The Future in Review, Part 1

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, and the dead in Christ will rise first. So Christ is going to give a command. It's probably the same command that he gave often when he interrupted every funeral he ever attended by saying, rise. So Christ is going to command, and the dead bodies of believers are going to come out of the graves, be reconstituted and rise to meet their soul in the air and to be with the Lord.

Welcome to Wisdom for the Hearts. For the last several broadcasts, Stephen Davey has been working through a series from Revelation. He's been looking at what the Bible says about the millennial kingdom in a series called Thy Kingdom Come. Today he begins the ninth and final message in that series. This message is particularly helpful because in it, Stephen gives an overview of end time events. He's also going to answer some practical questions people have regarding the events of the end times.

This message is called The Future in Review. Let's join Stephen right now. Sunday mornings at 11 o'clock, the ministry for third through fifth graders is called Colonial Corners. If you've got a third through fifth grader and they're not aware of that, they will never want to miss it once they've gone one time. It's an amazing little creative town with a full set and a room, actresses and actors and their original scripts acting out key truths of God's word. If you have the idea that it might be just fun and games and all fluff and meringue, they've recently finished an original series of vignettes on the attributes of God. Now, once a year, Scott Wiley, the pastor who's also the mayor of Colonial Corners, he has an annual Ask the Mayor Week and the kids write out questions and then they go through them and he sends them to me. I ask him to do that every year because I'm intrigued by what our kids are asking.

Here are the questions, some of them from this last year. Was it possible for Adam and Eve to have not sinned in the Garden of Eden? What does sin have to do with natural disasters, pain and sickness? Can the Holy Spirit leave you? What happened to people who died before Christ came to earth? Why did God make heaven? Can you see earth from heaven? Will we eat in heaven? Can you see your family on earth if you're in heaven? Will there be computers in heaven? Will we have churches in heaven? Are there mochas in heaven? Will there be horses in heaven? Well, yes, but there won't be any. Right, you're learning true doctrine so well.

Thank you. Do we live in the new heaven or on the new earth? Why is the Bible called the Bible? How do we know the Bible is true? Well, the tribulation happened before the rapture. Does a church have to have a preacher? I want to know who asked that one, by the way.

When is the rapture? Now that's just a few of the questions asked by third, fourth and fifth graders. Aren't you glad Pastor Scott's answering them all for us? How many of you heard those questions and thought, you know, I'd like to have an answer myself. We'll get out of pencil.

I'll give you Scott's cell phone number right now. Actually, these were intriguing to me. In fact, many of the questions had to do with future events and heaven.

Obviously, a lot of these kids are sitting in with us during our studies, and I thought maybe we just go through them very quickly, very, very quickly. Why did God make heaven? To display the glory of his power and his grace to us forever. Can you see earth from heaven?

I believe so. In fact, we're given the implication that deceased individuals like the tribulation martyrs, as we've studied, not only know what's happening on earth, but they remember what happened to them on earth. And they pray, Lord, when will you vindicate the shedding of our blood, which gives some interesting implications about our own memory in heaven.

So going to heaven doesn't necessarily erase your memory, but it does give your memory a perfected perspective, much like the maturity of Joseph, who told his conniving brothers. You remember when they finally reconvened, he said to them, you did not send me here, God sent me here. Genesis 48 5. Later on, of course, he said to them, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Genesis 50, verse 20. Had Joseph forgotten what happened to him? No.

But his perspective was ruling over his memory, and he had nothing but joy in the providence of God. Will we eat in heaven? Absolutely. In fact, we're going to learn that fruit trees will bear fruit year round for our enjoyment. We just won't gain weight. Isn't that a wonderful thought? Will there be computers in heaven?

I wouldn't doubt it at all. In the new heaven and the new earth, we will not be omnipresent. The systems of communication that we're going to see developed in the millennial kingdom perhaps entering throughout the eternal state are going to be so absolutely advanced that we probably, in fact, we cannot imagine them.

Being able to talk with perhaps someone on the other side of the globe through vastly superior communication systems is not beyond the scope of our experience, and it is not beyond the scope of the implications of scripture. Will we have churches in heaven? Will we have pastors in heaven? No.

And everyone said. But will we have churches in heaven? Well, the church will be in heaven. You're the church, right? Not this building.

I know what the child was wondering. We can only imagine that we will assemble at different times all around the earth. Our joy will be to glorify God. Perhaps we'll take the Lord's day as a day to give him praise, and we'll talk about seasons.

We'll talk about 24-hour cycles. There's a lot of misunderstanding about heaven. We might be somehow connected with everybody else through technology or travel arrangements to give God our praise. We're simply not told how, but we do know that glorifying God in song isn't something we're going to stop doing in heaven.

Praising him, perhaps even reflecting on the truths of his God-breathed word, which David said is settled forever in heaven, will be of great delight, not only individually but perhaps even corporately. Well, one child asked, evidently they run to Starbucks every once in a while, are there mochas in heaven? Well, I have little doubt that what we'll be able to eat and drink will utterly amaze us.

I'm not sure about mochas. Somebody would have to grow the beans and cultivate them, and somebody's got to make some machinery. Or perhaps we could snap our fingers, so to speak, as the resurrected Lord did at the seaside as he called his disciples to eat. He peered at the seaside after his resurrection, and he had already a charcoal fire and fish in some sort of skillet and fresh bread, John 21. We may be able to do that. Peter illustrated the changes that will one day be commonplace.

You remember he got out of the boat and he walked on the water. Perhaps we'll have that ability throughout the millennial kingdom as immortals and the coming new heaven and the new earth. It doesn't mean that we'll have to walk on top or we can't sink or we can't swim, but our bodies will be able to do amazing things.

In fact, when you think of that, a mocha doesn't sound all that difficult, does it? Another question was will there be horses in heaven? Absolutely. In fact, we're told as we studied in Revelation 19 that we're going to come riding back with the Lord on white stallions.

Wonderful. One of the kids asked, when people die, is that what they look like in heaven? I certainly hope not.

I'm counting on some major improvements, right? Our glorified bodies will be perfected, recognizable. The Lord wasn't recognized because he blinded, he shielded the eyes of individuals for his purposes at times, and he didn't have to be reintroduced to everyone, however. So we'll be recognizable, the basic distinctives of who we are will exist in our glorified body.

But all of our joints are going to work without any pain and our bodies will be without any disabilities or hindrances, more than likely reverting back to the created stage of a mature Adam and Eve, though young. Maybe as the Lord was in his glorified body in his early 30s, we're not told for sure. I was interested in one author who supposedly died, went to heaven, came back and wrote a book that ended up being a best seller.

I skimmed through it at the airport one afternoon and it bothered me that it had become so popular, among other things that I found that were wrong. It was interesting when he went to heaven that everybody was like he remembered them. He said, even his grandfather looked like his grandfather. I thought, poor granddad.

How narcissistic. Everything revolved around me. One child asked, will we live in the new heaven or on the new earth?

Both. In fact, we'll learn together as we study the Father's house. When we study heaven, we'll be able to enjoy that house which will actually be on the newly constructed earth. There will be a new universe and a new earth to explore. And I know this is going to sound really strange to you, but you'll find that heaven is on earth, the Father's house.

And we'll look at that together. Another child asked, why is the Bible called the Bible? Well, the word Bible is simply the word biblion. We transliterate it into Bible. That means book.

We add the word hagios or hagion in front of it, holy or sacred. And so we talk about the Holy Bible. Another child asked, how do we know the Bible is true?

Excellent question. Well, we know it's true because the author of it, moving through the prophets and the apostles, according to Paul's writings in 2 Timothy 3, that this is God-breathed. And if this comes from God, God never tells a lie.

He always tells the truth. Well, the tribulation happened before the rapture. You know the answer to that? After our study, we've noted the absence of the church during the tribulation. We've noted the purposes of the tribulation, which are not to purify the church. The church has already been purified without ever having to experience the wrath of God. We don't believe in some Protestantized version of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. And yet I've talked to evangelicals who unknowingly support it as they defend the basic idea that the believer really ought to be purified through some kind of suffering before being allowed to enter heaven.

Well, the Bible clearly delivers to us the truth that we are justified. We are purified now completely through the blood of Jesus Christ, Romans 5.1. And we've been promised to be kept away, kept out of the coming wrath of God, Revelation chapter 3.10, which will literally pummel the earth and mankind in judgment as God prepares primarily the nation Israel for their Messiah and displays his wrath as a final warning to unbelieving humanity. Last question, when is the rapture?

The answer is sooner than it's ever been, right? What amazing questions from third through fifth graders and how thrilled we can all be that even in our elementary ages and grades, answers to these questions are being provided from scripture. Now, we've been studying our way through the millennial kingdom, and I had intended to go a little further on into chapter 20, but I've been getting a lot of feedback and a lot of questions as well related to our studies. So what I thought we'd do is quickly review our timeline of future events and specifically answer some questions that have surfaced. So far, we've covered the rapture of the church as the church age ends and the tribulation period begins. Now, you might turn to 1 Thessalonians, if you want to hold your finger there in Revelation, although I'm going to spend more time outside of it than inside of it, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13.

I got asked about this again this past week. Paul wrote, we don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. Now, the word sleep is a metaphor for death.

The body looks like it's sleeping, doesn't it? But Paul made it clear that at death, the body might lie motionless and still as if it were sleeping, but the soul of that person is just as alive as ever. In fact, Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 8, to be absent from the body is to be present with whom?

The Lord, the soul spirit, that immaterial part of you that lives inside this temporary shell. When the shell dies, as it were, goes to sleep, the soul emerges as translated to be with Christ for the believer. The unbeliever's soul goes immediately to Hades, where it awaits in that place of great torment, awaiting the final judgment.

Luke chapter 16 gives you a look inside of Hades for your own study. The believer's soul, however, is immediately transported at death into the presence of the Lord. Now, Paul says this in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 15, for this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. In other words, when the rapture of the believers takes place, those who are living, we're not going to go up before those who have died, as it were, in Christ.

Their bodies are going to come out first. So Paul explains, look in verse 16, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. So Christ is going to give a command.

It's probably the same command that he gave often when he interrupted every funeral he ever attended by saying, rise. And that dead body came back to life. So Christ is going to command, and the dead bodies of believers that have decayed and turned back to dust, depending on how long they've been in the grave, are going to come out of the graves, be reconstituted and rise to meet their soul in the air and to be with the Lord. Their bodies will be glorified, reconstituted, perfected, and reinhabited by their souls, which all along have been with Christ.

And it all takes place about that quick, in an instant. The twinkling of an eye, Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Now Paul writes, look at verse 17, then we who are alive, that is, we haven't died, we know Christ, we're not in the grave, and remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. And every time I read that, and in preaching from the text, I have to ask, are you comforted by these words? Or are you convicted? Do you know Jesus Christ? Now, we have no idea when that rapture is going to occur and the church age end. Are you concerned with this news?

Or confident? I love the confidence of one of our staff members who shared her testimony at our last Christmas program, depending on what night you came, you may have heard hers. I was struck by her decision and her husband's to have written on their tombstone this statement of faith.

Here are the words they're going to have written on their tombstone, quote, and they lived happily ever after. Isn't that great? That's true comfort.

Why? Because they know that's not permanent. That's not a permanent place. Their souls already with Christ will be reunited with this reconstructed body that's called out first at the command of Christ and they enjoy Christ then face to face in a reconstituted glorified body. Now, there is an intermediate body, not a lot of scripture given for us on that subject, but the body is able, as we're told in Luke 16, to experience pain, to long for a drink of water, to experience comfort.

So we have some kind of intermediate body in the meantime should we die before the rapture. So Paul describes then a physical resurrection of the bodies of New Testament believers as the rapture then whisks the bride of Christ away to be kept out of the wrath of God, the hour of great trouble, which will be poured out on the planet during the tribulation. Now, we've already studied the tribulation at length according to Daniel's prophecy. It's seven years long.

The first three and a half years are relatively peaceful. A smaller, simpler version of the temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem and the Jewish people who've regathered will attempt to reconstruct their Old Testament system of sacrifices. It'll barely get off the ground when at the middle point of the tribulation, the antichrist gains enough power and enough charisma with all kinds of false signs and wonders, much of it coming from the hand of his false propaganda director, the false prophet, the false preacher, and he will make the claim to be God incarnate. He will place in the holy of holies, the holy place in the temple, an idol of himself and he will demand worship as God. Revelation 13 gives all of those details. During the last three and a half years then, the great persecution of Israel begins because even unbelieving Israel won't do that.

They'll refuse that. Many will be placing their faith in Christ as Messiah and Gentiles who've come to faith in Christ through hearing the gospel as the only true and living God. Many of them will begin to be martyred in great numbers and all the while the Lord is pouring out these cataclysmic events of his wrath in one disaster after another. Most of the world will be like Pharaoh who knows it's from the hand of God and they will refuse to repent.

Her hearts are hardened. Revelation 16 and 17 talks about all the natural and cosmic upheavals that are coming from the hand of God and eventually the armies of the world coalesce and they march against the Messiah as they see the Messiah descending with us. Evidently, most believe that is a very slow descent, a longer warning in fact, and yet the armies of the world will combine to march against him. They will believe that they can take him on and defeat him much like the battle at the end of the millennium which we studied where the multitudes will march against Jerusalem.

One word from Christ. Babylon will be crushed. These armies will be slaughtered and the blood will flow as deep as the bridle of a horse. Satan then is bound for a thousand years in a deep abyss, Revelation chapter 20.

And that takes us about to where we are. The 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth begins. Remember now the first time Christ appeared in the sky in 1 Thessalonians 4, he was coming for the believers. The second time Christ appears in the sky in Revelation 19 at the end of the tribulation, he's appearing with the believers.

I'm convinced the average Christian today thinks of his future in these terms. I'm saved. I've been called by God's grace out of darkness into a marvelous light.

He has redeemed me. I'm either going to die or I'm going to be raptured and then heaven. That's what the average Christian thinks. I hope now you have in your minds, no, there's this 1,000 year amazing epic of time when we will reign. This incredible time of joy and glory and development on earth and economy and business and art and industry and nature and discovery all waiting to play out on the stage of human history as the golden age begins and we, the immortals, will co-reign with Christ in this kingdom. Now as Christ comes to establish that kingdom, there is another physical resurrection. This is the physical bodily resurrection of Old Testament believers whose souls have been with our Lord as well as the physical bodily resurrection of believing tribulation martyrs who Revelation 20 clearly tells us will reign along with us.

They're not left out of the kingdom. The Old Testament saints, the tribulation martyrs are going to be given glorified immortal bodies as they with us reign with Christ. So we immortals reign over the mortals, both Jews and Gentiles, who believe the gospel at the end of the tribulation and who were allowed to enter into the millennial kingdom. Those who didn't believe in Christ during the tribulation will be executed and they will await their final judgment in Hades. We, however, will enjoy this great period of time of joy and discovery and those who enter the millennial kingdom in their natural bodies will have children, in fact 1,000 years of flourishing on planet earth.

It's going to be absolutely amazing. Now I had one woman come in to me and she said to me, you know, this idea of ruling has no appeal to me at all. In fact, it has no appeal to my husband. In fact, my husband would rather be fly fishing for trout work rather than working in a governmental post. And I said, well, tell him that he might be the one in charge of the entire industry of fly fishing. He might be the person who tests out the newest equipment and decides who can fish when and where, the best seasons for fly fishing at the best places. He may very well get to enjoy fly fishing expeditions with Peter. He could teach Andrew how to do it. They only know how to use a net.

They can share their fish stories, only they'll be telling the truth. We have no idea how, how this rule, when you say rule, don't, don't think of, okay, I got a government job and I'm behind a desk. Everything that happens on the earth will be under the regency of you, the immortal accountable to Christ, everything, everything. It's encouraging to think about the future and realize that Jesus Christ will reign personally over the earth.

It's also interesting to think about the fact that we as his sons and daughters will reign with him. Well, Steven has more to this lesson, but we'll stop right here and bring you the conclusion. Next time you're listening to wisdom for the heart during the month of may, we have a free resource to celebrate and encourage mothers. Steven has a booklet called motherhood in a variety of settings. There are several things that are true of mothers. Mothers are consistently underpaid, often undervalued, and many times taken for granted. You're in it for life. And sometimes it feels like you're giving it just that you're giving it your life. And in this booklet, Steven offers words of encouragement to moms.

You're not alone. In fact, God delivered some encouraging truths, especially for moms. Those truths are revealed in the home life of a mother named Eunice. This is a free digital download that you can access from our website right now. Go to wisdomonline.org for information. There's a link on the homepage that will direct you. We do have a print version of this booklet as well, but the ebook is free today and is available at wisdomonline.org. Do that today, then join us next time here on Wisdom for the Heart. Thank you.