The Restoration in the Millennium

RV185-02

There are, as we have pointed out, other divine judgments in the Bible, all of which should be taken seriously. First of all, there's the judgment of Jesus Christ on the cross for the sin guilt of mankind (John 12:31-32).

Secondly, there's the judgment of the angels who intermarried with human women described in Jude 6.

Third, there is the judgment of the Christian's works at the Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Fourth, there's the judgment of the Christian and the status of carnality (1 Corinthians 11:31-32).

Finally, number five: there's the judgment of unbelievers at the great white throne (Revelation 20:11-12). We look in some detail at all of those in the previous session.

Fear God

Worship God

This word literally means "to kiss toward," as an act of submission, as one would come to a king, and kiss the king's hand to indicate an act of submission. True worship of God is an attitude, first of all, of the mind toward our relationship to God as we have learned about Him in Scripture. Worship of God is not a matter of religious ritual which you may perform. We refer to churches who try to have a form of worship which is imitating the Old Testament religious rituals as "a liturgical church." If you have never been in a liturgical church, you have not learned the meaning of the word "boring." There is nothing as enormously boring as to be in a liturgical church service. That means that you open the hymnbook every Sunday to page 35, and you start proceeding through the order of service, and the rituals, and what the preacher does, and what you do, and when you kneel, and when you stand, and when you turn around, and when you smile, and when you don't. It is the same Sunday-to-Sunday – when you say the Lord's Prayer; and, when you repeat the Hail Mary, it is boring.

That is not worship of God, and yet, that's what people are told: "If you want to worship God, come out and do it." And anybody who's got any sensitivity and any qualities about him of enjoying life will grit his teeth; go to the service; and, be glad to get it out of the way. When church services become boring to people, even if the church service itself has much to commend it in the knowledge of the Word of God, I notice that people figure out ways of cutting out. They want to find ways to excuse themselves: "The service is too early in the morning. The service is too late in the morning. The service is too early in the afternoon. It's too late in the evening. It conflicts with this, and it conflicts with that."

People are going to look back on those attitudes with a great deal of regret, I can assure you, when they stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. The Word of God is alive, and it is powerful, and it should never be boring. And when you find that it is boring, or when you find that it's become a nuisance to you to be present to learn the Word of God, then you better go to the Lord, because you have a serious problem.

What this Scripture is telling us, when we are told to worship God, is that we are to joyfully acknowledge the supreme worthiness of God, and we express it with our adoration and our subjection to Him. This is what the old English word "worship" really meant. It was "worth-ship." It was your "worth-ship," like we would say, "your lordship." It meant the worthiness of God that deserves our complete homage and submission to Him. The one who is worshiped is the eternal one who existed before all creation.

When the angel says, "Worship God," he has good reason to say that, because he is not talking about worshiping some demonic God who has been invented by pagan religion. He is not talking about people who claim to be gods, and he is not referring to someone that we may adore as an attractive person. He is talking about deity – the Creator.

In John 4:24, we have enunciated for us the way that you worship. First of all, God is Spirit. The Mormons are completely fouled up on this when they teach people that God is a being of flesh and blood. He is not a physical being. He is spirit. Therefore, those who worship Him must worship Him via your own human spirit, and on the basis of truth, which is doctrine. This is how you worship God. You worship God when you walk into a church service where the preacher is going to play square with you, and give you spiritual enlightenment, and you are in a position where God the Holy Spirit can illuminate the Word of God. This is not only so you know it, but so you have the capacity for applying it. It's easy for us to sit and learn the Word of God and appreciate it, and say that we're going to use it, except when we get in a tough situation in life, where things are not coming up roses, and then to apply that Word, that's where our spiritual maturity comes to the test.

When you worship God, your ultimate expression of worship to Him is in your spirit, which is your point of God-consciousness. Your physical body, with your senses, is your point of consciousness with the world about you (the material world). Your soul is your point of consciousness with other human beings, and their minds, and their wills, and their emotions. But it is your human spirit (which, until you're born-again, is dead) which is your point of contact with God. This is why the world cannot speak with God. This world cannot understand God. The world has no point of contact with God. But once you have your human spirit brought to life (you're spiritually born-again), then you worship God by learning doctrine. It's just as simple as that.

God the Holy Spirit teaches us the Word of God. Then He takes that Word, and He guides the believer's human spirit so that we are worshiping God. We treat Him right; we respect Him; and, above all, we say, "How can I bring you pleasure? Father, how can I please You?" That is the height of personal worship. God is not worshiped through religious rituals. He is not worshiped through observing certain taboos. He is not worshiped through any kind of good works you may perform; through your legalisms; or, through some ritual – some group action of emotional orgy.

Creation

Then the angel tells us what he made. He made the heavens; that is, He made the sky above us. He made the earth – the planet on which we live. He made the sea – the saltwater bodies on the earth. He made the springs of water – the fresh water bodies that are on this earth. He made the water, the H2O, which sustains all life. Isn't it amazing that with all the things that we have for survival, of all the things that the human body needs and that God has provided, there is one very critical element that you cannot survive long without. You can get along with a lot of things for some time, but not H2O. Water is essential. And if you find yourself in a position where you cannot have access to water, in three or four days, you will be dead.

It's interesting to hear recently that the famed aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, is now believed to have landed on an atoll in a South Pacific island, 350 miles off-course from where she was headed, but she managed to get to this atoll. Now they're finding remains of debris of her airplane, of her clothing, of her shoes, and other things that indicate very strongly that this is indeed where she landed. The problem was, it's an atoll without any fresh water. So, even if she was able to make it to the beach, which her skill enabled her to do, three or four days later, she was dead.

That causes us to stop and think what it would be like not to have water. That in itself (to think that God created that, and how we are sustained by it, and how we are dependent upon it) would cause us to have a point of wisdom to say, "I'm ready to blow God a kiss. I'm ready to take His hand in subjection, and to kiss Him as my Lord and King. I'm ready to express my subjection.

This this concept of creation, of course, is what is all rejected by the scientific world today. In certain circles of the scientific world, if you believe in the concept of creation, it will hurt your career as a scientist, no matter what area you work in. You are considered sub-intellectual to believe it. And you will have to make the decision whether the concepts that matter has always existed, and it evolved on its own into what we see it as today; or, whether that is impossible for that to take place.

The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics follows upon this; namely, that the quantity of energy that came from somebody or something which is in the world, that cannot be created or lessened, but can be changed in form, that that quantity of energy is steadily being diminished in its usable form. The technical word is "entropy." Entropy is getting bigger and bigger, meaning that more and more of the energy that came from someplace is no longer usable. It's like somebody who throws out a toy top. You wrap the string around it; you throw the top out; you pull the string; and, it goes spinning on its pin. But you know that every time that top goes around, it's losing speed. The energy that you gave it with that string is becoming useless until it topples over.

Do you know anybody who has been able to take lead and change it into radioactive material? One of the most powerful energies in the world is radioactive material. Where did it come from? It doesn't go up. What happens to things that are radioactive is that they go down to inert forms. They go from radioactive to lead, where they are not radioactive.

The first and second laws of thermodynamics sticks in the craw of every evolutionary scientist in the world. They cannot account for the fact that you cannot create or destroy energy (law number one); and, that the usable energy is decreasing steadily (law number two) – that things do not go upward. They don't evolve to greater power forms. They devolve downward.

Well, you may ask, "What explanation do they give? They've got to be intellectually honest." Well, they say, "There's some factor that we don't know about. There's some element that we have missed that will explain all of this." So, that's one way that you can look at it.

On the other hand, you may also look at it, if you are willing to accept the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, that the Bible tells us how it all happened. Let's look at a few verses. Let's start right off:

Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God." Isn't that a beautiful way to put it? In the beginning (in that distant past), on the stage comes God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There's not a whisper of the idea of evolution in that statement. It is purely and completely presented as clearly an act of Almighty God.

Please turn to Nehemiah 9:6: "You alone are the Lord. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host; the earth, and all that is in it; and, the seas, and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and the heavenly host bows down before You." It is God who has made the first heaven – the atmospheric heaven around the earth that you and I live in. It is God who made the interstellar space – the second heaven. And it is God who made the heaven of heavens, which Nehemiah refers to here – that very throne room of God, the third heaven in the New Testament in which God dwells.

Look ahead to Psalm 33:6: "By the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth, all their host;" referring to the starry universe and the planets. Now we have a little more information. We're not only told that God made it, but we're told how He made it. Can you imagine speaking it into existence? Have you noticed that there are a lot of people who are so arrogant that they believe that if they say something, that that's how it is? If they say something, they have created a situation that that's what it is. But that's not true. But God can do that. God can speak something into existence.

You can see the travesty of what Kenneth Copeland does on television. This charismatic, another false prophet of Satan, tells you that God is in you, and that makes you a god. The first part is true. God does indwell us. The second part (that that makes you a god) is not true. Then he comes back to a verse like this and says, "God creates reality by speaking it, and you as a god have the word of power to speak reality." Then he will say, "What do you need? Just speak it." And then he will add: "See it in your mind's eye. Envision it." Now, that's right out of Hindu Eastern mysticism – that by your word, you can create a reality of something that you would like.

The next time you look in the mirror, and you see those horrible wrinkles that are developing there, some of them so bad that I can see them from here, look in that mirror, and you speak, "Wrinkles be gone." If you're the arrogant kind, you will say, "My wrinkles are gone," and you'll walk out, and say, "They're gone." Charismatics are like that. Have you noticed that? They speak something, and they say that it happens.

Many years ago, we had a quartet from Dallas Seminary, four Men that came and sang. And all of these men eventually began attending Berean church. One of them got into what was called then the Pentecostal movement. (The "charismatic movement" came later.) And he went to a healing meeting, and he had cavities in his teeth. They were cavities that you could see. And he came back, and he talked the other three men in the quartet: Ron Blue; Jerry Bowman; and Bob Lee." And this man told them, "I've had a miracle! My cavities are gone! I went to this meeting, and they healed me. Now, that's pretty impressive stuff. Naturally, what would you say? Well, you'd like to look in the horse's mouth. So, that's what they said: "Well, let us see that." And sure enough, he opened his mouth, and there were these gaping holes in the molars. His name was Ron, and one of the other men said, "But they're still there." He said, "No, no. You think they're there. But I have faith in God. I know they're not there."

Boy, I wonder what he felt like when he got his first toothache, and it got down to that nerve – that miserable feeling that comes when you have a toothache. He thought that, because he could speak his faith, and that somebody else could say, "Your teeth are filled," that had happened. The peculiar thing I thought of when the young men told me this is, "Why they didn't just heal the tooth. Why waste the silver and the gold and the porcelain? Why not just heal the tooth? But that's how charismatics think. There's no explaining it.

But God brought into existence by His very Word that which we see. That's how He created.

Move on to Isaiah 44:24: "Thus says the Lord, our Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb." Oh, oh! I hope that the Democratic presidential candidate's wife doesn't read this verse: "Do you mean to tell me that God is creating what is in the womb, and putting it together? Nah, this must be a mistake. This is some human writer's opinion just to keep women from having control over their bodies." But it says, "Thus says the Lord, our redeemer, the One who formed you from the womb: 'I the Lord am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself, and stretching out the earth all alone." This verse stresses one more factor. Not only is God the Creator, but He didn't need anybody's help to do it. He had the omnipotence to bring it off on his own.

Jeremiah 32:17 says this: "O Lord God, behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power, and by Your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You." What a great verse to remember! "Nothing is too difficult for You – the omnipotent God." OK, it's not possible for us to have a group like this without somebody having something that is extremely difficult to live with; to deal with; to face; and, to be imminently on top of. But with God, nothing is too difficult. Remember the lesson of the last session – that the glory of God resides within you, and that glory is the essence of God with everything He is, including His omniscience; His omnipresence; and, His omnipotence. The three "omnis" are all operating by the hand of God in you. Nothing is too difficult for Him. It's just a matter of His timing and His progression to get to the resolution.

Acts 14:50 in the New Testament confirms this same principle – that God is the Creator, and saying, "Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you (Paul and Barnabas were being worshiped as gods), and preached the gospel to in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God (from these dumb idols to the living God), who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them. God made it all."

Move on to Hebrews 1:10: "You, Lord, in the beginning, did lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands." What could be more awesome than to look out in space, and to see the stars and the planets in the interstellar spaces with the gases that operate out there, and to think that we're just a small part of it?

When we were on our campout to NASA yesterday morning, they had a display of our solar system, and they proceeded from one end to the other. And there they had, in comparative size, planets like Jupiter and Uranus which are enormous compared to the earth. They are many times larger than the earth. The earth is a little pipsqueak in there. Yet, it is the only planet that God has intended to have life on it, and has put together that which was necessary for life. He is the One who was able to do that. He is the One who made that. He made the heavens. He made the earth, and He established the foundation upon which to build that earth.

Then, in Revelations 4:11, we read, "Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You did create all things. And because of Your will, they existed, and are created." It was simply the decision of God to bring about this creation.

Finally, Revelation 10:6 says, "And swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things in it, and the earth, and the things in it, and the sea, and the things in it, that there shall be no delay." It is obvious to all of us that to conceive of a God who could do all this; to conceive of a God who could create a universe; and, to conceive of all those multiplicity of life forms that exist, it is staggering. We can't comprehend it. Yet only a fool would say, "He's not out there. There's not someone out there like that." He is out there. He has all that capacity. With him, nothing is too difficult, and nothing is impossible.

What we are reading here in Revelation 14 is a reminder that what did not exist at one moment, at some point in the past, suddenly came into full reality the next moment. There was no evolutionary process involved at all. This also gives the evolutionary scientists a lot of problems, because when they do research through the fossil record, they find that, all of a sudden, there's an outburst of life at a certain level – all of them complete. And here, suddenly, were brought into existence by the hand of the creation of God, all the life that we know.

Yes, he made Adam and Eve. Did they have a belly button? You betcha. They had all the pieces and all the marks and everything was just right. They were just perfectly created. They were the sample of everything that was the glory of God and the essence of God. You can see, when you look out there on a dark night, and you can really see the stars in the sky, His glory is obviously there.

Romans 1:20 also reminds us that creation testifies to the existence of God; to His eternal power; and, to His personal deity.

Please turn to Revelation 4:11 that we read this just a moment ago. I want to look more carefully at this verse, which stresses the principle of this angel. Why does he say that we should worship God? Because He's the Creator. He is the Creator, and you should be subject to Him. You can see why it is a sorry thing to have a young person who is disobedient to parents and authorities. You can see why he's a clod. He hasn't learned the principle that God is above everyone, and has given authority to those under Him in various areas of life, including the family. And it is the arrogance of man that strikes out against God. Those who worship Him are telling Him that they know that He is everything, and that we are nothing. And if we don't learn that lesson, sooner or later, He cuts us down.

In Revelation 4:11, John says, "Worthy are You." The idea of "worthy" is "deserving." God alone is deserving of man's worship.

For centuries, Satan has been seducing people to worship him instead of the Creator God. He made this proposition in Matthew 4:9-11 to Jesus. If Jesus would worship him, he would give Him the authority over the kingdoms. Yet, the unregenerate world chooses to worship some part of creation. Talk about being crazy!

Romans 1:25 says, "That mankind decided not to worship the creator God, but instead to worship something He made: to worship the moon; to worship the sun; or, to worship some animal. That makes sense to the blind eyes of the unbeliever. John sees the ultimate vindication of the Father as being the only object of mankind's worship because God is worthy by dint of His creation: "You are worthy, our Lord (the word that indicates deity) and our God." To the church-age believer, the heavenly Father is, in a distinctive way, his Lord and his God. This God the Father is deserving to receive glory (recognition of His superiority); honor (to recognize His value, and to do homage); and, power – He has ability. This is the Greek word for "power" that means that He has the ability to do things. God the Father has ability to do anything. He will never abuse that power. He will never be unworthy of it. Satan's power is abused, and Satan is unworthy.

However, God is worthy to be treated like this. Why? "For" introduces the reason: "You did create. You brought out of nothing into existence the material universe with all of its life forms. And the Bible in several places tells us that God the Father did this creating work through the agency of God the Son. You may look up John 1:3; Ephesians 3:9; the famous Colossians 1:16-17; and, Hebrews 1:2. All of those passages indicate that God the Father created through the agency of the Son. Jesus Christ did the work of creation.

What He created was "all things" – every single life form. God did it; God made it; and, Hebrews 11:3 says that He did it just by speaking it into existence. True worship then begins with recognizing that the one we are dealing with is the Creator who made us. That puts our thinking into the right perspective. As long as fallen man has a high esteem of himself, and views himself as something of a god, he will have a low value for the Creator God. So, God the Father is the owner of everything. Where do we come in? We are the stewards.

"You did create all things." He did the whole thing, and He owns it all. We are simply the stewards. The pseudo scientist denies God's role as Creator, and he worships instead the creation itself. He gives credit to chance by the means of evolution.

Then John goes on and says, "And because of Your will (that is, because of God's choice), they existed and were created." They came into existence simply because God determined to do that. It is God who had the capacity to do this creating.

God Makes the Rules

When God finished creation, it was a magnificent, perfect production. But as you know, the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden ruined their environment, and it ruined the whole earth. Before they sinned, they enjoyed an easy life. They had great personal development. They had complete security, and life was one recreational activity after another. All their material needs were provided just for the taking. When they disobeyed the Creator, they brought divine judgment upon themselves, and God brought a curse down upon the earth. Suddenly, nature disintegrated into decay and disorder, and ultimately into death.

What is going to happen in the future is that God is going to release nature once more. His creation is going to be restored to its pristine beauty. So, it would be improper for us now to end this verse in Revelation 14 and not remind ourselves that what God has created was once perfect, and it will be like that one more time.

This is what Paul is referring to in Romans 8:22. Paul says, "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." Paul says, "There's one thing that all of us know, and that is that the non-responder world of nature and plants and animals is under a suffering condition. It groans. And he compares this groaning all over the earth to a woman in childbirth. Nature is experiencing a painful condition. There is simply no Shangri-La anyplace on the face of the earth. Instead, nature is travailing like she's trying to give birth to something; that is, to give birth back to that perfection that once was true.

So, all of nature is suffering under the curse of God. But what this suffering is doing is looking forward to when the suffering will be over. When will that be? The millennium? That's when God comes in, and He restores what Adam and Eve spoiled. He removes the curse off of the earth. But up to this point, nature is groaning. And out of these pains and sufferings of nature, is going to come a happy result, as when a child is born.

The Restoration in the Millennium

1. Great Fertility of the Ground

   In the millennium, great fertility will be restored to the ground. Things that are now stifled by thorns and brier patches are going to become fruitful fields (Isaiah 32:13-15). Farmers' efforts, we're told, are going to result in an abundant crop (Isaiah 35:1-2).

2. Rain

   Secondly, when nature's curse is removed, rain will once more fall in proper amounts at the right time in the right places. Ezekiel 34:26-27 tell us that. At that time, no one will ever face famine (Ezekiel 36:29-30). Wastelands are going to become productive because they'll have an adequate water supply (Isaiah 35:6-7). In fact, we're told that a miraculous stream of water is going to flow from the temple in Jerusalem into the Dead Sea – that saltwater sea. Some of you have visited that that body of water. It is terrible to swim in, if you get it in your eyes, because it is really salty. But you'd almost have to be a piece of lead weight not to float. You simply cannot sink in that water. But it's called dead because there's no life in it. God is going to take this Dead Sea, and He's going to bring, out of the temple in Jerusalem, a stream of water that will restore it to life. Ezekiel 47:1-12 describe that.

3. Disease and Deformity Removed

   In the third place, when the curse is removed from restoring God's creation to its original form, disease and physical deformity will be removed from mankind. People now live in a world that's filled with illness that the body has to constantly resist. The Lord Jesus Christ exercised great healing. What will happen in the millennium is that health measures will be properly taken, and people will have a healthy lifestyle (Isaiah 33:24, Isaiah 35:5-6). People will have their physical ailments removed.

4. An Extended Lifespan

   Widespread health is going to result in an extended lifespan (Isaiah 65:22). People are going to live again for hundreds of years. The death of somebody at 100 years of age is going to be considered like the death of a child (Isaiah 65:20). There will be a population explosion like you wouldn't believe, as longevity is extended, and the birth rate is high. The Bible tells us that this birth rate and longevity will be true for Israel (Jeremiah 30:19-20), and for the gentiles (Ezekiel 47:22).

   We are given a lot of false information by the environmentalists today that the earth is running out of space to sustain people. You may remember that, a few years ago, the vehicle for socialism was overpopulation: "Governments must control overpopulation." That didn't work. So, they shifted to a couple of other things. Today, the socialist planners are using environment. The environment is the disaster land. We have holes in our ozone, and we have a number of other terrible things that are taking place upon this earth. We have carbon dioxide, and it would be best if you didn't breathe at all, so that you would not get contaminated by these things. This madness is afoot, but it is calculated madness. Don't get taken in by this current frenzy about saving planet earth.

   Down at Padre Island, I walked into a store on the strand, and it was a New Age store devoted to saving planet earth – everything in it: spooky music; and, all the things about saving the little whales, and saving the big whales and saving the porpoises, and closing up the ozone, and getting rid of the carbon dioxide. You could buy children's books on these things. Oh, it was so hard for me not to go to that guy with the long hair behind the counter and ask him, "Do you have a bumper sticker on saving the unborn babies?" They had them about saving the whales, but I just didn't have the nerve. I lacked gall, and I just couldn't go up and ask him about that, because I knew he didn't.

   Termination of Wars

   There will be also the termination of wars. That's going to preserve life (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3). Today it is not possible to have peace, while Satan is in charge, but a strong military establishment will no longer be necessary. The U.N. today is the force which is now being used to create a counterfeit peace.

5. Natural Disasters and Dangerous Animals

   Danger from natural disasters and animals will be removed (Hosea 2:18, Ezekiel 34:25, Isaiah 65:25). It is interesting that the Bible tells us that as the narrowness of the Second Coming of Christ approaches, the earth is going to break out with an enormous number of earthquakes. Have you noticed how many earthquakes are moving around the earth now? It is not without its significance, but these natural disasters will all be removed.

6. General Prosperity

   Finally, when Jesus Christ restores this earth to the creation that the original Creator had for it and intended for it, there will be general prosperity in the environment of the millennium (Amos 9:13-14). The Bible tells us that the economic system will be private ownership capitalism. This is the divine system for economy. This is God's order, and you can't beat it, as communism has now demonstrated before all the world. When people are permitted to keep the fruits of their labors, prosperity will spread everywhere. Under these conditions, there'll be a high standard of living. Micah 4:4 and Isaiah 65:21-23 tell us that we will all be private property owners. Isn't it interesting that even under world government of Jesus Christ, socialism is going to be rejected. Who's smarter: the people in Washington, who were sent there by shortsighted Americans, who don't know any more than the people they send there; or, God? God says, "Socialism never works," but our government is still trying to impose socialism, and we're 60% of the way there now by every law that they pass.

Look forward to your position of great honor. In the meantime, follow the angel's advice. Recognize the Creator God. Don't walk along as if you were an independent creature. Whatever comes, He's in charge.

How well Job put it: Shall we bless God when He blesses us and brings good things into our lives; and, shall we abandon and curse Him when things go badly for us? The answer's obvious. He is a God who does not act on whims. He takes care of His creation. You're part of it, and He will take care of you.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1992

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