Jesus Christ will Reign

RV229-02

John has the amazing experience, at this point in his vision, of seeing heaven burst wide open. There he sees Jesus Christ preparing to return to this earth at His Second Coming. John sees the Lord riding a white horse as commander-in-chief of the army of God, of the saints in heaven. This image of Christ portrays the picture from the ancient world of a conquering general.

Jesus Christ is Faithful

The Lord Jesus Christ takes a believer to heaven on the basis of John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Lord Jesus Christ takes a believer to heaven on the basis of Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast." If the Lord Jesus Christ does not take a believer to heaven on the basis of those two promises, then Christ loses His good name. And His name is the most sacred thing He has, because it describes everything that He is.

So, being faithful is extremely important to God.

Jesus Christ is True

Ours is a day in which the events are rapidly coming together for conditions similar to those which existed in the day of Noah. The Lord pointed out that this would happen, and He compared our day to that day. In Matthew 24:37-39, Jesus said, "For the coming of the Son of Man (the Second Coming of the Son of a Man is what is referred to here) will be just like the days of Noah. For in those days which were before the flood, they were eating and drinking. They were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. So, shall the coming of the Son of Man be?"

This is exactly the condition which exists in the world today. People are going about their routines, completely oblivious of the imminent great events on the horizon of human history, and of the things that are rapidly coming together to bring about the conditions for the Second Coming of Christ. In Noah's, you had one man who was a fanatic about the Word of God, because he knew that God was faithful. He'll keep His promise. He promised 120 years, and He promised that He was going to cover the whole earth with water and wipe out all life. Because Noah knew that God was true, and that he was reliable in what he said, Noah had no doubt about the fact that it was going to happen.

So, every day he was quite happy to get up; organize his day with his sons; and, proceed to build the ark. He was a fanatic about the flood because he was strong in doctrine concerning the person of God: a faithful and a true God. In his day, people scoffed. The youth about him were no doubt arrogant. But Noah kept the faith, and he kept preparing for the divine judgment of the flood.

Finally, one day the unbelievable happened. It was something that had never happened in the history of the world before. Water started falling from the sky. And down came the canopy of water that surrounded the earth, and up came from the bottom all the breaking forth of the underground water system. So, water came pouring from the heavens, and water came pouring from the earth. And very quickly, the tub of the world was filled so that the highest mountain was covered. Those people learned that God is faithful. You can count on Him to keep His promises. And many who had believed in him would have been carried safely through. Noah and his family were. They found that God is truth. When He speaks, you can count on it.

Government Domination

So, people are in darkness because their ignorance of the doctrines of Scripture and the divine viewpoint of God, and how He has put society together to function. Our values are contrary to the Word of God. So, we are on a course of self-destruction. Yet what do people do? They defend those values. They make fun of the believer; they make fun of the Word of God; they defend values that are absolute abominations; and, they do this at the highest levels of government.

What would have been your position if you've been living in the days of Ahab and Jezebel? Could you have said, "Well, they don't get everything right, but they're OK people. No, they're not OK people. They were people who were under Nimrod's condition of idolatry. They were under Nimrod's condition of government with power over people. Anytime that government has power over people, it's Nimrod's system. To be true to your God, you would have had to fight tooth and nail, and oppose tooth and nail, everything that Ahab and Jezebel stood for, and all that they were up to. In time, a few people that did, discovered how wise they were. Why can we not learn from history? The philosopher Santayana said one time that if we do not learn from history, then we are doomed to repeat it.

Jesus Christ is Righteousness

Jesus Christ will Judge

Actually, Christ has been judging for some time in the tribulation. He has done with the seals; he has judged them with the plagues of the trumpets; and, He has judged them with the plagues of the bowls. They have suffered terrible retribution. The antichrist and his followers are on the ropes, and the righteousness of Christ is coming through, because He is faithful.

In Psalm 96:13, the psalmist puts it this way: "For He (the Lord) is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in His faithfulness." Here the psalmist, seeing the Second Coming of Christ, also stresses the fact that God's going to do it according to His standard of righteousness. I'm amazed that human beings have the arrogance to make up their own rules, and to say, "This is what is right, as if they could actually get away with that.

Christ himself has been appointed by the Father to be the judge of the world. So, we are reminded again that that is what He is coming to do. In Acts 17:30-31, this is pointed out to us: "Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnish proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Notice that this passage tells us that God has fixed a day (that's the Second Coming of Christ) in which He has appointed a man (referring to Jesus Christ) as the commander of this army? He has furnished proof that this man is qualified by raising Him from the dead, and Christ is going to come in that capacity to be the judge of all the world. So, the world very quickly is going to learn how true and faithful Jesus Christ is, and they're going to learn it in a very terrible way.

Jesus Christ will Execute Judgment with War

The tribulation world bands together to reject the sovereignty of Christ, so they must now (together) bear the judgment of His sword. The army of Jesus Christ that He brings from heaven acts as a supernatural power and the supernatural stone that is described in the book of Daniel, which strikes the feet of the image representing the world empires, and destroys them completely. So, heaven opens to reveal Jesus Christ at the head of a great army coming to wage a holy war which terminates the tribulation and ushers in the kingdom of God on this earth, the millennial kingdom.

Righteous War

The problem is that nations go to war on false pretenses. They go there under false pretenses just to gain public support. All of World War II was one step after another where national leaders were giving false information to their people as a pretense why they should go to war, and that is exactly what happened. But on the other hand, when we deal with Jesus Christ, yes, He is a man of war. There is no question about it. He will come in that capacity as a warrior, but He goes to war on a righteous basis.

Isaiah 11:1-5 describe for us this Second Coming warfare. Again, I remind you that this is on the horizon of human history. It's not a distant event now. It is a close event: "Then the chute will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit." This is referring to Jesse, who was the father of David, and it is taking Christ in His humanity back to the Davidic family. In the next two verses, you have a marvelous area of Scripture that we have gone through in detail, because what we have here is what God the Father provided for the humanity of God the Son, so that He could be sinless in this world. This was field-tested by Christ – a system of protection from evil. What it basically is, is the provision of doctrine plus the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the result was the marvelous life of Jesus Christ. If we use this same system, we get the same results.

Verse 2 says, "And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him, and the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and the spirit of council and strength." "Strength" is an interesting word. It means physical well-being. People who know doctrine, and who live by doctrine, are much better off physically than people who don't. One of the reasons is that your emotional life is controlled, which has such a devastating effect upon your physical life: "And the spirit of knowledge and of fear (the respect of the Lord). And He will delight in the fear of the Lord. And He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear. But with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. And He will strike fear with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will play the wicked. Also, righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness, the belt about His waist."

So, here, once more, you have the second member of the Trinity, the son of God, presented as a conquering warrior who is killing people; who is killing them by the millions; and, who is destroying them on occasion – the greatest of which will be in the tribulation itself. But He does so on the basis of righteousness. Justice is not violated. He is faithful to the truth, and that drives Him to execute judgment upon the enemies of God. He is not acting in personal vengeance. He is acting on the basis of divine justice.

The war of Jesus Christ destroys His enemies very rapidly, and a worldwide peace will be imposed upon mankind for 1,000 years. Following the marriage of the Lamb in heaven, then comes the army of God from heaven, led by the bridegroom, Christ, to clear the decks of the world from all the debris of the kingdom of man in order to prepare for the celebration of the marriage supper, celebrating His marriage to His bride, the church.

Jesus Christ will Destroy His Enemies

Revelation 19:15 points out that: "From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it, He will smite the nations. He will rule over them with a rod of iron. He treads the winepress to the fierce wrath of God the Almighty." When you tread a winepress, you get grape juice (red stains) all over your garments. And as we shall see, that is exactly the picture of Christ here in the Scripture. So, the first thing that He does is that He is coming to destroy the enemies of God. He's coming here to kill them. He's coming here, by the millions, literally, to slaughter these men who have finally gathered on the field of Armageddon.

Jesus Christ will Pass Judgment

"And I shall bring you into the bond of the covenant, and I shall purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me. I shall bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter into the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord." This is future, and He will execute this against the Jewish people.

So, suddenly, with one blow on the part of Christ, the rebels are taken care of who are Jews, and the Jews that are left are all believers.

Secondly, he turns to the gentiles. Their judgment is described in detail in Matthew 25:31-46. This is a familiar passage: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory (the Second Coming), and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne." That is His throne. He is now sharing the Father's throne in heaven. This is the throne of His father David: "And all the nations." And that's the same word in the Greek language which is used for the word "gentiles:" All the gentiles will be gathered before Him."

I tell you that because this is gentiles as individuals. I don't want you to think that here comes this gentile nation, and God's going to judge whether they live or die; then he will judge that entire nation as to whether they go into the millennium or not. The Greek language makes it clear that these gentiles are viewed individually: "And He will separate them from one another (one gentile from another), as the shepherds separate the sheep from the goats. And He will put the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on His left hand. And he will proceed to tell them the good news. Then the king will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (the Millennial Kingdom).

They evidence their born-again condition by the way they treated the Jews during the tribulation: "For I was hungry, and you gave Me something. I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger, and you invited Me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me." Some people will read this Scripture, and the liberal mentality takes over right away, because liberals always want power over the people. Right away, they say, "Aha. You see? Here's the compassion that we should be exercising. This is what we are called to do – all these good things to people." But do not be deceived. This has nothing to do with that. This is individual gentiles who treated Jews, who were under the gun of the antichrist, in this way during the tribulation. That's the context, and you have to leave it there.

These people are surprised. Verse 37: "And the righteous will answer Him saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You as a stranger and invite You in, or naked and clothed You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and come to you?' And the king will answer and say to them, 'Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'" And the brothers to which He is referring here (this is a Jewish context) is the Jewish people. So, He's saying, "You did this to the Jews. You did this during the tribulation. And you demonstrated thereby that you were loyal to Me. Come into the kingdom.

On the other hand, there's the other side – the goats: "And He will say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which is been prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and gave Me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in. I was naked, and you did not clothe Me. I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me.' Then they themselves also answered saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' Then He will answer them saying, 'Truly. I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me (referring again to His brethren, the Jews). And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

So, now Christ has come back. He has made war and terminated the armies of the antichrist and of the world rulers who have gathered on the field of Armageddon. Secondly, He has passed judgment on Jewish unbelievers and on gentile unbelievers. Now you have nothing but born-again people, both Jews and gentiles, all over the earth, and they are ushered in to the Millennial Kingdom. At one point in time, perhaps only for a brief moment, until those children start to be born into this kingdom (for a short period of time), all of the world will be nothing but born-again people. What a change that's going to make in society.

Jesus Christ will Deal with Satan

Satan's anti-God and anti-biblical philosophy has totally and thoroughly ruined human society by the end of the tribulation, because everything that liberalism and humanism wants to do, which is now restricted by these blankety-blank Christians that are still around (and fundamentalists) will now be removed at the rapture, and they will be able to go full-steam to do all that they want to do. The result will be that the catastrophe will roll upon them like they can't believe. Because when you take away restraint internally, and when people cannot discipline themselves by a higher level of God, then they cannot be controlled by the lower law of man. Satan's influence here is going to be totally removed from the millennium, along with his demons.

Someone has suggested, and maybe it's so, that God has created as many born again people as he created in the billions of demons. and that a believer will have the happy privilege of walking up; grabbing a demon by the scruff of the neck; booting him on the gluteus maximus; and, popping him right off the face of the earth down into an imprisoned condition. Satan will be bound in chains, and he will be down into this pit.

You can read this language and say, "Yes, that's what it says." You may also be foolish enough to say, "That's poetical. That really isn't for real. This is a spiritual picture." And you will have to decide just how the Bible speaks. Does it speak in real language, or does it speak sometimes in symbolic language when it seems real, but you don't like to think that that's real. Amillennialists have a great problem. They cannot take these three verses and say that this is going to happen – that, for 1,000 years, Satan is going to be removed from any activity on the face of this earth. After all, this earth, up to the time of the death of Christ on the cross, was his realm of authority. He grasped it from Adam's hand, and since then, it has been his until he was defeated on the cross by Christ. Now he can't even make the statement that he made the Jesus: "I'll give You the nations of the world to rule over. If You want to be king of some nation, and if you want to be the ruler of some nation, I'll get you elected to office. I'll put you in there." Now he cannot do that anymore. Christ has taking that authority from him. He's now a usurper, still ruling nations because of God's tolerance.

However, here in the millennium, he's not going to be around to tempt people with evil. The only temptation you will have in the millennium is from the old sin nature (for those who are still in their normal bodies). But there'll be no temptation from an evil society, because that won't be tolerated. The world system will be gone, and they will not be tempted by Satan himself or his demons.

If you insist that this is for real, then you must take this literally. I was reared, as I told you before, in a denominational system which held to an amillennial view of Scripture, which meant that Jesus Christ was going to come back, and there was going to be one big judgment day. The parable here of the goats and sheep separation was going to be the judgment day separating who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Then it was all over. And there was no such thing as Satan being bound.

I remember as a teenager, I got very much interested in the Word of God, and began learning a great deal, because I finally happened to be under a teacher who understood these things, outside of the denomination in which I was being reared, and which I was attending. I remember when I had to go to catechism class in order to qualify myself for being confirmed as a Christian in my own right, and to receive the Lord's Supper for the first time, all of which was very big, big stuff.

I remember asking this knowledgeable pastor who was teaching us (an older man): how one could read this passage that told about Satan being bound, because he had just told us that Satan had been incapacitated by Christ? And he was talking spiritually, and saying that Satan was not able to function. And I said that the Word of God says that Satan, in the future, is going to be bound. He said, "No, Satan is bound now." Then in the depths of my teenage wisdom, I said, "Well, I'd like to know who's doing his work so well then, if he's tied up and bound up now in prison, because things are really jumping and jiving." I didn't say those words. Those are words that I hadn't come into yet in my education. But he understood what I meant – that somebody is doing the work of the devil really well. And it was kind of insolent on my part.

However, here was a question: how can you treat Scripture with such a cavalier manner as to say, "Well, I don't want this part to be real? This part is only spiritual?" Having said that, you must understand that that's how most preachers and most churches view these three verses. You have just been given a very minority view, and you must decide whether this is what the Bible says or not. And if it's literal, that's what it says.

So Satan is going to be bound and imprisoned for 1,000 years. He gets out of it at the end, the Bible tells us, and he gets a little time of freedom. And what does he do? He goes right after Christ again. The first thing he does is get all those children who have been born during the millennium, and who have grown up with inner resentments and rebellion against Christ. But here, Christ is the president of the whole. He runs the whole world government. Angels are always around there, enforcing the laws of nations. Open unrighteousness is not tolerated. Society is at the peak of its blessing. Consequently, these kids come to the point where they're just waiting and itching for a chance to join somebody to strike out against Jesus Christ.

That's hard for me to imagine that, and it probably is for you – that you live in a society with a perfect environment; a perfect society; a perfect condition; and, perfect health, because you've got the Creator running the healing. Everything is ideal, and yet, you hate Christ, who is the leader, because your sin nature turns up within you, and you do not accept Him. But that happens.

Jesus Christ will Remove the Curse from Nature

One of the great things that will be changed on the earth is that the ferocity of animals will be removed so they no longer are destructive to human life. This promise is also pointed out by the apostle Paul in Romans 8:21, where Paul says that: "The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of men." The glory of our freedom in Christ is going to be reflected in a world where it is returned to its natural fruitfulness.

Genesis 3:17-19 tell about a wonderful earth that God created, and the wonderful fruitfulness it had. Man's sin brought a curse upon the earth. Well, that curse is what is going to be changed. And the natural resources of the earth are going to be joined with technological advances for maximum blessing of mankind.

The scientists of the world (the little gods of our society), 1,000 of them have gathered in a major city for a conference on the environment. One of the first things that they have issued is that the world now has about six billion people, but that within the short time of something like ten or twelve years, coming into the new millennium, that the earth can only sustain two billion people. That means that four billion of you undesirable types must be removed from the earth. The question is going to be interesting to see how they're going to explain how we're going to cut down the population from six billion to two billion. These guys are crazy? Yeah, you betcha. But they are scientists. When they make a declaration, it is true. How dare you question the scientists?

However, you say, "15 years ago, we were all being warned about the earth getting colder. All of us went out and we bought fur coats. I still have mine, because I didn't want to get caught in the new ice age which was coming." I mean, I'm listening to this all the time, and I'm hearing it on the news. The people on TV were saying that a terrible ice age was coming: "And as winters are getting colder, things are getting worse." You say, "But you were wrong. Now you're telling us it's getting hotter." They said, "Well, no, we're not wrong. The facts that we had at the time weren't exactly correct, and our interpretations was right." But if you have your facts wrong, that's not very scientific.

However, these people view themselves as gods. Now, it's earth warming, which the earth is not doing now. It's ozone the hole, and there is no ozone hole. You cannot beat the earth to pieces. God has created a creation here that is so resilient; that is so marvelous; and, that is so capable of rejuvenating itself, you cannot stomp the earth into oblivion. All of the liberals run their hands about all of the oil spills around the world, and bemoan the fact that we're using fossil fuel, and we must stop it, because we can spill it. With the Valdez spill in Alaska, everything is better than ever with the fishing – greater than it has ever been before. Are you hearing about it? No, because it would make fools look like fools. So, they try to keep it undercover that the earth has a natural rejuvenating power.

That's the same with ozone. It's created by the billions of gallons, or however you measure ozone every day, because the sun is always cranking it out. There is no way to put a hole up there.

This is the ridiculousness of how men handle natural resources. The truth of the matter is we could have 15 billion or more people on this earth, and the earth is fully capable of handling it. One radio commentator pointed out that if you took all the 6 billion people in this world, and you put them in a house (of I think he said of 1,500 square feet), you could put all of them in the state of Texas: the whole shebang, leaving an awful lot of room for us to go camping in and doing other things in. We are not pressed for space, and we are not pressed for natural resources. And we're not pressed for food. It is just this inherent desire for government to exercise power over people. That's what this all about. That's what all the environment thing is about. It is a new avenue of socialism.

There were other avenues before, but now with communism busted up, they can't use an economic approach now. They use environment. We have had more government controls, and the liberals keep saying that we've got to have more government regulations. Man is going to find that Christ is going to wipe all this out. He's going to restore the natural ability of the earth to maximum productivity. Man is no longer going to have to eke out a living. That's one of the nice things about the return of Christ.

Of course, one of the very important things that Christ is going to return for is to fulfill the promise to His people Israel to regather them. God said, "I'm going to scatter you all over the face of the earth if you keep disobeying Me." And they did, and He did. Joel 3:1 says, "For behold, in those days, and at that time when I restore the fortunes of Judah in Jerusalem," speaking about the Second Coming of Christ.

Zechariah 10:8-11 says, "I will whistle for them to gather them together." I like that phrase. Here's God. He whistles, and the Jews come running from all over everywhere. It is this Scripture which I have used for years with my children, and now my grandchildren. We have a custom. When they hear three whistles from me, that's a signal to come to the whistle. All I have to do is put my head out the door, and I whistle three times, and in a few moments, there's a bunch of dust, and clouds flying, and heels running, and in through the door comes the object of that whistle. They know what that means.

God is going to use the same system: "I will whistle for them to gather them together, for I have redeemed them, and they will be as numerous as they were before. I'm going to put them all back together. I have stripped them down. When I scatter them among the peoples, they will remember Me in far countries, and they, with their children, will live and come back. I will bring them back from the land of Egypt. I'll gather them from Assyria. I will bring them into the land of Gilead in Lebanon until no room can be found for them. And he will pass through the sea of distress, and strike the waves of the sea, so that all the depths of the Nile will dry up, and the pride of Assyria will be brought down. The scepter of Egypt will depart." God will judge the nations which have abused the Jews, but the Jews are going to be brought back together.

This will fulfill, of course, God's longstanding promise to together these people. Here again, those who dismiss the millennium as a real period of human history find a very big problem: what to do with the Jew today? This infinitesimal, insignificant number of people are increasing the focus of world conflict. What is it that you think that the Muslims hate the United States for? Why do you think they have declared Christians, whom they consider the people of the book of the Scriptures as infidels who are now to come under the attacks of Muslims? Well, it's because we are sympathetic to Israel. We are the friends of the Jews as God's earthly people.

The Jews have begun regathering today, but they're gathering back into Israel in unbelief. They, furthermore, only possess a small portion of the land once promised to them. It was a promise to Abraham. They're going to get all of it in the future. During the millennium, Israel will be the only superpower on the face of the earth under the kingship of Jesus Christ.

Jerusalem, in the millennium itself, is going to be also the spiritual center of the world for the worship of God. Zechariah 8:23 says, "Thus says the Lord of Hosts." Please understand that when the Bible talks about "the Lord of hosts," that word "host" means "the army" – this military picture of God again. He is the Lord of the armies: "In these days, ten men from all the nations." This is in the millennium: "Ten men from all nations will grasp the garment of the Jews, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." They are coming to Jerusalem to find out about the things of God.

Isn't that great – to have a nation that other people come to and say, "I want to go to that country because I can learn the truth about God?" That's what used to be characteristic of our country. People who came for economic advantage also respected the fact (they made the connection) that we are a nation blessed economically because we are a biblical people, and we follow biblical principles. That is no longer true. We are increasingly less blessed financially and economically, because we've abandoned the principles of the Word of God.

This is the kingdom of righteousness that the Old Testament prophets have so long ago promised would come upon this earth. This Millennial Kingdom at the Second Coming of Christ. Isaiah 31:1 says, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many, and the horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the holy one of Israel nor seek the Lord."

Jesus Christ will Reign over the Whole Earth

Here, in Revelation 20:4, we read, "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus, and because of the Word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and upon their hands. And they came to life, and they reigned with Christ for 1,000 years here." Here is a specific promise to tribulation saints. They will reign in the millennium. We Christians will be reigning as the bride of Christ.

All the nations will be ruled by, indeed, a world government. Isn't it interesting that the world today cannot wait to come under a world government? It cannot wait to undermine our national sovereignties, so that we can be under the authority of a world government. The will of God is going to be done on earth then as it is now in heaven.

How are you going to describe Jesus Christ? What kind of a ruler will this man be? He will be, as one Dallas seminary professor once told us, a beneficent dictator. That's exactly what He'll be. Yes, He'll be a dictator. He'll rule that world government with a rod of iron, He tells us. And He will rule it on the basis of righteousness and integrity. Therefore, He will be a beneficent dictator. Jesus Christ will be a political ruler, of all things, who is functioning on the essence of God. Can you imagine such a thing – having someone who's in a position of political authority over your life, who operates from the qualities of the essence of God?

Every now and then, on the human scene, arises a man who bears a reflection of the qualities that make up the essence of God. He has righteousness; he has personal love; he has the qualities of eternal life; he has knowledge (not omniscience); he has power that he's been given (not omnipotence); he has a capacity to move around (not omnipresence) he has, above all, justice; and, he has veracity. He has all these qualities that make up the character of God, but on a finite level. If you have a man like that who comes on the scene and wants to hold political office, put him in, because that's the kind of person who will be in the pattern of the greatest political leader this world will ever see, when Christ becomes King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

Back to the Revelation index