Hello, this is Matt Schlick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot.
Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.
Well, hello, friends. This is Michael Zwick. I'm back with my good friend, Dr. Greg Hennett. And we talked about the last show, Dr.
Greg, about how people think, well, there's just not much that we can know about heaven, so we're not going to talk about it. But we established that the Bible did have some things to say about it. We don't know everything about heaven. No, we don't. And there's a lot that we don't know.
And I think part of it that's going to be pretty cool is there's going to be a lot of surprises when we get to heaven. But there have been some people who have actually gone to the other side.
Well, they may have flatlined on the table and they've come back or whatever. But the Bible says in Revelation 21, it says in verse 1, it says, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride. adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death. Praise God. Neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
God makes all things new.
Now, there's a heaven that's right now, as we speak. If I were to die right now, I would go to a heaven. Absolutely. But before the show, he said there's a new heaven or a new Jerusalem. Can you tell us about that?
Yes, heaven exists right now, but what God is doing is he's preparing, and John sees this, a new material world. For us.
So when we dwell with God for eternity, it will be in a new material world.
So really, if you look at it, God created heaven, God created earth as a mirror image, many believe, and I agree with it. of what heaven is.
So he created this earth, but through sin. Adam brought not only himself and the human race down into separation from God, but this realm. Suffer the effects of it. That's why in Romans Paul writes that the heaven is the earth itself, the creation, groans in anticipation, longing for the new creation to come and the sons of men, the sons of the kingdom to come.
So here we're seeing the culmination of the whole work of redemption. We mentioned that in the last show. It's all coming to a culmination. What you read there in verse 4: no more tears, no more crying, no more death, no more sorrow. What is God telling us here?
That all the effects Of sin have now been dealt with. And so it will be an amazing time, an amazing world. Beyond our ability to fully grasp, but we do have these awesome facts here. And again, the central feature is: behold, the tabernacle of God. Is with men, and he will dwell with them, he will be with them.
You know, I see. I see Mark Uh three thirteen through fifteen um Answering to this text because there, Mike, when Jesus called his first apostles, he called them to be with him, to be with him.
Now, there was a larger body of disciples also that follow him. We know the 70 whom he later sent, and there were disciples beyond them. There were 120 in the upper room. But His call for those original apostles was to be with them. You and I are called, every Christian is called.
to answer that same Divine invitation to be with him.
So in Mark 3, verse 19, after the twelve were called, they're named and they're called to be with him, that he might give them power over sickness and over all manner of sickness and also over demons to cast them out. But the first thing they did was not to go out. but to be with him. And so in verse 19 they entered into an house that's Jesus' headquarters, we believe, in Capernaum. And the first thing they did was be with him, listen to him.
Imbibe his teaching and his thoughts, his ethos, his philosophy of life, this divine philosophy. And they sat at his feet. Then later in Mark 6:7, they sent him out. He sent them out now with authority and with power. But I see here, he has always wanted to be with us.
God has a passion to dwell with his creatures. And we see that in Sukkot, the festival of tabernacles, which reminds Israel of how they dwelt in temporary dwelling places with him in their wilderness years. But it also looks forward to the time when we will tabernacle with him in heaven. Yeah. This should be our This should be our hearts our heartbeat.
The thing that drives us is to want to be with Him.
So the Holy Spirit's here to, first of all, save us, fill us with the Spirit, and then to begin a regenerative process, a renovation process of our interior and also our outer life, so that we will be ready. fit, if you will, to dwell with the Holy One in the Holy City, in the Eternal State. That's where we're headed. This should be the goal.
So, as a Christian, your listeners, don't sell yourself short. Don't you say, Oh God, Jesus is my big brother to help me do what I want to do in this world. Boy, that's a carnal mind. No, we should be thinking, no, I'm here to know him and to do his will and to let the Holy Spirit prepare me and others through me to dwell with him. This is the clear.
climactic statement. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with him. Behold, this is a wonder. Look at this. This is amazing.
His tabernacle, his house is with men now. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. And God Himself, make no mistake about it, God Himself, the Father, and we know the Lamb will be there, and the Spirit shall be with them. Yeah, I mean and and we will be with him and you know I've heard that if you blink your eyes, if you live about 76, 78 years, that that blink is about one six billionth of your life. But that blank Compared to your life versus this time that we have on earth compared to all of eternity, it's much smaller than that.
I think it's incalculable. It is. Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it says in the book of James, it says that our life is like a vapor or it's like a mist.
And it's like we focus so much on the blink, we focus so much on this life. That, you know, for me, it's like the more that I think about heaven, the less that I'm worried about this life. Yes. You know, Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 6, he says, do not worry about your life. What you shall eat, what you shall drink, it says, God, he takes care of the flowers of the field.
He takes care of the birds of the air. He says he cares for us much more than he cares for them. And so when I realize, hey, there are going to be problems in this world. We're going to have tribulations. You know, the Bible doesn't say, if you doesn't say if you face persecution, but it says as a true follower of Christ, you will face persecution in some way, shape, or form.
If you really have that eternal perspective, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it always just takes overnight and then it's done. But Dr. Greg, you and I have been through some very difficult times in our lives. And I think that when I went through those difficult times, the more that I focused on eternity and the more that I focused on the goodness of God.
It really made it feel like, hey, this really, number one, it's not going to last forever. No. And it doesn't. It always gets better. But then number two, even if life is really tough, I get to be with Jesus in heaven for all of eternity.
And I can go through a lot more here on this earth. Just like we were talking about the last show with Hebrews chapter 11. Those folks in the second part of that chapter, they went through some stuff, man. They were tortured. But it says that some people weren't even delivered from their torture because they wanted to receive a better resurrection.
And when I see that, this new Jerusalem. After the thousand-year millennial reign of Christ, it's going to be even more amazing, maybe than heaven, is that right? Yeah, currently, it's currently. Right, right, yeah. And what you, the subject you just broached there of the millennial reign of Christ, it is a literal reign, 1,000 years.
Revelation 20 says six times, it refers to the thousand years. Satan and his demons are bound a thousand years in the event. There's some Christians out there who say, no, this is just all spiritual, but I don't see how you spiritualize that. Right, it is really, it is beyond a stretch to do that. But these that you're referring to are people who use an allegorical interpretation of the Bible first.
So they see the Bible as an allegory. In other words, that many things need to be interpreted allegorically, figuratively. for your listeners to understand that. And when you take that approach, you essentially can make the Bible say anything you want it to say and and you really uh they unconsciously make a mock of God's intentional desire to communicate. If I want to communicate with you, you're going to take my message literally unless I use some literary device, parable, or allegory, or metaphor, or simile, which you know I'm speaking of more than a literal, it's more than a literal message.
So, those people interpret the Bible, particularly the book of Revelation that way. Many of them tend to be preterist, and they believe that the book of Revelation was fulfilled in the judgment, the providential judgment of God in AD 70. They believe that was Jesus' second coming, which it obviously is not. There's so many things that disagree with that. Yeah, but you mentioned the thousand-year millennial reign.
Now, when Jesus comes back, what does it look like when he comes back for the thousand-year millennial reign?
Well, when he comes back, the earth is in complete Physical topographical disarray. The judgments of God, particularly the bold judgments of Revelation 16, have dismantled the creation.
So it is a state of utter chaos and disarray. And the survivors of that period will come before Christ and he will judge them. He judges the survivors for their, whether they have helped his brethren or not. This is described in Matthew 25. The Jews are resurrected, then the righteous Jews, and they are judged for their works.
This is described in the book of Ezekiel chapter 20. And they then enter the kingdom.
Now, those who are survived who have the mark of the beast are immediately sent to hell. And uh so At that time, we will enter a new thousand-year period with him. He will restore the physical earth. Jerusalem will be on a high mountain, which again mimics or rather portents. It is a portent.
It is a foreshadowing of the eternal state. And And so he rules from Jerusalem on the millennial mountain. Ezekiel describes this Isaiah a ton of describes this. Micah 4 describes this. 1,000 years, and we know that time because it's told us in Revelation 20, again, six times.
It mentions 2,000 years, excuse me, 1,000 years, either for the reign of Christ or for the period that Satan is in the abyss and unable to harm anyone or mislead anyone for a thousand years.
So it'll be an amazing time. Christ will rule as king of kings from Jerusalem. David, I believe, will be the one that Ezekiel calls the prince. And then overcoming Christians and Jews will reign with him. We know the Jewish martyrs will be resurrected.
Revelation chapter 20, verses 4 and 6 says they will be raised and they will rule with him a thousand years. And we know from Revelation 2, 26 through 28 and 3, 21, that overcoming Christians will rule beside him, rule along with Christ. You know, and one of the most amazing things that I see in the Bible is that when Christ is reigning for a thousand years, we have a thousand years of peace. Oh, yes. At the end of that time, there we go.
Satan is going to be let loose. And it says he's going to lead a large part of the world astray. And I say, how is that possible? We've had peace for a thousand years. Christ has been ruling, and he's still, it's, you know.
Man left to his own device. You know, is capable of some horrible things. And it says in the Old Testament, it says that the heart of man is deceitfully wicked. That's right. Above all things.
That fallen nature. That's sin nature.
So go ahead. Yeah, because what you're talking about is right here, Mike, is Revelation 27 through 9. And when the thousand years were ended, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.
Now, that's the abyss where he's been bound. That's the opening verses of Revelation 20 describe this. I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, the abyss, and a great chain in his hand. And he. Laid hold on the dragon and that old serpent who is the devil and Satan, that is the deceiver and the accuser, and bound him a thousand years, a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit.
Now listen, and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should not deceive the nations, or that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled. And after that, he must be loosed a little season.
So that's the first three verses of Revelation 20. Again, Clearly, a thousand years he's bound and sealed, which means he cannot do anything, which flies in the face of this allegorical interpretation of the millennium being right now. And Christ reigning through the church right now.
Well, if it is, Satan surely is not bound.
Now, what they say, Mike, is that he's bound in that the gospel cannot be hindered.
Well, that's nice, that's nice, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says he's sealed completely, right? He's bound. And now, to your point that you mentioned, so this is so important. Verses 7 through 9, describe what happened when he's loose.
And when the thousand years are ended. Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.
Now, why is this necessary, Mike? Because the people born of natural procreation, natural reproductive means during the thousand years, they have never had a chance, Mike, to choose God or Satan. Christ or Antichrist, God or Satan. Never had a chance to choose because they've only lived in the world. We can't imagine that they were born and they were raised and they live, and some of these people would be a high.
Hundreds of years old. Longevity will be restored during that time. Never had a chance to choose.
So, God, because He's a moral God, and because He's a God of freedom. Free will must loose Satan to give these their opportunity to choose.
So it's like it says, choose you this day. Right. Whom you shall serve. That's what Joshua said. And as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
Your house is serving the Lord. My house is serving the Lord. Absolutely. And your hearers should repeat that same thing today with emphasis and with authority. Me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
Satan, be gone. Get behind us.
Now, here, back to Revelation 20, verse 7. After Satan is loosed, he shall go out to deceive the nations. And that simply means the ethnic groups. Which are in the four quarters of the earth, that is, all over the earth. Uh Gog and Magog.
that is including that is including the former regions where Antichrist came from, Gog meaning Antichrist, Magog meaning his nation. And we do believe that to probably be Russia.
Okay. Because Ezekiel 38 describes them coming from the north. If you look on your map, and you look at Tel Aviv and j particularly, and you go straight north I think it's about 1,700 miles. You see, Moscow. That's right.
Okay, and he says, so those former regions will be included, and Satan is gathering them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea, a massive number, more than could be calculated by ancient means. And they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.
So we know that is restored Jerusalem.
Now, not new Jerusalem. We're still in the millennial reigns. That's restored Jerusalem on this millennial mountain where Christ is reigning in his glory. And then it says that, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
So we see a parallel Mike to what happened a thousand years earlier at Armageddon because Satan surely stirs the world then to come and fight militarily against the return. Christ, which is insanity, but that's what's going to happen. And here he stirs the nations to try one more time, one final time, to overthrow the city of Jerusalem, restore Jerusalem where Christ is reigning. And God, in sort of an anticlimactic event, just sends fire down, just destroys them. This doesn't deserve a personal visitation of the Father, because Christ is ruling in this city already.
He's there. Yeah. And it doesn't even. But when I hear that too, Dr. Greg, one of the things that I'm reminded of is that we always see these battles between good and evil.
Right. But Satan is no match. He has no match. He is no match. No match.
I would parallel it, Mike, and I don't mean this in a demeaning way to any Middle Eastern ethnic people, the Arab people. God loves them. He's saving them right now by the thousands. But it's similar to the battles we've seen with Israel and its antagonist that, you know, when the time comes, Israel just goes out and flattens them. That's right.
Now, and again, this is. You would think eventually they would quit trying. Right, you would think, but they can't because they're driven by a spirit of Antichrist, which is indeed linked to Islam. There's no question about that because it is antagonistic to them. And to me, to me, that's very serious.
Oh, it is. And I don't see how you could be a Christian and be anti-Israel.
Well, you can't be an enlightened Christian. There's so much false teaching out there, Mike. But this depends on your view, whether or not you have a supersessionist view or a non-supersessionist. And so that's why you would develop that. And another word for supersessionism would be replacement theology or fulfillment theology.
So they believe that the church has replaced Israel. But I don't see how you can. Then you would have to throw out the whole Old Testament.
Well, you would, you would. But see, there again, what they do is they spiritualize it and reapply it.
Now, think about it. About that. They spiritualize it and reapply it. God spoke those promises. to the Jewish people.
the ethnic Jews, national Israel.
So they say, but now the church. Is the New Israel, but yet the New Testament does it say in one text the New Israel. By the way, for your listeners to know this, Israel is mentioned 66 times in the New Testament. and only one time In each case, he's referring to ethnic Israel, very obviously. Only one case, it appears that he might be speaking to the church, and that's in Galatians 6.
But when you interpret that, when Paul says the Israel of God, he's talking about the true Jews, the Jewish remnant, the believing remnant among the other ethnic Jews. He's calling them the Israel of God, not the church. And if that were the case, the New Testament would state it multiple times so we would understand that the church is supposed to be the new Israel. No, we're not.
Now, back to our text here in Revelation 20. What's awesome, and I think where you were going to with this. Is that when this rebellion occurs, it's at the end of 1,000 years of Jesus Christ. Perfect rule, perfect government.
Now think about that, listeners. Think about that. The perfect government of Christ, and yet Because of this sin nature, because these naturally reborn people still have a sin nature, Subject to being stirred by the deceiver to try to rebel against God one more time. What does that tell us today? That means no matter how good.
government is today, we're in a fallen world. And all politicians have a fallen nature, and there still is the propensity to rebel against God.
So, government isn't the answer, Mike. It's not a government problem, it's a sin problem. The gospel, it's a heart problem, yes. Hear me, listeners. The gospel is the answer.
Yes, it is. And so, there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, but you were talking about some of the dimensions. Oh, yes. The new Jerusalem.
Now, we've moved from the thousand-year reign of Christ on this present earth. To the eternity of God on the new earth surrounded by new heavens, essentially a new creation. And many people say, well, I can't go along with that. Maybe he's going to just renew this earth and we'll live here. No, my friends, the Creator, who, with the power and wisdom, that.
nobody can conceive of. Created. The heavens and the earth, that is now. And Jesus did it. The Father did it through the Son.
John 1 is very clear about that. Hebrews 1 is very clear about that. It's going to be beautiful. Huh? It's going to be beautiful.
Beautiful isn't the world. Mike, think about the beauty of this world right now. Yeah. The beauty of this world is stunning. Going to the Caribbean, look at those waters.
I just got back from Prague. Oh, now you're making me jealous.
Now you're making me jealous.
Now you're making me jealous.
But it's going to be so much better than that. And you know, I heard years ago, there was actually a pastor over at Pinedale Christian Church. Yeah. And he said, here in Western Asylum. And he said, you know, Chip Ingram was talking about this.
He said, say you've been married for a while and you've gone through counseling, you've had some tough times, but you end up working it out. And what Chip said, he said, you're lying in your bed next to your spouse. And he said, I can't imagine not being with this person. He said, that is a slice of what heaven is like. He said, you know, when I went over to Prague, I saw the beauty of Prague.
I saw the castles and I saw everything else. The wonderful food. That is just a slice of what heaven is like. I can't wait, man. I can't either.
I can't either. So that goes back to your point that you made in an earlier show: that the hope of heaven is so. Awesome. That is, if we read the Bible, if we read the book of Revelation and the statements that God has given us to inspire us, then. anesthesia, Mike.
And it's we're giving we're being given a uh an um uh a painkiller. A pain killer. You know, it's amazing what they can do to the body while you're under the gas. That anesthetic makes you not sense that. That pain that would would be beyond your ability to bear, even just a portion of it.
They rip your whole body open and then sew it back together and you don't feel anything. And so when we go through persecution and tribulation for the Lord, we go through psychological and emotional pain and sometimes physical pain because Christians are being physically tormented and threatened today. This is a powerful anesthetic. And we should take it. We should take it.
We should take regular infusions of what the book of Revelation has to say about the millennium and the eternity of God. And this is what I would tell the listeners in our closing seconds. There's only so much that we can tell you about this. And read, I would read Revelation 21 and 22 again and again and again. I would read the New Testament again and again and again.
But I would also take a check this out. It's a book. It's called Revelation Notes, an inspirational commentary on the book of Revelation by Greg Hennett. Take a look at that. And then on August the 10th, at 10 a.m., the worship starts at Just Like Jesus Ministries.
We're over at 2420 Corporation Parkway in Burlington, North Carolina. Dr. Greg is going to be there with me. I'm going to be speaking about heaven, and I think I'm going to get him to help me out a little bit during that service. You guys don't want to miss that because there's only so much that we can do on the radio, so much we can talk about, but we will have a little bit more time.
And then, Dr. Greg, your show. It's coming up right here on the Truth Network. When does it start? Yes, it's starting Saturday at 2.30.
Saturday being what day? This will be the 26th. Yes, 26th. And it will air in central North Carolina, South Carolina, and parts of Virginia. And it's called Until He Comes.
And it's filled with prophetic and practical biblical teaching that is designed to. Help the listener be matured spiritually and come to fulfill their destiny until he comes. Dr. Bray, takes some phones. All right, for my YouTube channel.
If not for God with mighty wick Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.
So you'll be alerted when we have our next video. This is the Truth Network. Mm-hmm.
