The Bible clearly teaches that society will degenerate in the end times, becoming as evil as it was in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-39). The Apostle Paul, speaking as a prophet, says that society will descend into a black pit of immorality, violence, and paganism (2 Timothy 3:1-5). He asserts that men will be “lovers of self, lovers of money, and lovers of pleasure.” People will be “boastful, arrogant, and unholy,” and children will be “disobedient to parents.”

Sounds like the evening news, doesn’t it? In short, we have arrived.

Signs of Coming Persecution
We should be deeply concerned over these developments, not only because we are witnessing the destruction of our beloved America, but because both Jesus and Paul prophesied that when these things occur, the Church will come under attack and individual Christians will be persecuted.

Jesus said that as lawlessness increases, “most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). He stated that in this hostile atmosphere, many professing Christians will “fall away” and will proceed to cooperate in the persecution of their former brothers and sisters in Christ (Matthew 24:10). Paul indicates the same thing when he says that people will be “haters of good” and that they will therefore be “brutal” and “reckless,” reviling those who stand for righteousness (2 Timothy 3:2-4).

We are watching these prophecies come true today before our very eyes, both here in America and around the world. As our culture has secularized and paganized, Christianity, the Church, and Christians have come under increasing attack as “intolerant bigots.” (See Dennis Pollock’s editorial on page 9.) The attacks are going to intensify, and it is going to become increasingly difficult for Christians to stand for righteousness. Jobs will be lost. Careers will be destroyed. Christians will even be sent to prison for speaking out against evils like homosexuality because such pronouncements will be labeled as “hate crimes.”

What then are those of us who love Jesus to do as we face a rising wave of ridicule, harassment, and persecution for our faith? How shall we live for Christ in the end times? Let me suggest a few guidelines.

1) Order Your Priorities —

The starting point is to review your priorities and make certain that God is first in your life. Be honest with yourself. Don’t play games. Don’t kid yourself.

Most Christians have allowed their priorities to get very mixed up. Usually, job or career is number one, family is second, and God is third or even fourth behind an obsession with sports or something similar.

Ask yourself this question: If God were to give you the opportunity to make one request, what would it be? Would you ask for money? Power? Fame? Success?

Solomon asked for wisdom, but David asked for something ten thousand times more profound — he asked for intimacy with God (Psalm 27:4). And, because he put God first, he states in Psalm 27 that he did not fear life (verse 1) or death (verse 13). It is also the reason that he is remembered as “the man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22).

2) Stand on the Word —

The Bible says that the end times will be an age of deception (Matthew 24:24, 1 Timothy 4:1, and 2 Timothy 4: 3-4). In fulfillment of that prophecy, we are today being bombarded with false but alluring religious systems offered by the Christian cults, Eastern religions, and the New Age Movement.

Most professing Christians are sitting ducks for spiritual deception because the average Christian is not certain what he believes. And even when he is able to articulate a belief, he usually does not know why he believes it. The result is that a Jehovah’s Witness can turn the average Christian into a theological pretzel in two minutes flat.

Anyone can be deceived. If you are to guard yourself against deception, you must get into the Word and stay in it on a daily basis. Also, you must test everything by the Word (1 John 4:1). For Catholics this means discarding doctrines like purgatory that have no basis in the Word whatsoever. For Protestants it means being alert to the twisting of scriptures or the manipulation of verses out of context. On every doctrine, the Bible needs to be searched from Genesis to Revelation to see what is said about the particular topic.

3) Believe in the Power of God —

I am convinced that most professing Christians are deists. A deist is a person who believes in an impersonal god who never intervenes in human affairs. According to Deism, we are supposed to cope with our god-given reason, our talents, and the wisdom of the Scriptures. As far as the deist is concerned, at the end of the First Century, God retired, the supernatural ceased, and the age of miracles came to an end.

But the Hebrew Scriptures teach that God never changes (Malachi 3:6). And the New Testament specifically states that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, yes and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

There is no way we can cope with the evil of end time society in our own strength. Anyone who tries to do so will be defeated. Our only hope is to turn to a God who is alive and well, who is still on the throne, who hears prayer and answers prayer, and who still performs miracles.

We must realize that the Bible teaches that we can limit God by our unbelief. This a great paradox. Think about it — although God is all-powerful (Luke 1: 37), we who are powerless in comparison can nonetheless limit His power by our unbelief (Mark 6:1-6). That’s because God is a gentleman. He does not force Himself upon us. If we want to try to cope on our own, He will let us. He responds when we reach out to Him in faith (James 1:6).

4) Persist in Prayer —

One of the greatest blessings God has given believers is supernatural communication. God cares for us personally (1 Peter 5:7), and He desires to communicate with us (James 4:8). Because He loves us, He earnestly desires our fellowship (John 4:23).

The tragedy is that most professing Christians seem to be inclined to turn to prayer as a last resort — only when all else has failed and the situation has become desperate. Some of this reluctance to seek God in prayer is due to pride, and thus the Scriptures continually exhort us to humble ourselves (1 Peter 5:6). Others fail to depend on prayer because of unbelief. They either think God doesn’t care, or else they think He is no longer active in history.

But the Bible says “we do not have because we do not ask” (James 4:2). How many blessings of God have you left on the table because you tried to handle your problems yourself? The Bible also says that “the prayers of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James 5:16). Do you interpret this to mean that the power of your prayers depends on your righteousness? That is not what it means. If you are truly born again, then you are a righteous person because you are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus (Isaiah 61:10).

5) Rely on the Holy Spirit —

Most professing Christians seem to be afraid of the Holy Spirit. This is usually due to a lack of knowledge concerning the Spirit. For example, there is a tendency to write off the Holy Spirit as some sort of impersonal force — like “The Force” in Star Wars.

We need to understand that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is the supernatural presence of God in the world today. He performs a dual role. For the unbeliever, He is God’s Evangelist. He is the one who works on human hearts to draw them to the Cross in repentance. No one is saved apart from the testimony of the Spirit (John 6:44 & 65).

With regard to the believer, the Holy Spirit is God’s indwelling presence to provide us with power and guidance. He is our Enabler. He is also God’s Potter, for one of His basic responsibilities is to daily shape believers more fully into the image of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

One of the ironies of the Christian life is that we cannot serve God in our own power. Rather, the only way we can effectively serve the Lord is by relying on the power of His Holy Spirit who resides within us. It is possible to quench and grieve the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19 and Ephesians 4:30).

The Word calls on us to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). This can happen only if we are willing to release the Spirit to become the Lord of our lives. Most of us are content to let the Spirit be resident in our lives. He does not want to be simply a resident; He desires to be president.

Is that the case in your life? Is the Holy Spirit on the throne of your life? Or is He being treated as an unwelcome guest? There is no way you will be able to withstand the pressures of end time society without relying daily on the power of God’s Spirit.

6) Practice Tough Faith —

Faith comes easy when everything is going smoothly. When there is good health and prosperity, it is easy to praise the Lord. The test of faith comes when all the circumstances of life turn sour.

God has not promised believers a rose garden. We live in a fallen world. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. The wicked prosper. Justice seldom prevails.

It is easy for the righteous to grow discouraged. This calls for the practice of tough faith — the kind of faith that is not dependent on circumstances. It’s the kind of faith that hangs in there when the going gets tough because of a confident belief that “all things work together for good for those who love the Lord” (Romans 8:28).

God never promises that believers will be immune to suffering. What He does promise is that He will be there to walk through the trials with us. He promises to be beside us when we “pass through the waters” and “walk through the fire” (Isaiah 43:2). And He states that He will be there when we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4).

What is the quality of your faith? When life turns sour, do you turn to God, or do you question Him or even curse Him? One of the keys to hanging tough is to learn the promises of God’s Word (like Philippians 4:6-7, 11-13, and 19) and start claiming them in prayer when confronted with the challenges of life.

7) Keep an Eternal Perspective —

We are to be in the world but not of the world (John 17:11 & 16). That’s a difficult principle to follow. It constitutes a daily struggle.

It is so easy to get our eyes off the Lord and focus instead upon the world in which we live. The daily demands are so pressing. And one of the greatest of those demands is that we conform to the world — to the world’s language, dress, entertainment, and values.

That’s why we are constantly exhorted in Scripture to consider ourselves as “aliens, exiles, and strangers” who are just passing through this world (Hebrews 11:13 and 1 Peter 2:11). We are told to “set our minds on things above, not on the things that are on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). And we are warned to never fall in love with the world or grow comfortable with it (Romans 12:2 and 1 John 2:15-16). In fact, Jesus said we are to “hate our life in this world” (John 12:25), and His brother, James, said “friendship with the world is hostility toward God” (James 4:4).

What does it mean to hate the world? It means we are to hate the evil world system that prevails in society. We are to hate a system that glorifies violence and immorality and which depreciates the value of life.

As C. S. Lewis once put it, “We are to live like commandos behind the enemy lines, preparing the way for the coming of the Commander-in-Chief.” In other words, we are to live yearning for the day when Jesus will burst from the heavens to bring peace, righteousness, and justice to the earth.

8) Look for Jesus —

This brings us to the final guideline I would like to emphasize regarding how to live for Jesus in the end times. The Bible tells us point blank that we are to live “looking for Jesus” (Titus 2: 13).

Most Christians are so caught up in the world that they live thinking about anything but the return of Jesus. This is a sad state of affairs because Jesus’ return is our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). And His return is imminent.

Another problem is that most Christians know so little about Bible prophecy that they cannot get excited about the Lord’s return. How can you get excited about an event you know nothing about? Ignorance produces apathy.

And apathy about the Lord’s return has tragic consequences. It robs us of an eternal perspective, and it destroys any sense of urgency about reaching lost souls. It also undermines a powerful motivator for holy living.

You see, when a person comes to truly believe that Jesus is returning and may return any moment, that person will be motivated to holiness and evangelism. Regarding holiness, the Apostle John put it this way: “We know that when He appears [the Rapture], we shall be like Him [glorified] . . . And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him, purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). Regarding evangelism, Peter writes that the only reason Jesus has not yet returned is because “God does not wish that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

A Spiritual Mirror
Paul provides us with a spiritual mirror for end time conduct. He says we are to “deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus” (Titus 2:12-13).

When you look into this mirror, what do you see? Are you walking in the center of God’s will? Have you ordered your priorities to put God first? Are you standing on the Word of God, testing everything by it? Do you believe in a personal, caring and all-powerful God who hears prayers and answers prayers, and who still performs miracles? Are you relying daily on the power of the Holy Spirit? Are you practicing tough faith, refusing to allow the calamities of life to overwhelm you? Are you keeping an eternal perspective, refusing to get comfortable with this world? And are you daily looking for Jesus? Is the Rapture in your heart? Is “Maranatha!” on your lips?

Is Jesus Christ returning to this earth to reign over all the nations of the world? Most professing Christians in the world today would answer, “No!” They argue that Jesus will never put His feet on this earth again. They scoff at the very idea that the Lord would even be interested in returning to reign.

Where, then, does the minority view come from? Why do some Christians believe there will be a future, literal, and personal reign of Jesus over all the earth? Are these people victims of wishful thinking? Are they simply harboring a fanciful hope? Or, does their opinion have some basis in Scripture?

Could it possibly be that the majority viewpoint is wrong? If so, then how did the view develop, and what are its scriptural weaknesses and contradictions?

Like Night and Day

The two viewpoints are radically different. For example, the majority view holds that history as we know it will very soon end with the destruction of the earth. In sharp contrast, the minority view looks forward to the continuation of history in a glorious thousand year reign of the Lord here on this earth.

There is no future role for Israel in the majority viewpoint; God has washed His hands of the Jews. The minority view sees the Jews as a nation under discipline, temporarily set aside, but they believe a time is coming very soon when the Church will be taken out of the world, and God will once again focus on the Jews, bringing a great remnant of them to salvation in Yeshua, their Messiah.

The majority view sees no purpose left for this planet. It is polluted and despoiled. When the Lord returns, He will take the redeemed to live with Him forever in Heaven, and the earth will cease to exist, as will all the material universe. Those who hold the minority view believe that God intends to redeem the earth and all of His creation — the plant and animal kingdoms. Further, they believe that the earth will one day be returned to its original perfection and will serve as the eternal abode of the redeemed.

As you can see, the differences are like night and day. An outsider would undoubtedly conclude that the two groups have been reading a different book, for how could people read the same book and come to such totally different conclusions?

The Challenge of Truth Seeking

As the title of this article indicates, I believe the minority viewpoint on this central issue of Scripture is correct, and it is my intention to show you why I believe the Bible teaches that Jesus will return to reign.

I have not come to this conclusion casually. I grew up in a church that taught the majority viewpoint. It was drilled into me at an early age. The road that led me to a different view was a tortuous and painful one. It cost me friends. It brought condemnation upon my head. It finally forced me to leave the church where I had spent 30 years of my life.

But the rewards that come from following the truth of Scripture wherever it might lead are always greater than the disadvantages that may be incurred. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). But He qualified that promise with one condition that is usually overlooked. It is stated in the previous verse: “If you abide in My word” (John 8:31). That’s a big “if.”

As you read this article, I want to challenge you to put aside all preconceptions and traditions of men. Have an open heart, and test what I have to say by the Scriptures and not by the creed of your particular denomination.

I challenge you to be like the Bereans whom Paul commended as “more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

The Biblical Statement

Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. — Revelation 20:6

One of the greatest misconceptions about Scripture that exists among Christians today is that Revelation 20 is the only place in the Bible that mentions a future earthly reign of Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth; for the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is full of references to a future reign of the Messiah on this earth.But let me make something clear. If this passage in Revelation 20 were the only one in the Bible to speak of a future earthly reign of Jesus, I would still believe in such a reign. God doesn’t have to say something more than once for me to believe it. And God clearly says in Revelation 20 that Jesus will reign on this earth for 1,000 years.

The Flow of Events

In chapter 19 of Revelation Jesus returns to the earth and defeats the Antichrist and his false prophet. His next order of business is to bind Satan (Revelation 20:1-3). He then begins His reign with His saints.

Six times in Revelation 20:1-7 we are told that the reign of the Lord will last 1,000 years. Consider Revelation 20:4 for example. The verse says that the saints “came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” What could be clearer? What would God have to do to convince us that He means what He says? Does He have to put the message in the sky with blinking neon lights?

At the end of the thousand years, we are told that Satan will be released “to deceive the nations” (Revelation 20:8). He will rally the majority of Mankind in rebellion against the Lord, and they will march upon Jerusalem to overthrow the Lord’s kingdom. Notice that Revelation 20:9 says that all this action takes place “on the broad plain of the earth.” This is no ethereal battle between spirit beings in the heavens.

As the millennial rebels approach Jerusalem, they are destroyed by fire from heaven (Revelation 20:9), and Satan is thrown into the lake of fire (Hell) where he “will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

Imagination vs. Plain Sense

The message of Revelation 19 and 20 is very clear. A little child could understand it without interpretation. It takes a fanciful flight of imagination to explain away its obvious meaning.

But that is exactly what St. Augustine very successfully accomplished around 400 A.D. when he developed the Amillennial interpretation of Revelation 20. He did it by applying his imagination to the passage and spiritualizing it beyond recognition.

When he got through interpreting the events described in these two chapters, Revelation 19 had been transformed into a description of Christ’s battle on the Cross, and Revelation 20 had been turned into a description of the Lord’s spiritual reign over the world from Heaven through His Church. Satan’s binding was attributed to the Cross and not to the Second Coming.

In other words, Augustine argued that the Millennial reign of the Lord began at the Cross and will continue until He returns for His Church. That means that according to the Amillennial viewpoint we are in the Millennium now! It also means that the 1,000 years mentioned six times in chapter 20 really doesn’t mean 1,000 years. Rather, it is a symbolic number that stands for an indefinite period of time.

This incredibly imaginative interpretation that conflicts with the plain sense meaning of the passage was immediately adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in 431 A.D. It is still Catholic dogma to this day. It has also been adopted by all the liberal, mainline Protestant denominations. In short, this view of end time events is the one that is held by the vast majority of all professing Christians today.

The Imagination Trap

The basic flaw in the whole Amillennial interpretation of Revelation 19 and 20 is rooted in its denial of the plain sense meaning of the passages.

God knows how to communicate, and He desires to communicate. You do not have to have a Ph.D. in hermeneutics or an active imagination to understand His Word.

The book of Revelation begins with the words, “The revelation of Jesus Christ . . .” (Revelation 1:1). The word, revelation, in the Greek is “apocalypse,” which means “an unveiling.” The purpose of the book of Revelation is to reveal or unveil the ultimate triumph of Jesus over Satan. If God’s purpose is to reveal something so significant, why would He write it in a code language that a person cannot understand unless he has graduated from a seminary? It makes no sense.

Advocates of the Amillennial view usually respond by saying that Revelation is full of symbols. Yes, there is a lot of symbolic language in the book, but symbols have a plain sense meaning. They are not used pell-mell, and the reader does not have the freedom to assign any meaning to them that he pleases.

Furthermore, the fulfillment of First Coming prophecies provides the best rule of thumb for the interpretation of Second Coming prophecies. And any cursory examination of First Coming prophecies will quickly reveal that they were fulfilled in their plain sense meaning.

Take for example the prophecy in the book of Zechariah that says the Messiah will come on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). If today’s Amillennial spiritualizers had lived in Old Testament times, I feel certain they would have denied the plain sense meaning of this verse. “Zechariah is apocalyptic literature,” they would have said, “and such literature never means what it says. Therefore, this verse must simply mean that the Messiah will be a humble person.” No, the verse meant what it said, and in fulfillment of it, Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

The bottom line is that when you interpret Scripture imaginatively rather than for its plain sense meaning, you can make it mean whatever you want it to mean, and God’s message gets lost in flights of fancy.

Satan’s Activity

Another flaw in the Amillennial approach is its contention that the binding of Satan that is mentioned in Revelation 20:1-3 occurred at the Cross.

The first thing that must be kept in mind regarding this point is that Satan has always been bound in the sense that he has never had the freedom to do whatever he pleases. Many scholars consider Job to be the oldest book in the Bible. That book begins with Satan standing before the throne of God requesting permission to touch Job, his family, and his possessions. Satan is not omnipotent. He has always worked within parameters laid down by the Lord.

It is true that Satan was further bound by the Cross. As a result of our Lord’s work on the Cross, believers since that time have received the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), and the Scriptures assure us that “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Thus, we now have greater power in resisting the temptations and attacks of Satan than did believers in Old Testament times.

But the binding of Satan that Revelation 20:1-3 says will mark the beginning of the Millennium is a special type of binding that did not occur at the Cross. Revelation says that Satan will be bound in such a way that he will no longer “deceive the nations” (Revelation 20:3).

As you look around the world today and observe the behavior of the nations, can you truly believe that they are no longer deceived? The fact of the matter is that they are terribly deceived. As in the time of David, the nations are “in an uproar,” and their rulers continue to “take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed” (Psalm 2:1-2).

Satan’s Continuing Rule

The third critical flaw in the Amillennial view is the idea that Jesus is reigning today over the nations of the world. This contention is really an insult to the Lord, for if He is ruling, He is doing a very poor job! We live in a world characterized by injustice, poverty, pestilence, and terrorism — to name only a few of our planet’s maladies.

The Word says that when the Lord reigns, “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). Is this true today? Has it ever been? Of course not!

We are told in 1 Peter 5:8 that Satan still prowls about “like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” And in 1 John 5:19, written long after the Cross, we are told that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” The Scriptures make it clear that Satan continues as “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31).

The Cross sealed the fate of Satan. He is a mortally wounded monarch who is desperately clinging to his kingdom. One day soon when the Lord returns, Satan will be crushed under the feet of the redeemed (Romans 16: 20). But the total defeat of Satan is yet future. It is one of the benefits of the Cross that has not yet become a reality in history.

Jesus’ Ultimate Triumph

As a result of the Cross, Jesus has won back the dominion over this earth that was lost by Adam and Eve when they sinned against God (Daniel 7:13-14 and Revelation 5:9-10). But, He is not yet exercising that dominion. The writer of Hebrews makes this point. He says that Jesus has been crowned with glory and honor and that God “has put all things in subjection under His feet” (Hebrews 2:7-8), but then he proceeds to observe: “But now we do not yet see all things subjected to Him” (Hebrews 2:8).

Some of the benefits of the Cross are delayed and will not be realized until Jesus returns. For example, the Cross guarantees the salvation of believer’s bodies, but that blessing of glorification will not be realized until “the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). This phrase is a reference to the resurrection of the saints, something that Paul makes clear a few verses later (Romans 8:23).

In like manner, the Cross guarantees the total defeat of Satan and the ultimate triumph of Jesus as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 17:14). But that triumph will not occur in history until the Lord returns. In this regard, Jesus is like David when he was anointed the King of Israel but then had to wait a long time before he took possession of his kingdom.

Accordingly, Jesus is not portrayed in Scripture as being a reigning king now. Rather, He is pictured as our High Priest before the throne of God (Hebrews 8:1). He is our mediator, our intercessor (Hebrews 9:11-16).

When He came the first time, He came as our Savior. He is now our Mediator. He will return as our Sovereign. Redeemer, Priest, and King — those are the three roles of Jesus — past, present, and future.

Revelation 19:11 says that when Jesus returns, His initial purpose will be to judge and make war against the enemies of God. But verse 16 reveals that His ultimate purpose will be to serve as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Long before Revelation was written, the prophet Zechariah had revealed the same thing. In portraying the Lord’s return, He pictured the Lord destroying the nations rebelling against God, and when that work is completed, he states “the Lord will be king over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:9).

Revelation 19 and 20 clearly establish the fact that Jesus is going to return to reign — but there are other reasons I believe in such a future reign on this earth. Next month, the Lord willing, I will present detailed scriptural evidence from both the Old and New Testaments.