CHAPTER 11

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM OF GOD

The Millennial Kingdom of God will begin at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ when He descends onto the Mount of Olives. This will happen after God has first achieved His four important prophesied objectives, as discussed in the last chapter, which are:

1.      Complete destruction of man’s sinful Satan inspired kingdoms of this world.

2.      Complete transformation and preparation of earth’s surface to make the global topography needed for the glorious Millennial Kingdom of God.

3.      Imprisonment of Satan, which will be for a thousand years to prevent him from deceiving the nations during the Millennial Kingdom of God.

4.      Resurrection of God’s Elect Bride to rule and reign with Jesus Christ over the fleshly nations in the Millennial Age.

The Bible is clear that Christ’s Millennial Kingdom will last for exactly one thousand years, and that His Elect Bride will rule with Him.  

Revelation 20:5-6

5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

As we have seen in Chapter 10, up to two-thirds of the earth’s population will die in the most horrific global end time judgement of God, prophesied to occur just before and at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, marking the end of this present age. God will cut short the days of this judgement otherwise no people would survive in their fleshly bodies to enter Christ's Millennial Kingdom.

Matthew 24:22

And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.

The current population of the world is approximately 6.6 billion. If God’s global end time judgement were to start in the next few years, we would be talking about an enormous number of people, approximately 4.4 billion, which is two-thirds of mankind, who would not survive this end time judgement. Only 2.2 billion people would survive it to enter the Millennial Age in their fleshly bodies. 

Matthew 24:22 above says that for the Elect’s sake those days will be shortened. The Elect in this verse is not referring to God’s Elect Bride (true believers), as she is already saved and guaranteed to rise in the First Resurrection. Therefore, God does not need to shorten the days of His judgement in order to save His Elect Bride. So what Elect is this verse referring to?

It is important to understand that there are two types of God’s Elect who will enter Christ’s Millennial Kingdom. There are those Elect who will enter the Millennial Kingdom with Christ, in their resurrected immortal saved bodies, as the risen Bride of Christ. They will rule with Jesus Christ over the fleshly nations during the Millennial Age. The other type of God’s Elect are those who will survive God’s end time global judgement to enter the Millennial Kingdom in their fleshly mortal yet still unsaved bodies. These fleshly Elect will be Jews and the ‘Sheep’ Gentiles, but they are not yet believers at Jesus' return; otherwise they would be included in the Bride of Christ in the First Resurrection.

 
God has understood and determined right from the foundation of the world that there will be three distinct groups of survivors who will enter the Millennial Kingdom in their fleshly bodies. These are Elect Jews, Elect Gentiles (the Sheep) and Non-Elect Gentiles (the Goats).

Surviving Elect Jews

Zechariah 13:9

I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, 'This is My people'; And each one will say, 'The LORD is my God.'"

This prophecy refers to the third of the Jews who will survive God’s end time judgement to enter Christ’s Millennial Kingdom in their fleshly bodies.

The current worldwide population of Jews is approximately twelve million of which around six million live in the land of Israel. This means that if Jesus Christ were to return now, eight million Jews would have been killed in God’s end time judgement and only four million Jews, as God’s Elect Jews, would survive to enter the Millennial Age in their fleshly bodies. It is no wonder that the Bible calls God’s global end time judgement the time of Jacob’s trouble, which will be worse than any previous time in the history of Israel and the world. (Jeremiah 30:7, Daniel 12:1, 7)

All of these surviving Elect Jews will ultimately believe and receive their Messiah and each and every one of them will be saved during the millennial rule of Jesus Christ, as confirmed by Zechariah 13:9 above.

Israel becomes the leading and blessed nation in the Millennial Age

Jesus Christ is coming back to sit on the throne of David, to restore the Kingdom of Israel and to fulfil the Abrahamic Covenant, which is to make Israel a great nation of blessing.

 
Luke 1:32-33

32 He (Jesus) will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob (Israel) forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.

Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel, will bless Jews abundantly and Israel will become a leading nation of great blessing to all the nations of the earth in the Millennial Age.

Ezekiel 36:28-30

28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. 29 I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. 30 And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations.

 
The Millennial Jews will occupy the full extent of the Promised Land, which God promised to Abraham ‘from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates’. The Bible says repeatedly that God will bring a remnant of His people back to their own land where they will dwell safely and know their God. This can only be fulfilled in the Millennial Age, when all the surviving Jews and all of their descendants born in the Millennial Age will dwell safely in the land of Israel, as promised to Abraham.

Ezekiel 36: 35

So they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden…

The desolate land of Israel will soon become like the Garden of Eden.

Reconstruction of the Land of Israel

In the Millennial Age, the first task for the surviving Jews will be to bury millions of dead bodies. These are the bodies of people who die during the final great battle of Armageddon, just before the return of Jesus Christ. (Revelation 16:14, 16, Ezekiel 39:11-16) It will take seven months to bury all of the dead in the land of Israel.

The first and most important construction project for the surviving Jews will be to build the Millennial Temple to the exact dimensions as given in Ezekiel Chapters 40-46. There can be no doubt that the Ezekiel Temple is a literal physical temple. God inspired Ezekiel in 573 B.C. to write down hundreds of precise measurements such that exact architectural plans of the temple can be produced for the construction of the temple.

The Millennial Ezekiel Temple

The Ezekiel Temple will be the third temple to be built in Jerusalem. Solomon built the first temple in 957 B.C. which stood for 371 years before the Babylonians destroyed it. Zerubbabel built the second temple in 516 B.C. which Herod the Great renovated and improved. This temple stood for 586 years before the Romans destroyed it in 70 A.D.

Some Christians believe that a third temple must be built in Jerusalem, before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, in order to fulfil the prophecy given in 2 Thessalonians 2:4. However, we believe that this prophecy about the son of perdition who ‘sits as God in the temple of God’ has already been fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Titus invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple. Therefore, the Ezekiel Temple will be the third temple and not the fourth temple to be built in Jerusalem.

We know that a number of Orthodox Jewish groups have serious plans to build a third temple on the traditional site of the first and the second temples, the Temple Mount. However, the problem is that this is the same site where the Muslim mosque ‘the Dome of the Rock’ presently stands.

We can be sure that Jews will not build the third temple before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ because Jesus Himself prophesied that not even one stone of the temple shall be left upon another before He returns to earth.

Matthew 24:1-2

1 Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

Of course, these words refer to the second temple. However, the clear message given in Jesus’ prophecy above is that Jesus did not envisage any temple standing in Jerusalem at His return. Please note that Jesus was speaking these words to His disciples in the context of His Second Coming, at the end of this present age, as confirmed by the following verse.

Matthew 24:3

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"

The prophecy of Jesus about the total destruction of the temple was not completely fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Romans destroyed the temple because there are still many massive stones of this temple that remain intact standing one upon another as originally built.  This prophecy can only be fulfilled at the actual return of Jesus Christ when the whole earth will undergo a cataclysmic transformation and preparation of the earth’s surface to make the global topography needed for the Millennial Kingdom of God, including the huge site on which to build the Ezekiel temple.

The ‘abomination of desolation standing in the holy place’ spoken of in Matthew 24:15, Daniel 9:26-27 and Daniel 11:31 refers to the desolation of Jerusalem itself, and not a temple. The Gentile armies (Magog) will surround and enter the Jewish Holy City and desolate Jerusalem as confirmed by Jesus in Luke 21:20 below.

Luke 21:20

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.

There are a number of reasons why a literal physical third temple will be built after Jesus Christ returns during the Millennial Kingdom of God, but let us first understand the most important reason for the building of the Millennial temple.

Matthew 25:31

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.

This verse says that Jesus will sit on the throne of His glory when He returns to earth. Where will this throne of His glory be located?

Ezekiel 43:6-7

6 Then I heard Him speaking to me from the temple, while a man stood beside me. 7 And He said to me, "Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever (owlam)...”

In this scripture the Hebrew word for ‘forever’ is owlam, meaning an age, which here refers to the thousand-year Millennial Age.

The Ezekiel temple of Christ’s Millennial Age will be the place of Christ’s throne of His glory, and it will be His dwelling place. The Bible says that the glory of Jesus Christ will come into the inner court of the temple by way of the east gate and will fill the temple.

Ezekiel 43:4-5

4 And the glory of the LORD came into the temple by way of the gate which faces toward the east. 5 The Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the temple.

The building of the temple will be the most important construction project in the Millennial Age for all Jews, and it will be from this temple that Jesus with His Bride will rule and reign over the nations of the millennial world.

The Judgement of the Surviving Gentile Nations referred to as the Sheep and the Goats

Once the Ezekiel Temple is completed and Jesus Christ is sitting on the throne of His glory, He will then judge all the surviving Gentile nations, and separate them as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

Matthew 25:31-32

31 When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

When the Bible refers to the nations, it means the Gentile nations with the exclusion of God’s chosen nation Israel. Thus, the sheep and the goat nations, referred to in verse 32 above, are survivors from the Gentile nations approximating two billion people comprising the Gentile Sheep (the Elect) and the Gentile Goats (the non-Elect).

Surviving Elect Gentile Sheep People

The surviving Gentile Sheep people, like the surviving Jews, are God’s Elect, and they will all be saved before they die in the Millennial Age. The Sheep get an amazing and wonderful surprise to learn from Jesus Christ that they had been chosen as God’s Elect from the foundation of the world to enter the Millennial Kingdom of God and be saved.

Matthew 25:34

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Apostle John was given a vision in Revelation 7 of a great multitude of people from all nations before the throne of Jesus Christ clothed with white robes of righteousness and rejoicing in the Salvation of God.

Revelation 7:9-10

9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation [belongs] to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

Who are these great multitudes clothed with white robes, which no one could number of all nations peoples and tongues? ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation’.

Revelation 7:13-14

13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?" 14 And I said to him, "Sir, you know." So he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

This great multitude is hundreds of millions of people from all nations who survive God’s global end time judgement. They are the Elect Gentile Sheep and the Elect Jews who will enter the Millennial Age in their fleshly bodies and they will wash their robes and be made white in the blood of the Lamb (saved) during the Millennial Kingdom.

The great multitude, which no one could number, cannot be referring to God’s Elect Bride because the Bible clearly says that God’s Elect Bride are only a remnant few, called and chosen to be saved before the return of Jesus Christ and resurrected to rule and reign with Christ over the fleshly nations in the Millennial Kingdom.

Surviving Non- Elect Gentile Goat People

Matthew 25:41

Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting (aionios, meaning age-to-come) fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’

The surviving Gentile Goat people are not God’s Elect. They will all die as unbelievers in the Millennial Age and afterwards they will face the age-to-come judgement in the Lake of Fire. The Bible indicates that these Gentile Goat ‘accursed’ people will die out within the first one hundred years of the Millennial Age. (Isaiah 65:20)

Why animal sacrifices are required in the Millennial Age

In Ezekiel, we clearly read that Jews will be required to keep the Law of Moses including making animal sacrifices in the Millennial Age. (Ezekiel 45, 46) This is very hard for Christians to understand because the book of Hebrews clearly says that Jesus Christ, through His own sacrifice on the cross, has done away with the need for animal sacrifices. All Christians agree that it is only the shed blood of Jesus Christ that has the power to take away our sins. So, why then would God reintroduce animal sacrifices in the Millennial Age?

Many Christians reconcile this apparent contradiction by saying, ‘During the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, the animal sacrifices will be object lessons that look back in remembrance to what Jesus has done for us on the cross, similar to the way in which the Old Testament sacrifices looked forward to what He would do on the cross’. We find this explanation inadequate and unsatisfactory. One thing we know for sure is that the Bible does not contradict itself.

The key to understanding the reason for animal sacrifices in the Millennial Kingdom of God is to appreciate that God has kept the Israelites as a distinct nation, separate from the Gentile nations, both racially through the descendants of the line of Jacob, and religiously through the Mosaic Law. The Law of Moses is always important to a Jew, whether he is an unconverted Jew or a born again, converted Jew.

In the Millennial Kingdom, the surviving Jews and their children will not, all at once, together become born again believers. We know that repentance and faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is an individual and personal matter. This is why the Jews who are not yet born again believers will reintroduce their traditional practice of animal sacrifices in the Millennial Ezekiel Temple. There can be no doubt that once a Jew becomes a born again believer, he will no longer be required or want to observe animal sacrifices. However, this does not mean that the Law of Moses is no longer relevant for him or that it becomes abolished.

All born again believing Jews in the Millennial Age, will be free from the legalistic observance of the Law of Moses. Of course, this is also true for Jews who are born again believers in this present age. However, the Law of Moses is not done away with for believing Jews as they keep it in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:6) This is why all Jewish festivals like the Feast of

Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement will still be kept by all Jews in the Millennial Kingdom, whether they are born again believers or not.

The Bible is clear that in the Millennial Kingdom, all surviving Jews and their children will ultimately accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour, but first they will need to repent and be ashamed of their sins.

Ezekiel 43:10

“Son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities...”

The Jews, like the Gentile Sheep, will need to repent of their sins, and this will be on an individual basis as God opens each person’s heart to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in God’s time and order. Until a Jew repents and accepts the sacrifice of Jesus Christ through God given faith, he will continue to observe animal sacrifices to cover his sins, as required under the Law of Moses.

Christ’s Millennial Kingdom of God - A Paradise on Earth

The Bible is abundantly clear that Christ’s Millennial Kingdom of God will be a time of great blessing for the Jews and all the nations on earth.

Wasteland transformed to become a Garden of Eden

Isaiah 35:6-7

6 ...For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert. 7 The parched ground shall become a pool, And the thirsty land springs of water; In the habitation of jackals, where each lay, There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

Ezekiel 36:34-35

34 The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. 35 So they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.'

Isaiah 51:3

For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in it, Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

Isaiah 55:13

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: And it shall be to the LORD for a name, For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

A World of unparalleled Peace

Micah 4:3-4

3 He shall judge between many peoples, And rebuke strong nations afar off; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore. 4 But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, And no one shall make them afraid; For the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.

The Earth shall be Full of the Knowledge of the Lord

Isaiah 11:9

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

The Nature of Wild Animals Transformed

Isaiah 11:6-8

6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den.

A World of Agricultural Abundance

Amos 9:13-14

13 "Behold, the days are coming," says the LORD, "When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, And all the hills shall flow with it. 14 I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them."

No Disability, Sickness or Disease

Isaiah 35:5-6

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing...

Mankind given a New Heart and Spirit

Ezekiel 11:19-20

19 Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

Nations will Learn God’s Ways

Micah 4:2

Many nations shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

The Saints, the Bride of Christ, honoured rulers of the Kingdoms with Christ

Daniel 7:18, 27 

18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.

27 Then the kingdom and dominion, And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.

These verses in Daniel speak about the Kingdoms referring to both the Millennial Kingdom of God and the Eternal Kingdom of God of the New Heaven and the New Earth. We read about the highly privileged position that the Saints, the Bride of Christ, will have as rulers alongside their husband Jesus Christ. It is impossible for true believers in this present age to fully appreciate just what an honour this will be.

Conclusion

The Millennial Kingdom of God will be a glorious age when Jesus Christ rules and reigns with His Bride. Jesus will sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem, in a literal temple built to the exact design and dimensions as given in the Bible by the prophet Ezekiel. Christ and His Bride will rule over the mortal fleshly people of Israel and the Gentile nations who will survive God’s end time judgement, and their descendants who will be born during the Millennial Age. The Millennial Kingdom will be a time of great blessing for Israel and for all nations, and the whole earth will become like the Garden of Eden.

There can be no doubt that all of the Jews, all of the Gentile Sheep people and all people born during the thousand-year Millennial Kingdom of God, including children born to Non-Elect Goat people are elected to be saved during the Millennial Age of the Kingdom of God. Only the Gentile Goat people will remain unsaved, but they will die out within the first hundred years of Christ Millennial Kingdom.

Imagine the scene of the whole population of the earth, multiple billions of people alive at the end of the glorious thousand-year Millennial Kingdom of God. These, Christ’s millennial people, will be prepared and waiting with excitement for God to usher in the next age in God’s Plan of the Ages, the Lake of Fire Judgement Age. They will all know that two important events will take place simultaneously at the start of the Lake of Fire Judgement Age. These two events, the Second Resurrection and the release of Satan from his prison are prophesied in the Bible to occur at the end of the thousand-year Millennial Kingdom of God.

The next chapter, Chapter 12, The Lake of Fire Judgement - Part 1, explains in detail the Second Resurrection, the release of Satan from his prison and the Lake of Fire judgement of all resurrected unbelievers.

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