Resurrection
is one of the central and most dramatic beliefs of the Christian faith: that we all, good and bad alike, will be
raised from the dead and judged by God; a judgment that will determine our fate
for eternity. The New Testament teaches
that there will be two of these resurrections, one for the righteous—those who
have accepted Jesus as Lord and lived according to his teachings—and one for
the unrighteous. The time between these
two resurrections will be a glorious age of peace and blessing, a Messianic
kingdom, in which the righteous will rule and reign with Jesus on this earth
for a thousand years. This coming golden
age should be the hope and the desire of every true Christian.
This is when
the apostles will reign with Jesus on twelve thrones over the tribes of Israel,
as it says in Matt. 19:28: “But Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, I say to you
that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on
his throne of glory, you will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel.” Others will also
be rewarded with positions of authority.
As Jesus put it in the parable of the talents, “Well done, good servant!
Because you were faithful in a very little thing, be in authority over
ten cities” (Luke 19:17). Another
was given five cities (Luke 19:19). What
cities are you going to be in charge of?
Because of
the importance of the coming Millennium in Biblical prophecy and in the
teaching of Jesus, Christians today are sometimes surprised to learn that this
teaching was rejected by most Christian denominations for hundreds of years,
and still is in many places today. In
older, traditional churches, like the Roman Catholic church and mainline
Protestant churches, belief in the Millennium is considered a heresy, known as chiliasm. How could Christians reject such an important
part of Biblical prophecy? There are
many reasons for this, including the rejection of Jewish thinking in favor of
Greek thinking in the church, as well as the growth of anti-Semitism in
Christianity, things that we have talked about before.
But one
objection I’d like to focus on today is that a one thousand year reign of
Messiah is mentioned only in the book of Revelation, and nowhere else in the
Bible. Because of this, and because the
book of Revelation is filled with symbols that can be difficult to understand, many
have found it difficult to accept the idea of an actual one thousand year reign
of Messiah on the earth, and have rejected the whole idea of a future Messianic
kingdom.
Now it’s
true that the length of time given to the Messianic kingdom in the book of
Revelation, the one thousand years, should be approached with caution. It’s possible that this might be a symbolic
number, as are so many of the numbers in the book of Revelation. But the doctrine of the future Messianic
kingdom doesn’t depend on the meaning of this number. In fact, the Messianic kingdom doesn’t depend
on the book of Revelation at all. It’s taught
in many other places in the Bible.
Our goal
today is to look at some of these other places where the Messianic kingdom is
mentioned so that you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a real and
an important teaching of the Bible, no matter how we interpret the book of
Revelation.
We’ve
already seen that Jesus refers to the time of the Messianic kingdom as “the regeneration” in Matt. 19:28, a
time when he will reign and the apostles with him. But he doesn’t talk there only about the
reward that the apostles will receive, but continues: “And everyone who has left houses or
brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields because of my
name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life”
(Matt. 19:29). So according to Jesus, everyone
who has left something or someone behind to follow him will receive a great
reward, along with eternal life, in the Messianic kingdom.
In another
place, he mentions the reward we will receive in the Messianic kingdom if we
include the poor and those with physical difficulties in our celebrations. “Rather
when you hold a formal dinner, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the
blind; and you will be blessed, since they have nothing to repay you with. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of
the righteous” (Luke 14:13,14). Here
Jesus refers to the Messianic kingdom as the “resurrection of the righteous.”
This idea of a separate resurrection of the righteous is in fact the foundation
of the idea of the Messianic kingdom: that
there will be a time in the future when the righteous alone will be
raised to rule and reign with Messiah on the earth, and all wickedness will be
destroyed.
Later, Jesus
returns to this idea in his debate with the Sadducees about the resurrection: “And
Jesus said to them, ‘The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those considered worthy
to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are
given in marriage; for neither are they still able to die, for they are like
angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection’” (Luke
20:34-36).
Here Jesus
calls the Messianic kingdom the age of “the
resurrection from the dead.”
In English, “resurrection from the dead” can be understood to mean a
resurrection from death itself, that is, from the state of death. But in the original Greek, it says a
resurrection “from the dead ones”
(dead is plural here). What this means
is a resurrection “out from those that are dead.” In other words, this expression means that
there will be a resurrection of some of those who are dead out from the
others that are dead. This is the
consistent use of the expression “from
the dead” in the New Testament. Often
it’s used of Jesus’ own resurrection, who was also raised “out from” the other
dead. So here we see again the idea of a
resurrection of the righteous: a
resurrection of some of the dead that will take place before the
resurrection of everyone else.
This
interpretation is confirmed in this same place when Jesus says that you must be
“worthy” to participate in this coming
kingdom age: “those considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection
from the dead.” Only some people—only
those that are worthy—will be included in this first resurrection.
The apostle
Paul agrees with this when he says, in 1 Cor. 15:22-24: “For
just as in Adam all die, so also in Messiah all will be made alive; but each in his own
division.” And then he lists those
divisions: “Messiah the first-fruit.” Jesus was the first to be resurrected. “Then
those who are of Messiah at his coming.”
These are the believers in Jesus that will be resurrected when he
returns, when the trumpet is blown and the archangel will shout, and those of
us who have died will be raised to life and meet him in the air, as 1
Thessalonians 4:16-17 teaches. That’s
the resurrection of the righteous. “Then the rest when he [Messiah] hands over
the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has removed every ruler and every
authority and power.” Who are “the rest” that are resurrected? They’re the unrighteous dead that will be
raised at the end of the Messianic kingdom period.
If you look
up this passage in your own translation, you will probably see this third part
translated “then comes the end,” even though the word “comes” does not appear
in the Greek (1 Cor. 15:24). Why is it
translated this way? Because remember,
many of the translators of the Bibles we have today don’t believe in a coming
Messianic kingdom, and so they try to explain it another way. But the highest authority on New Testament
Greek today, the Bauer, Gingrich, and Danker lexicon (BAGD 2nd
edition), specifically says that the word “telos”
that appears here in the Greek refers to a final division of the resurrection, just
as the language used here implies: first
Messiah, “then” the second group, “then” the third group.
But aside
from brief mentions like these, the New Testament doesn’t give an in-depth
teaching about the Messianic kingdom.
Why not? Because this was
something that was so well known among the Jewish people, there was no need for
it. The teaching about the Messianic age
went all the way back to the time of the Psalms and the prophets of the Old
Testament, and even to earlier parts of the Bible according to many rabbis.
Some of my
favorite passages about the Messianic kingdom are in the prophet Isaiah. The first, in Isaiah 2, is quite unique in
that it’s the only extended passage of prophecy that is repeated almost exactly
word for word by two prophets: in Isaiah
2:2-4 and Micah 4:1-3. Why these two
sections are exactly the same, we don’t know. Did God give it in exactly the same words to
the two prophets? Or was Micah repeating
a well-known prophecy of Isaiah? We
don’t know. But it must be important to
be repeated twice like this in the Word of God.
This famous
passage is clearly talking about the time after God destroys and remove
all sinners, as it says in Isa. 1:28: “And there will be a crushing of both rebels
and sinners; and those who forsake the LORD will perish.” And then the famous prophecy begins:
Isa. 2:2: “And it
will be in the last days that the mountain of the House of the LORD will be
established as the chief of the mountains, and it will be lifted up above the
hills; and all the nations [the Gentiles] will stream to it.”
The mountain
of the House of the LORD is the location of the Temple in Jerusalem: the Temple Mount as we call it today. This is the place from which the Messiah is
going to rule the world, as we will see later.
Isa.
2:3: “And many peoples will go and they will say,
‘Go,’ and we will go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the House of the God of
Jacob; and he will teach us from his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For from Zion the law will go out, and the
word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”
The mention
of the House of God here tells us that the Temple will be built again at that
time. And people will come here not only
for worship, but also for instruction, just as the Jewish people did in Bible
times. This is where the Messiah’s new
law and decisions will go out from to the world.
Isa.
2:4: “And
he will judge between the nations, and he will make legal decisions for many
peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning knives. Nation will not lift up
sword against nation, and they will no longer learn war.”
Here we hear
another of the crucial characteristics of the Messianic kingdom: the world will be at peace.
As we saw, all
of this is after God destroys the wicked from the earth (Isa. 1:28). But it’s before the coming of the New
Heavens and the New Earth, in which John clearly says in Revelation that there
will be no Temple (“and I saw no
sanctuary in it,” Rev. 21:22). So
this is talking about an intermediate age, the Messianic Age, that will
take place on this earth after Jesus returns to destroy the wicked, but before
the New Heavens and New Earth appear.
When Isaiah
says that the mountain of the House of the LORD “will be lifted up” (Isa. 2:2), you could take this as a poetic
description of its importance at that time.
But Zechariah tells us about earthquakes that will physically change the
area when Messiah returns. First he
talks about the Mt. of Olives splitting (Zech. 14:4: “And
his feet will stand on that day on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of
Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from
east to west, a very large valley, and half of the mountain will move
northwards and half southwards”). As
it turns out, there actually is an earthquake fault line that runs right under
the middle of the Mt. of Olives.
Then he says,
“All the land from Geba [that’s a few
miles north of Jerusalem] to Rimon in the Negev [which is way down in the south
near Beersheva] will surround Jerusalem as a plain” (Zech. 14:10a). This means that the whole of Judah will be
flattened out. “And it [Jerusalem] will rise and remain in its place from the gate of
Benjamin [in the northeast corner of the city] to the place of the First Gate to the
Corner Gate [in the northwest corner of the city], and from the Tower of Hananel [on the north wall of the city] to the
wine presses of the king [to the south of the city]” (Zech. 14:10b). So in other words, the whole area of the old
walled city will rise up, and everything else will flatten out. According to Zechariah, Jerusalem actually will
be lifted up above the surrounding mountains.
The next
section of Isaiah that talks about the Messianic kingdom is in Isaiah 4:2:
Isa. 4:2: “In that day, the Branch of the LORD will be
for glory and honor, and the fruit of the land will be the exaltation and the
splendor of the survivors of Israel.”
What is this
talking about? “In that day,” yom ha-hu
in Hebrew, refers to the prophetic future.
The “Branch of the Lord” is
one of the names of the Messiah in the Old Testament. So this is talking about a time in the future
when the Messiah will be lifted up in glory and honor, or actually will be
the glory and honor of the land of Israel.
And the
fruit of the land? “The fruit of the land will be...the survivors of Israel.” What is this talking about? Who are the survivors of Israel? The Jewish people who have been saved, who
have accepted Jesus as their Messiah, and who are included in the resurrection
of the righteous. After so many years of
hatred and persecution against them as Jews, they will be exalted and lifted up
at this time.
Isa.
4:3: “And
it will be that the one remaining in Zion and the one left in Jerusalem will be
called holy, everyone recorded to life in Jerusalem.”
Here is that
same idea again that not everyone in Israel will make it to this glorious time,
but only those whose names are recorded in the Book of Life. And where will they remain? They will be “left” in Israel and in Jerusalem.
This implies that they will remain in the same Israel and the same
Jerusalem that we see today, a Jerusalem of this earth.
Isa.
4:4: “When
the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleanses the
(spilt) blood of Jerusalem from her inward parts by the spirit of judgment and
the spirit of burning.”
This, too,
is clearly talking about the time after God’s judgment is poured
out.
Isa.
4:5: “And
the LORD will create over all the area of Mt. Zion and over her assemblies a
cloud by day and smoke and the brightness of a flame of fire by night, for over
all the glory will be a canopy [khuppah].”
This is
clearly not something that has happened yet in history, but is in the prophetic
future. Here we learn some very
important things about the Messianic kingdom.
First of all, again we see that people will be worshipping on Mt. Zion
in Jerusalem. This is where the Temple
was built, and where its ruins can still be seen today. So this implies that the Temple will be
rebuilt. Also, holy “assemblies” for worship will take place here again, as was once
done at the times of the Jewish feasts and other events. So this implies that the festival calendar of
Israel will be continued in one form or another.
Isaiah is not
the only prophet to talk about the Temple in the Messianic kingdom. Ezekiel has a very long section describing the
appearance of the Temple in great detail in the time of the Messianic
kingdom: it’s five chapters long (Ezek.
40-44)! Together with the chapters
immediately before it and after it, this is the longest section in the Bible
that talks about the Messianic kingdom, altogether about 10 chapters, depending
on how you count it. That’s huge!
Nor is
Isaiah the only one to talk about festal assemblies in Jerusalem in the Messianic
kingdom. You might remember that once
before we looked at Zechariah 14, which specifically says that the Feast of
Tabernacles will be celebrated by everyone “from
year to year” in the Messianic kingdom (Zech. 14:16). This, too, confirms that there will be a
restoration of worship in Jerusalem. It
also confirms the idea that this will go on for an extended period of time—for
many years at least, which means that the Messianic kingdom is going to last
for an extended period of time before the New Heavens and New Earth come.
Ezekiel
agrees with this when he says that after the war when Messiah comes, the
inhabitants of Israel will be cleaning up the place for seven years (Ezek. 39:9: “And
those dwelling in the cities of Israel will go out and burn and make a fire
with the armor and shields and bucklers, with bows and arrows, hand-held clubs
and spears; and they will burn a fire with them for seven years”). So this, too, implies that the Messianic
kingdom will last for many years.
But Isaiah
adds that when the people come to worship the Lord on Mt. Zion, there will be a
“canopy” of “cloud by day and...fire by night” over the city (Isa. 4:5). Does that remind you of anything? It’s like the pillar of cloud and fire that
went with the children of Israel in the desert in the time of Moses. So this will be a time of God’s supernatural
presence like in the Exodus from Egypt.
But there’s
something more hidden in that word canopy, which is khuppah in Hebrew. The khuppah is the piece of cloth stretched
out over the heads of the bride and the groom in a Jewish wedding. The fact that there will be a khuppah over Jerusalem is a symbol of
what John in Revelation calls the wedding feast of the Lamb (John 19:9): our
spiritual marriage to the Messiah, after which we will live in unity with him
forever.
We’ve
mentioned before Paul’s reference to this event in Eph. 5:27: “that
he might present the Church to himself as glorious, not having a stain or
wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and blameless.” This is talking about the time of the Messianic
kingdom, when we, the Church, will be presented to the Messiah as his eternal
bride.
Isaiah comes
back to the Messianic kingdom again, and to the wedding feast of the Lamb, in
chapters 24 and 25:
Isa.
24:23: “And the moon will be abased and the sun will be ashamed, for the LORD
of hosts will reign on Mt. Zion and in Jerusalem; and before his elders will be
glory.”
What is this
“glory” that appears before the
elders? Isaiah already told us in Isa.
4:2: it’s the glory of the “Branch of the LORD,” the Messiah. Here again, the glory of the Messiah appears
on Mt. Zion and in Jerusalem, in this earth before the time of
the New Heavens and New Earth. And it
specifically tells us that he will reign on Mt. Zion, in other words, in the Temple
area.
Isa.
25:6: “And the LORD of hosts will hold for all the peoples on this mountain a
feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of
refined well-aged wine.”
Here’s the wedding
feast of the Lamb again. Which mountain
is “this mountain”? Mt. Zion as we just saw in Isa. 24:23.
Isa.
25:7: “And he will swallow up on this mountain the surface of the covering
that covers all the peoples, and the veil that is woven over all the nations.”
What is this
talking about? The next verse explains
it:
Isa.
25:8: “He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe the tear
from every face and will remove the reproach of his people from all the earth;
for the LORD has spoken.”
Here Isaiah
clearly identifies the time of the wedding feast as the time of the resurrection,
when death will be removed forever from all who are gathered there.
Isa.
25:9: “And it
will be said in that day, ‘Look! This is
our God, we have waited for him and he saves us. This is the LORD, we have waited for him. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation (yeshuah).’”
Isn’t this
just what we will say at that time? “Look!
This is our God, we have waited for him and he saves us.” But what will we see that we can point to and
say “This is our God”? The answer is written right there in the
Hebrew: we will see God’s yeshuah, in other words, Jesus. Jesus is the one that we will see at that
time, the one for whom we are now waiting, the one who saves us.
One of the
characteristics of the Messianic age that is mentioned over and over again in
the Bible is the fertility of the earth:
Isa.
30:23: “And he will provide rain
for your seed that you will sow in the ground and bread from the produce of the ground; and it will be rich and
plentiful; in that day your livestock will graze in a wide pasture.”
Or in Isa
32:15: “Until a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and a desert will
become an orchard, and the orchard will be thought a forest.” Here we see hinted the supernatural fertility
of the earth that many post-Biblical writers associated with the Messianic age. This is also one of the characteristics of
the Messianic Age mentioned in Psalm 72:
Psalm
72:16: “There will be an abundance of grain in the earth; on top of the
mountains, its fruit will shake, like Lebanon; and those from the city will
sprout up like the green plants of the earth.” Today, grain usually only grows down in the
valleys in Israel, so for it to grow all the way up to top of the mountains is
sign of exceptional fertility. And for
this grain on the mountains to shake like the forests of Lebanon implies that
the stalks of grain are huge. Joel
says:
Joel
3:18: “And it will be in that day (that) the mountains will drip with grape
juice, and the hills flow with milk, and all the ravines of Judah flow with
water, and a spring will flow out from the House of the LORD and water the
Valley of Shittim.” That the
mountains will drip with grape juice means that the grape harvests will be
exceptionally abundant, and the hills flowing with milk means that there will
be lots and lots of healthy and happy sheep and goats (and cows). Today the ravines of Judah are mostly dry
little canyons, but in the time of the Messiah, Joel says, they will be filled
with water.
Joel also
mentions the Temple in the Messianic age, “the
House of the LORD.” From the Temple,
he describes a spring of water coming out and flowing all the way down to the
Jordan Valley, where the Dead Sea is located (the “Valley of Shittim”). This
is a very interesting detail, because several of the prophets pick up on
this. For example, Zechariah says:
Zech.
14:8: “And it will be in that day that living waters will flow out from
Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea [the Dead Sea] and half of them to
the western sea [the Mediterranean]; it will be in summer as well as in winter.” There’s a little water that flows out to the
Dead Sea today from Jerusalem, but it’s mostly waste water and smells pretty
bad. Aside from that, there is only water
flowing here when it’s actually raining.
But when Messiah comes, there will be clean, fresh water flowing out
from Jerusalem all year round.
Ezekiel
agrees with this: he says that there
will be so much fresh water flowing out from the Temple that fruit trees will
grow along its banks; and it will bring so much fresh water to the Dead Sea
that fish will be able to live there, and fishermen will fish there (Eze.
47:1-12). This is so important to him
that he spends 12 verses on it.
Isaiah, too,
chimes in on this: “For water will break forth in the desert and streams in
the Aravah [that’s the desert area down by the Dead Sea]. And the parched ground will become a pond, and
the thirsty ground springs of water; in the abode of jackals, its resting place
[in the desert], the plants will become
reeds and rushes” (Isa. 35:6b-7).
Not only
will the land become more fertile, the animals will be changed, too. One of the most famous sections about the
Messianic kingdom begins with Isaiah 11:6 (much of which he actually repeats
later in Isa. 65:25):
Isa.
11:6: “And a wolf will dwell with a lamb, and a leopard will lie down with a
young goat, and a calf and a young lion and a fatling together, and a small boy
will lead them.”
Isa.
11:7: “And a cow and a bear will graze, together their young will lie down,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.”
Isa.
11:8: “And a baby will play in the hole of a cobra, and into the den of a
viper a toddler will stretch out his hand.”
It will be like the earth was back in the Garden of Eden, before the
animals became dangerous and harmful.
Isa.
11:9: “They will not hurt and they will not destroy in all my holy mountain
[Jerusalem], for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the
water that covers the sea.” What an
amazing and beautiful time this will be!
This theme about
the animals is picked up by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 34:
Ezek.
34:24: “And I, the LORD, will be God to them, and my servant David [the
Messiah] will be a prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.” In other words, he’s talking about the time
of the Messianic kingdom.
Ezek.
34:25: “And I will make a covenant of peace with them, and I will remove
harmful beasts from the land, and they will dwell in the desert and sleep in
the forests safely.” Here’s the
theme of peace again, and safety, with no dangerous animals to worry
about.
There’s so
much more we could say about the Messianic kingdom: that the Promised Land will be divided among
the tribes of Israel (Eze. 47:13-29), and that even foreigners that live among
them will be given an inheritance (which means that at least some Gentile
Christians will be given an inheritance in Israel, Ezek. 47:22). We could mention that the tribes of Ephraim
and Judah will be united once again (Ezek. 37:15-23). We could even talk about the layout of the gates
that will be built in the city wall of Jerusalem (Ezek. 48:30-35).
But I would
like to close with Psalm 72, a remarkable psalm about the Messianic
kingdom. This psalm speaks of a king
greater than any of the Old Testament kings of Israel:
Psa. 72: 8: “He
will rule from sea to sea and from the river [the Euphrates River] to the ends
of the earth.”
Psa. 72:11: “And
all kings will prostrate themselves before him; all nations will serve him.”
Psa. 72:17: “And
they will bless themselves by him, all the nations will call him blessed.”
This is
clearly talking about the Messiah, at a time when he will rule over the entire earth. His kingdom is described in remarkable prophetic
detail:
Psa. 72:6: “He will descend like rain on the shearing [of
sheep in the spring]; as abundant showers that drip on the earth.”
This is talking about the Messiah’s return from heaven, that it will bring
abundant blessing on the earth, like showers in the springtime. The next verse says:
Psa.
72:7: “The righteous will sprout in
his days, and an abundance of peace, until the moon is no more” (Psa.
72:7, [see also 72:17 “while the sun endures”]). That’s an interesting way
to describe the resurrection: that we
will “sprout” up from the
ground. Paul uses this same image when
he compares the resurrection to the growth of a seed sown in the ground (1 Cor.
15:36-38).
But there’s
a very interesting detail here: that the
Messianic kingdom will last until the moon [and the sun] is no more. This
is also the teaching of the book of Revelation, that the Messianic kingdom will
last until the sun and moon, and even the earth itself and the heavens above, are
removed by the power of God (Rev. 21:1). This same idea is repeated in verse
5:
Psa. 72:5: “They
will fear you in the presence of the sun and before the moon, a generation of
generations.” The Messianic kingdom will remain as long as the sun
and the moon endure.
But what
about that last part of the verse? Though
this is sometimes translated in other ways, what it actually says in Hebrew is “a
generation of generations.” What is that talking about? Well,
who are the people that will participate in the Messianic kingdom, according to
Jesus? Those who are worthy, who are
raised in the resurrection of the righteous.
These will be the righteous of all time, who will reign with Jesus in
Jerusalem (Rev. 20:4). This raised up people will literally be a single
generation, which means all the people living at one time, that is made up of
all the generations of the righteous from all time: it will literally be “a generation of generations.” That itself will be one of the
most amazing of all the amazing things in the kingdom of the Messiah: to meet and to get to know the believers from
all the ages of time; to meet and talk
with Peter and James and Moses and Abraham—not to mention Jesus himself. What a beautiful way to describe those that
will be in the Messianic kingdom, the final, eternal generation of mankind: “a
generation of generations”! Amen?
Well, what
do you think? Do you now know beyond a
shadow of a doubt that the Messianic kingdom is taught throughout the
Bible? We’ve only looked at a portion of
the verses that talk about this beautiful time.
But as you can see, there is a remarkable harmony in the teaching of the
prophets on this subject, even about some of the small details of what life
will be like at that time. I don’t know
about you, but I’m looking forward to that long, beautiful time of Sabbath rest
on a beautifully renewed earth: a time
of peace, a time of prosperity, a time when the Spirit of God will be poured
out in great abundance. Won’t that be
wonderful?
So how can
we be sure that we will experience the Messianic kingdom? As
Jesus put it, we must be found worthy (Luke 20:35). And how can we be worthy? Well first, Jesus said, we must be one of
those that follow him: we must be his
disciple (Matt. 19:28,29). That means
you must make Jesus the Lord of your life, and do everything he tells you to
do. You must also receive Jesus as your
Savior, so your sins can be forgiven.
And then you must follow, and keep on following for the rest of your
life. Don’t get off track. Don’t let Satan pull you away. But fight the good fight, and have victory
over the world. These are the ones that
are worthy of the kingdom.
Let’s
pray: Father God, we look forward to
living in the kingdom of your son Jesus, not just spiritually as we do today,
who have accepted you—but physically in a beautifully restored earth: an earth full of peace, of blessing, and of
prosperity. It stretches our imagination
even to think of the earth in such a beautiful way: an earth without war, without poverty,
without sickness and death, without hatred.
And more than anything else, an earth in which the Lord Jesus will be with
us physically, in which we can see him face to face, can talk to him, can learn
from him, and can learn to walk more fully in his ways. How awesome that day will be! May it come quickly, Lord! And may we be worthy of that day, by
submitting our lives to you and following your teaching. We thank you Lord, for the privilege of
knowing you, and for the hope you give us for the future. In Jesus’ name.
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