth about the Lord.

I read those things that edify my soul. But a vacation is just an extension of the way you think. And if you think regularly to honor Christ in those moments when you're free to cultivate your thoughts, then a vacation just has the potential to enrich all of that.

That's right. Thank you, John. And, friend, whether you're enjoying a family vacation or getting ready to head in to work, we're glad you've made grace to you a part of your day. So stay here now as John MacArthur continues his current study titled, When Jesus Comes. Let me read you the text that we will address as we look together to God's precious Word. It describes for us the end of man's day. It describes for us the holocaust of the battle of Armageddon. It describes the effect of the return of Jesus Christ to earth in judgment. It describes for us the final execution of all the ungodly, including the death of the Antichrist and the false prophet who are Satan's world leaders in the end time. Revelation 19 and verse 17, And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, Come, assemble for the great supper of God, in order that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves and small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against him who sat upon the horse and against his army. And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone, and the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of him who sat upon the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. This, as you know, is the moment of the return of Jesus Christ and the tremendous impact of that return against the nations who have gathered to war against Him.

It is the culmination and the climax and the final moment of that which is called the Day of the Lord. Now let me see if I can't clarify in your minds exactly what is going on here. This is not the final judgment of the ungodly. This is simply their execution. This is not their final judgment. Their final judgment does not come until chapter 20 and verse 11 after the thousand-year kingdom at an event called the Great White Throne. They're very like a criminal in the sense that they are taken captive in hell. They're sent there by virtue of death and they are held incarcerated in hell for a thousand years until they can be resurrected and brought to the Great White Throne for their formal sentencing.

That's the scene as it is here. They are simply executed here. They will be judged in a thousand years and we'll say more about that when we get into chapter 20. This is not the final judgment. This is the execution of the ungodly sinners of the world who have sided with Satan during the time of the Tribulation, who have sided with the Antichrist, who have taken his mark, who have worshiped him, who have continuously rejected the gospel, and God comes down and kills them all.

The judge has decided and this is execution day. Now it is this very judgment that is described so clearly by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 25. So let's go back to Matthew 25. It's important that we understand the scriptural teaching about this event no matter where it might occur, and it does occur at the end of chapter 25 in Jesus' famous sermon on His own Second Coming called the Olivette Sermon because He preached it on the Mount of Olives. First of all, we find the setting of the judgment described in verse 31, when the Son of Man comes in His glory.

That ties us right into chapter 19. It's right at the same time when He comes. And when He comes with all the angels with Him, and we saw that's exactly how He's going to come in the prior passage, then He will sit on His glorious throne, He comes out of heaven with all His holy ones, sets up His kingdom. And at that point, all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them from one another. We move from the setting of the judgment to the separation.

And that is what He does. He's going to separate. He's going to divide.

And if we move from the separation to the next point, we would move to the subjects. His separation involves sheep and goats. So Jesus Christ is going to come. He's going to come as Judge. He's going to come to establish His throne. He's going to come with all His saints and angels with Him.

He's going to come back and separate. He is separating in order that He might take into His kingdom the godly and that He might kill, execute the ungodly. Notice, please, in verse 32 that it says, all the nations, all the peoples, take the word nations and don't give it a collective meaning, just give it an individual meaning. What He's going to do is judge everybody in the world, all the peoples, all kinds of peoples from all kinds of places and cultures and languages and nations. He's going to judge all of them and I don't want you to think of this judgment as a judgment on collective people groups. This is a judgment on individuals from every people group who have continually rejected the gospel. It is a judgment of separation...a judgment of separation.

Let's look at how that works. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, Come you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. They just stay right on the earth and go right into the kingdom with Him. They are the ones then who populate the kingdom. They will be Jews, of course, because many Jews will have been converted. The nation Israel will be converted.

They will be saved and there will be many Gentiles, an innumerable number have already been converted in the time of the Tribulation. And many of them have been martyred and executed, but still some of them are alive. And so the sheep or the saints will just remain alive.

He doesn't execute them, obviously. Why would He kill them if they're still alive and they've been preserved? And we know from Revelation 12 that Israel will be preserved and there will be many nations preserved as well.

So how do you know that? Because in the kingdom there are many nations and they have to start somewhere, so there have to be many people groups who are brought into the kingdom in order that they might produce their own kind. So He takes those who believe and they are left with the kingdom, only believers. All the ungodly are destroyed and the believers are called sheep and that's consistent, isn't it?

With terminology used particularly by John. Puts the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Now any good shepherd had to do that.

You know why? Because sheep tend to be docile and gentle and goats are unruly and rambunctious. And they will often, if you travel in the Middle East, you can spot them because they're salt and pepper. The goats over there are black, very, very black and the sheep are white and you can see them mingled, but a good shepherd at some point has to do the separating and that's exactly the picture the Lord uses. And He'll say to those on His right who are the sheep, Come you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the King and prepared for you from the foundation of the world. It's kingdom time and you will live and go right into the kingdom and I'll be reigning on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem on a restored earth. And you've got to have some living people living on this earth to enjoy the fulfillment of that prophecy in their natural condition. And so the believers will go right into the kingdom. Jesus will initiate it right there. The criteria by which He identifies His sheep, look at verse 35.

How do you tell the sheep, I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, you gave me drink, I was a stranger, you invited me in, I was naked, you clothed me, I was sick, you visited me, I was in prison, you came to me. That's how it's going to be during the time of tribulation. There are going to be believing people who are not going to have any food.

Why? Because they don't have the mark of the beast, right? So they can't buy and sell. And who's going to give them food? And they're going to be thirsty and they can't get anything to drink.

Who's going to give them drink? And they're going to be strangers and they're not going to have access to a place to stay because they're outcasts. They're going to be...they're going to be hunted. They're going to have to be refugees. They're going to have to hide to save their lives.

And they're going to need clothes and they're going to be sick and somebody's going to need to tend to them. And they're going to be incarcerated in prisons by the system of the Antichrist. And somebody's going to minister to them and you ask the simple question, who will it be? And I'll tell you who it will be, it will be other believers, right? Didn't Jesus say in John 13, 34 and 35, they will know us by our love?

Didn't He say that? Obviously if you love one another, they'll know you're My...what?...disciples. And Jesus is simply saying, the sheep are the ones who have evidenced their regenerated life by the love of the brethren. John says in his epistle, if you say you love God and don't love your brother, you're what? You're a liar. And we say, well why does He say Me, Me, Me? Why? Because Christ lives in every believer.

Is that not true? In John 18 Jesus says, To receive the least of these little ones you receive Me. How you treat another believer is exactly how you're treating Jesus Christ. And so He personalizes it and says, I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave Me drink. I was a stranger, you invited Me and I was naked, you clothed Me, I was sick, you visited Me, I was in prison, you came to Me. And by the way, they treated other believers, they evidenced their own salvation. And then the righteous will say, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in and naked and clothe you?

And when did we see you sick or in prison and came to you? And the King will answer and say to them, truly I say to you to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them you...what?...you did it to Me. There's evidence that these are sheep because of how they treat their brothers and sisters in Christ. They're not saved by their good works. Their good works evidence their salvation and the love of the brethren is a reality within the fellowship of faith. How dwells the love of God in you, John asks in his first epistle, if you don't meet the need of your brother. So the sheep then go into the kingdom and the good deeds are the evidence of their salvation. Then in verse 41 he will say to those on his left, this is the goats who represent the unregenerate, depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.

Why? I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, you gave Me nothing to drink.

I was a stranger, you did not invite Me in naked, you did not clothe Me sick in prison, you did not visit Me. Then they themselves also will answer saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn't take care of you? Then he will answer to them saying, truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me and these will go away into eternal punishment, but they're righteous to eternal life. That's the same judgment you're seeing occurring in Revelation chapter 19. And their works showed that they never belonged to God at all.

They never belonged to Christ. Very similar cross-reference would be Romans 2, 5 through 10 where the Apostle Paul says that God's going to judge in the future on the basis of works, not because we're saved by works but the evidence of our salvation is in those works. So this then is the destruction of the ungodly. He says the sheep are going into the kingdom, the ungodly are going to be sent into the everlasting fire.

This, as I said, is the destruction of the ungodly. So what Jesus was saying is the same thing that John is seeing in the vision of chapter 19. It's important to say that because I think there are people who assume that Jesus is a much nicer person than some of the other New Testament writers. There used to be a hermeneutic among liberal theologians called the Spirit of Jesus.

And anything that was supposedly attributed to Jesus that didn't fit the docile sort of indifferent tolerant spirit of Jesus that they had concocted as being true of Him, they just eliminated altogether. But there obviously is a reality in the mind and the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ that will deal as firmly with vengeance as it dealt compassionately with mercy. So in chapter 19 we are hearing really John's description of the very same event that Jesus described in Matthew chapter 25. Now if I may, I want to take you back to chapter 16 of Revelation, and I'm trying to fill in all of this so that you have a complete understanding. Revelation 16 verse 13, And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs... This, by the way, is the sixth bowl judgment. Remember, seven seal judgments culminating in seven trumpet judgments culminating in seven rapid-fire end-time bowl judgments.

So we're right at the very end. Out come these filthy, scummy demon spirits performing, verse 14 says, signs. And what do they do? They go out to the kings of the whole world and they deceive them to gather them together for the war of the great day of God the Almighty. The question often comes up, why do the nations of the world when they've been so devastated through the whole Tribulation think they can come and fight against God?

And the answer is because there are hellish demons who go over the world and deceive them and God allows that to happen. So demons gather the remaining forces of the ungodly. Remember their capital city, Babylon, is already destroyed.

But what is left of their worldwide power is collected and gathered into the land of Israel. They gather to fight or perish. Right now, folks, it's fight or die.

The executioner is on the brink. Christ rising from the throne gathering all of the holy angels of heaven together is about to descend in devastating judgment on the world. You say, do they know that? Sure they know that.

The preachers have been telling them that. And it's now fight or die. And so they come armed to the teeth. And you can believe that whatever nuclear capability they have, whatever warheads, whatever exotic, sophisticated kinds of powers they may be able to amass on the level of weaponry, whatever Star Wars kind of operations they can pull off from satellites and whatever else is up in the sky, they're going to have it all. They're going to get all of the cooperation of all of those who possess nuclear armament and they're going to be ready to destroy the Son of God when He comes. And so, down in verse 17, we come to the conquest. In spite of all of their efforts, in spite of all of the attempts to victory, they're going to be terribly defeated.

I just want to speak of two things, conquest announced and then conquest accomplished...conquest announced and then conquest accomplished. Verse 17, And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried out with a loud voice saying to all the birds which fly in mid-heaven, come, assemble for the great supper of God. Now here again an angel plays a key role, an important role in the action of the final days, in the action of the book of Revelation. This angel is standing in the sun.

What does that mean? Does it literally mean he's standing right in the sun and not being burned up? Well it would seem to me that if he was actually standing in the sun, we don't have any reason to believe that angels who are spirit beings could project any visible image of themselves from a position inside the sun that would be able to be seen by anybody. I mean, a little angel standing in the middle of the sun firing off its flames thousands of miles into space wouldn't be seen. I think the meaning here is that in the proximity of the sun, perhaps in an eclipse fashion, blocking out the sun stands this angel. And he is doing to the sun what the moon does to it in an eclipse. The sun glow is nothing but an outline around the silhouette of the angel.

He stands in a conspicuous place and he stands in a commanding place. The angel makes the announcement and when the announcement is complete and he has called the birds together to eat the flesh, then the sun goes black. The sun, Matthew 24, 29 says, will be dark and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then appears the Son of Man.

So first the announcement, then everything goes out and everything goes black. And then comes the blazing glory of the Son of Man in heaven. Now let's go back to this angel. He cried with a loud voice, something angels have been often doing in the book of Revelation, chapter 7, chapter 10, chapter 14, chapter 18. Angels were yelling a lot in the visions John was having and always to introduce very important words to announce judgment on very wide scale. They're talking to the world.

I mean, this is going to be some kind of a heavenly megaphone and the whole world is going to hear this. But who is the angel addressing? The angel is talking to the birds.

Amazing. Which birds? The ones that fly in midheaven. What's midheaven? It's where birds fly.

How's that for reasoning? So if you wonder when you read chapter 8 verse 13 and chapter 14 verse 6 where you have the Greek term midheaven, what he means, here he defines it. Midheaven is where birds are.

It's up there above us. Why is this angel standing in the sun yelling so the whole world can hear him and talking to the birds? He's inviting them to feed on the carnage.

He's declaring the victory before the battle is ever fought. He's inviting them to eat the carrion, the dead corpses of all slaughtered in the return of Jesus Christ. The angel commands the birds and he says, Come, assemble for the great supper of God. And the birds are called to gather.

The battle will be very brief, covering a span of 200 miles where the blood splatters so high it hits the horses' bridles, millions of dead bodies strewn everywhere. The prophet tells us that after the birds have done their work and eaten themselves and glutted themselves, it will take seven months to bury the dead bodies, seven months right on into the kingdom. Now let's look at verse 18. He says, Come, birds, assemble for the great supper of God.

And here's the extent of this judgment. In order that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves and small and great. And of course you understand, he's just collecting absolutely everybody.

Eat the flesh of kings, start at the top. It's a terrible indignity for a king to lie unburied and for birds to tear his flesh. That's precisely what's going to happen. There's not going to be anybody to take care of him. There won't be anybody left alive to take care of him. This is the end of the kings, a desecrated kind of end. The birds are going to eat their flesh and the rulers won't be able to lead their people.

The kings won't be able to give direction because the fear will be so totally overpowering. The flesh of commanders would just kind of move down the ranks. The flesh of mighty men, great soldiers. The flesh of horses and the riders, that would be just the soldiers themselves. Now obviously there's not going to be armies on horses in the same way there are today, although there certainly may be some.

They were the ancient battle instrument and are emblematic of whatever battle instruments are used in the future. Perhaps there will be horses there. Then the flesh of all men is added. Look at that in verse 18. The flesh of all men, both free men and slaves and small and great.

The terminology is very much like Revelation chapter 6 verse 15. Everybody, everybody in the whole world is going to become food for vultures, the whole world. This is the end.

There is no way around this. This is the execution of everybody who is not redeemed. Everybody. Nobody escapes. Free men, slaves, small, great.

Nobody escapes. They all become food for the feast. You're listening to Grace to You and the verse-by-verse Bible teaching of John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson looked forward to the glorious return of Jesus Christ.

It's part of John's study titled, When Jesus Comes. Now friend, if John's lesson today resonated with you, thank you for remembering that we are listener supported. With your help, we bring biblical truth to people throughout the English and Spanish speaking world, showing them what Scripture says, not just about Christ's return, but about salvation and prayer and trials and so much more.

To express your support, contact us today. You can email your tax-deductible gift to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. You can also make a single donation or set up a convenient recurring gift through our website at gty.org, or when you call us toll-free at 800-55-GRACE. Again, to make a donation, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And while you're at the website, consider downloading the Study Bible app. It not only gives you access to multiple Bible translations, it also puts all of John's sermons and blog posts, devotionals, booklets, all of it in one convenient place. You can click on a passage and the app will show you Grace to You's free resources on whatever section of Scripture you're looking at. To download the Study Bible app, visit gty.org. That's gty.org.

By the way, the app is free. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember, watch Grace to You television this Sunday. You can visit our website to see if it now airs on a station near you. And then be here next week when John helps you prepare for Christ's return with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You. .