Post-millennialism is one of three major theories about the Biblical millennium, the other two being Pre-millennialism or A-millennialism.  These three descriptors are actually adjectives describing the Return of Christ with reference to the timing of the 1000 years of the “Millennium”. Post-Millennialism pictures the 1000 years as being a successful period of Church influence such as to bring about the dawn of a better world. Initially, in times of conservative Christianity, this was seen as due to the success of Christian mission introducing “a bright new world of peace and happiness”. Later Post-millennialism, still with an optimistic note, but with more liberal understanding of the influence of the Church, explained the expected uplift as due to scientific advancement, ethical improvement of society and/or evolution. Post-millennialism of this sort sees the societal uplift due to causes such as evolution or technological advancement.  Post-millennialism today sometimes seeks to fit in with Liberal theology reinterpreting the Gospel, with the uplift as caused by social or technological progress. Finally, when focus is taken back to what the Book of Revelation actually says, Revelation 20:4-6 describes events that seem to contradict post-millennial interpretations.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] A little bit of an experiment in the fact that what I will talk about is the different theories about the 1,000 years called the millennium. And this word millennium is just the Latin word for a thousand years. So it turns up in the Bible, and the people who wrote the Bible didn’t know that we used a Latin word to describe it. But it’s here in Revelation in chapter 20 verses 4 to 6. So if you want to turn to in the Scriptures in your pure Bibles or whatever Bible you have, to that, or you can look on the screen And it says, Then I saw thrones and sealed on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed, a throne where some people sit, where they re making decisions, leading, and they re in charge. So I saw thrown and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.

[00:01:15] and also, I saw the souls that’s interesting how did he see the soul What does it mean? I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded,” … well now we know he’s not just seeing their bodies it would be rather grotesque but I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the Word of God and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. And the next part, this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the One who shares in the first resurrection,

[00:02:11] over such the second death has no power. But they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with Him for a thousand years. The idea of Christians reigning with Christ for a thousand years is central this very idea of the millennium. What I wanted to do tonight, which is the experimental part, is to structure my talk around the fact that there are three major theories about this millennium as to when exactly it happens. I think only the people who believe the Bible believe it happens, there are plenty of people believe it at all, but if you read the scriptures and you have this passage you’ve got to make something of it. But there are three major theories as to

[00:03:04] this idea of there being a thousand years which is called the Millennium. And so in the three basic ideas, there are ideas as to the timing of when it’s going to happen, and maybe where how literal it is, or how symbolic it is. So So the idea of there being three major theories is what we’re talking about. And so of these three major theories we have of the three, they’re indicated by using adjectives. Now I always like to use a bit of English teaching to help us understand, but when you say something’s an adjective, what part of speech are you talking about? Come on you all know this I’m sure.

[00:03:53] What part of speech is an adjective? What does it do? Say again. Okay, it’s helping out a noun. There’s got to be some thing that is known, talked about, designated, that the adjective gives a little bit of extra. For example, if I said that I have got a black cat, I don’t, my cat is not black, it’s Brinley’s cat anyway, but the word black is acting as an adjective, helping us know a bit about the cat. When we are using an adjective

[00:04:33] when it comes to the millennium, we’re talking about whether it’s going to come before or something is going to come before a millennium, something is going to come when, without reference to a millennium, and some he’s gonna come after a millennium, depending on what that is and so we talk about there being a coming of Jesus and it’s really the coming of Christ, His second Advent. The first Advent is Christmas, the second Advent is when He’s going to return and if the second Advent of Christ is understood to come after a millennium, then it means that this a thousand years happens first and then Jesus comes.

[00:05:15] And you call that post-millennial. Jesus’s Second Coming is post-millennial after millennium. If you don’t really believe that there is going to be an actual millennium then you use the little word, a, which means not or none, amillennial and you’d say the Second Coming of Jesus is amillennial, meaning there is no millennium that has to come before or after. For if you think that Jesus is going to come before a thousand years where He rules with His saints, then you’d say that the second coming of Jesus is Premillennial. There’s Post Millennial, Amillennial and Premillennial, and the business of the Post, a, and pre is turning that into an adjective as to when Jesus comes.

[00:06:05] of Christ and you think, no, he’s going to come after the Gospel has done real well and many people converted. Then you’d say that he is A. pushed me is a is coming in post-millennial. If you think that there’s no millennium—this is just the The book of Revelation writing up fancy stuffs that don’t mean anything. Then you say, Jesus is coming. Second coming is a millennial in it. But if you think that Jesus has to come again in order for there to be His rule that covers 1000 years than you say his coming is is pre-millennial. Okay you got the idea? Alright.

[00:06:56] what I was planning to do is not try and do all three of those in one night but just to pick on the first of them post-millennialism, that’s the isn of being a post-millennial or believing the post-millennial idea of The Coming of Christ,he comes after a thousand years and we’ll start with that one and perhaps another night we’ll get into each in turn of the others. So the The idea is to really underscore about the connection between the first coming of Jesus and whether or not there is need for Him to be successful in the church and successful with the Gospel in order for there to be introduced to a golden era. The idea of a millennium is not just that there is a period of time which is called the thousand years but that it is a time where the Gospel is successful, and where many people

[00:07:48] have come to Christ. You may not recognise it that if you have been to a formal church, one that has a hymn Book, that is a formal Church, there are these days, and we did have hymn books, they are all stashed out on the back, I’ve saved them from being thrown out and have gotten them, by my part, near my little library. But the hymn Books, if you were to look up and try and find a song that people used to sing formally in church, that had to do with this, There was a very beautiful one and it was popularized actually by some very famous popularizes of Christian songs. Ralph Carmichael was one such person.

[00:08:31] This song runs like this, Someday a bright new wave will break upon our shore and there will be no more sickness, no more crying, no more war. Little children never will grow hungry anymore – there will be a bright new morning over there, there will be a bright new world for us to share. Some day, there will be an end to unkind words and cruel. The man who says there isn’t a God will know he is a fool. And peace will be a way of life and love, the only rule. There will be a bright new world for us to share. The final verse.

[00:09:22] Someday we know not when, when time on earth is done, and the redeemed from every land will all become as one. With voices, and I wrote this quickly, with voices all ways of praising God, the three in one. And there’ll be a bright new morning over there, a bright new world to share. I actually loved that song and used to love singing it back in the days when the the church I went to had hymns. I loved it because of the optimism and the future regard, that one day Christianity’s going to win over the world. But it has the idea that it will be some day that will just come and it doesn’t really specify what makes it come, except the people who popularized the song, not necessarily really Ralph Carmichael who was one of the singers, but the people who wrote the song

[00:10:32] believe that this would be the fruit of the gospel. And there was an era when people in the Christian churches believed that they were on a good thing in sending folk on missions, and one day the mission work around the world was going to win the world! And that would introduce a Christian era that was that bright new wave, breaking upon our That is, the hope that post-millennialism had at a certain time when the Christian gospel and mission of it, with it, was succeeding bit by bit around the world, although it had a long way to go, and that was something called post-millennialism — when did the idea of post-millennialism start? Well it actually started back in the early days of Christianity.

[00:11:22] Christianity it certainly started at a time when there hadn’t been a whole thousand years go by. If you have the time clock running around and you get past a thousand years then you can’t think that the a thousand years is what you are presently in or you have been in since the founding of the Church. The only thing about it is that this is the same church which gave us the Bible that we have that very clearly teaches that Jesus Christ is going to come back again. And so the second return of Christ, remember we talked about the second end of Christ. Is therefore, not going to be post-millennial. How would you have to describe the Second Coming of Christ

[00:12:07] if you thought it’s going to be after the first thousand years? His coming is going to be post-millennial. It is. A thousand years is the first thousand year of the Christian era having become involved in its evangelism the mission of eventually getting to be victorious in it, so we Christianize the world and Jesus Christ comes at the end of that thousand years. That will be post-millennial. Now, as time passed, however, what exactly happened was that number one, the Christian Church didn’t maintain the same idea of the gospel. The Christian Church often had other interpretations as to what exactly was the good news. In fact, if you were to go and do yourself a little survey around various churches of different denominations, you would find there’s quite a

[00:13:12] vast array of different ideas as what is the Christian gospel. This always absolutely amazes me because it’s as clear as anything in the Scriptures! But that doesn’t take into account the people who read the Scriptures, depending on what presuppositions they have and what is the amount of spiritual sight they have, and how they treat the Bible and actually believe what it says. And so some people read the Bible in such a way as that they reinterpret what is the gospel. And you’d be surprised at just how multi-variant it is around the world when you say to some of what about the gospel. Yet, it’s very clear in the Scriptures. Tell me a couple of ways, or tell me one for a start.

[00:14:01] What’s the most clear way that we can know what the gospel is? I’m staggered, you’re not all putting hands up. What’s the clearest way we should be able to know what the Gospel is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve, well, and we could be more particular, what about those scriptures? Hey, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Yes, I called the guy, well done, Joey. I mean, it was your son, wasn’t it? Unless you were being a ventriloquist. Yeah, because we’ve got the Gospel, because the first four books of the New Testament are called Gospels, and they called Gospels.

[00:14:42] That wasn’t… we didn’t dub those names onto them, they were, as they were recognized by the First Church. And they’re a Gospel. It’s not that they alone give us a testimony as to what is the Gospel, but we find that in some of the other New Testament books, in fact, quite a lot of them will give us extra information. Who can tell me at least one other book of the New Testament that is really big on How does it tell us what is the Gospel? Straightforwardly, what is? Well, because it recites the spread of this message and the calls of the Gospel.

[00:15:40] I had the joy with some people who hadn’t really had a good idea of what was the Gospel to take them to a passage so defining it which was the Ethiopian eudic, and how Philip gets is told by the Spirit to go and join the Chariot and listen him, and he’s reading from the Old Testament. And as he’s reading, he asks Philip a question. He says, about whom is this talking? Himself or someone else? It’s talking about a person who was severely hurt. And the Ethiopian eunuch, that answers, Philip actually gets up from the Chariot and describes him, and it says, beginning at the same scripture which was from Isaiah, he told

[00:16:21] him the good news or gospel of Jesus. He told him about how Jesus came and died on the cross and offers a Forgiveness of sins. The man got the gospel. So we know from the book of Acts, because it keeps telling about the spread of it and about the people who were converted under it. That’s a very good answer. But it wasn’t the one I was fishing for. There’s another spot that tells us the Gospel. Romans. I didn’t hear where that voice came from. It was a cop-hard voice. The Book of Romans. Give me a little bit of extra. How does the Book of Romans tell us what is the Gospel? Yes, you do. Can I mention the Roman robe, which is a set of verses from the Book of Romans that will

[00:17:26] take you through the Gospel? It’s very excellent to give in short compass to what is the Gospel from the book of Romans. So you know from what that book is. It’s a book about the Gospel. Another one that’s good, and I was fishing for this one, was the book of First Corinthians. Let’s just test your knowledge a bit from just the top of your heads. What part of First Corinthians is very important to give us the real grit of what the Gospel is about? You You may not remember the chapter but do you remember what it says? Not you Ken, I know you know. What is there in the book of 1 Corinthians that tells us what is the gospel? Anybody got an idea? You don’t have to remember the chapter but do you remember roughly what it says?

[00:18:23] Well I’ll give you a hint, it saunts off, I would remind you brethren, in what terms I preached to you the Gospel, in what way and how I came to preach the Gospel. He goes on to say that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. It goes on to say that he was buried and he rose again according to the Scriptures and that he was seen by many. V Corinthians 15. The manner in which he first came and got those Corinthians converted was with an understanding of the Gospel to be about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he died on the cross, how he died for our sins, how he rose again, and he’s been seen alive after the resurrection. The death and resurrection of Christ because of the need of our sins, that’s the Gospel

[00:19:26] or the core of it. There’s a lot more to the Gospel but nonetheless that’s what the Scriptures tell us. So why worry on about that? Well, the church lost the Gospel. And bit by bit other ideas came in that the thing that we got to do is help people. That’s not a bad idea, it’s a Christian idea I might say but it’s not the Gospel, or the we should be people who seek to uplift others and fulfill needs. Once again a very Christian thing to do. The Gospel is a specific message as to how you get right with God, and it is through the action of Jesus coming and dying on the cross and rising again, returning to heaven and offering the forgiveness of sins.

[00:20:11] So the Gospel is a known message in the Scriptures, but you see what happened was, the church lost its Gospel, and they started spending their time doing other things. If you start up a Christian mission, or a Christian group, to be a Gospelizing group, it gets buffeted and it gets attacked, and somehow the devil gets into weevil Christians out of their Gospel. And you find there’s lots of organizations, I won’t list them names, but it happens to every single one to get pressure, to lose its message. if you want to know what the devil will want to do to our church, it’s just to get us away from having as central, this message about the Lord Jesus Christ

[00:20:58] and how He died on the cross for our sins and rose again. It doesn’t mean that we have to preach on it every Sunday, but it means it’s got to be central to what makes us a church. In fact in the theology textbooks I used to teach about when I was a theological teacher, the chief one that we had at the baptist churches around the world like to use was a text that says, the church lives on its gospel and if you take the gospel out of the church, what happens to that group, it ceases to be a church. It becomes a club. And that pressure that comes upon Christian organizations,

[00:21:38] Christian movements, theological colleges, all sorts of things that are Christian, is constant all around the world. There’s pressure to get us away from our message. And the message is the gospel because it’s the message that makes us Christians. And that is something I’m staggered at. How many people don’t know that. And I’m staggered at how many other gospels there are that people have. There are true aspects of the Gospel but with the loss of the aim of how Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15. Well, when the Gospel is lost then people look to some other things to be the explanation for how the world is getting to be a better place.

[00:22:27] Anybody got any ideas as to what might be the Western world in particular? to for making the world a better place, other than what is the gospel. All the isms, actually that’s a far more true answer than you might realise. Because there’s an awful lot of things that societies get caught up with as to what they’ve got to do. Some of it can have elements of – that is a needful thing to happen – and And some of it is quite wrong, but individualism is where people become more and more selfish. And if you could get rid of that and get them to be other oriented, you’d be doing a lot of good for that society. That’s quite a true thought. But it’s not the Gospel. And that’s an interesting thing, you know? Someday a bright new world will break up Then it talks about there’ll be no more harsh words, no more war and all the things.

[00:23:32] That’s an optimism in there being a turning away from the evil things. You know how the world’s down through history, if you’ve done any study of history how many years of that history is where there was no war going on somewhere and the answer is very World Wars in particular just keep on turning up or Wars in one little part, and so this world of ours has been something that has lost its gospel again and again. And when you lose the gospel, generally speaking you land on something else. I had been asking the question, what is it that the Western world landed on that would be that which they think would help us to have the bright new wave breaking up on our shores.

[00:24:19] Give me something that society has rest it in to be the thing to bring about the bright new land, bright new world. Say again. Politics. Politics. Well your not suggesting not to have politics. . Alright, there is something about politics that in itself, there are some politics better than others but it is not the answer on its own. Give us another one. Anybody else?

[00:24:55] What else has been used by the Western world to think they are on the rise? . I heard several at once. What did you say? Technology. Technology – yes that’s right. Technology and the increase – actually, that’s just a specific… that will be under the subset, was the subset underneath the idea of scientific increase or the increase in knowledge of the sciences. And in our western history, actually due to the Christian base that we had in it, there was a rise in the trust in the sciences. I believe you can make a strong case for the the sciences came about because of the Christian underpinning of the way we thought. If it

[00:25:40] wasn’t for Christianity you wouldn’t have had the sciences rise as they did. Those sciences you usually buy, some of the chief protagonists of the place of science, were Christians. Now sure there is the argument people bring up about whether the world is flat, whether Sun’s around and whether the Sun goes around the Earth, or whether the Earth goes around the Sun, all those questions that happened back in history, they may be misunderstandings about the Science. But it is the seeking out of truth, the truths of science that arose actually because of Christianity. But people tended to enthrone Science of the Course, the movement of all the increase in medicine and the knowledge we had to have better living, since there’s not knowledge about how to grow the food. And so all of that became that which the Western world trusted in. The only

[00:26:46] very, very obvious. There sometimes are ideologies that different people around the world of taken on board you might have heard me tell of the philosophy lecture that I sat in South Australia and Adelaide, Adelaide University, where the fellow who was studying the giving the course the course’s name was to do with communism but it was on what was the proper name of it, the ideology the underpins communism it’s going to come back to me in a minute And, he said I am someone who no longer believes in communism. But, he was about to give a course. And, in particular to the ideology, that underpins it, the idea of thesis, antithesis, synthesis and the jerky relationship between the new idea and the getting opposition and having

[00:27:40] a squabble, the squabble taking over and becoming the new idea that someone else has to have a squabble with. And that jerking antithesis, synthesis, will eventually, according to the ideology, end up in a utopia. And he announced on the first day, he says, I used to believe this, and I don’t anymore, and a lot of us put our pens down. We’re about to learn from the expert about this particular ideology, and here he is, he can’t even say that he believes in it anymore. But he went on to say because the ideology makes a prediction. And the prediction is that if you get the thesis, antithesis, synthesis and keep on doing it, you’ll end up at a utopia. But the trouble is, he said, all around the world there’ve been people swallowing this ideology. And it hasn’t happened anywhere around the world.

[00:28:39] None of them have arrived at the Utopia. And he said, therefore by its own terms it has not proven itself to be correct. And wow, I sat there absolutely stunned at him saying that, although it did spark an an idea, what is it that we Christians have that could be looked at as an ideology that could be testable in history, which is what led me to do a whole dissertation of it. But I won’t go into that now. Now, here we’re talking about the fact about the arise of the sciences and the arise of the optimism of the Western world that by the new discoveries they’re making and by the medicines that people are finding and by the explorations they’re going and by by our conquering in all the world, and getting our handle on the diseases etc., we were going

[00:29:34] to have this bright new world. It is evolution in its role in the uplift of creation, in the uplift of our physical existence, was going to be what would lead us into a bright New World. But has it happened? No. I saw self-evidence today and there’s an awful lot of defeatism, an awful lot of people in nothing or this form of nihilism about because the hope that we had in evolution to produce the bright new world has not produced it. And there to where do people go? The hopelessness of our age is largely because of all the reasons why people believe who are making some progress have failed us. Someone else earlier said, politics. Politics, I think the amount of trust that I can discern in our nation of Australia, we’ve got good politics compared to other places.

[00:30:40] Is a lot lower now than once it was. And all the things that we trust in are not working it out. Well, that’s one of the reasons why this type of understanding, which is called post-millennialism is one that has lost its popularity. There still are people who do believe it, and there are philosophers who would say yes that’s the one that is the best, but the popularity of it amongst the masses has disappeared. Not that they’ve necessarily turned to a better theory, but they are no longer being optimistic is where the world is heading.

[00:31:18] There are some other reasons why the post-millennial position is very difficult. One reason is that the Scriptures don’t paint the picture of the millennium happening just because of the success of the Christian gospel. It does believe in there being some gospelizing that’s a success, but when is that successful gospelizing written up to happen. Can I ask the question properly, when in time is the success of the Christian gospel written up is going to happen? Someone help me, you’ve got an idea. Anybody have an idea? When do the scriptures tell us that the gospel is going to succeed after he comes back. The Jews get converted and they go out gospelising. Itís not a total success because there are other players in the story called the Antichrist,

[00:32:23] etc. But it is not a successful era that comes about because of the preaching of the gospel before he comes back so the idea of post millenialism has no longer got as much popularity although there still are people who would choose that over the other two. Well let’s look again at our passage that we’re looking at up on the screen and see what needs to occur. Well first of all the whole business there about they’re being thrones and people who are on the thrones to be able to judge. There is some sense in which God has stepped in to the social order, the political order, the spiritual order of the age that’s being talked about. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image, and had

[00:33:18] not received its mark on their foreheads, or on their hands. Now what this is telling us is that there’s some entity called the beast, or there’s some person that you read about called the anti-Christ. There is some satanic operation going on that there is a tremendous amount of turmoil and difficulty to be occurred by Christians. When people wish to interpret in post-millennial way they try and find some example of there being a political ruler who did a lot of persecution. And there have been plenty of examples that that you could pick on down in the early histories of the church, the early centuries. And there are also times that people could say happening now, where you might just say you’ve got your picture of an anti-Christ in view.

[00:34:08] However, the more you read of this here, the more it sounds like a literal one. And that’s a part of the question that we have to face as to how to interpret this. Well, let’s keep reading, Those who had not worshipped the Beast, or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads and their hands. Now, you’re probably familiar with the fact that often at different times in Western history there have been movements where people said look out the mark of the Beast. I can remember when I had a bank card… anybody here still got a bank card?

[00:34:42] Just let me… so I’m not… You do? OK they still exist. Master cards and other cards seem to… to what I know about, but yeah, when I first did a bank card I actually went to America on the strength of my bank card. And I said, the law will help me out once I get there, and I went to do some study over there. And really interestingly I came across. I had did some time in Dallas. And then I went up to Wheaton College in Chicago. And while I up in Chicago, there were some people there who were also at the Wheaton grade school and who were working there. There was this couple, who were a Christian couple who worked where they give you the food, and they got friendly with me and they began to tell me

[00:35:31] about different people who were having successful evangelisticed preaching around the place. They got me to come and speak at some meetings, and there was a fellow who was on the Seventh Venice guy, but he was a real Christian. The ones that I knew in Australia probably weren’t, but this bloke sure was, and he came with me and we went around. The fella who arranged it actually had a job as a psychologist. He was a research worker in psychology, but he was a Christian with – did a lot of reading about the time of troubles that’s going to come in the book of Revelation, speaking about. But his expertise was about economics and about how to get economies going, and also about currency. He was an expert in currencies, and he

[00:36:20] was employed flying to different places in Europe to help set up businesses and nations, I don’t know what it was nations, but set up big deals to do with the use of money. And then he had a group come to him and say, then we’re planning to push for there to be a 1 European currency. This is how we’re gonna go about it. And he says that I won’t be involved. And they got a shock and they said because the Bible talks about the combining of all the monies and currencies in the end times and the antichrist getting control of it.

[00:36:55] So he says sorry I’m out. But it was that sort of person that got out of a big, we could have made a lot of money with that group.” And they didn’t necessarily need to turn into the Antichrist. He got out. But then he started working on me and he’s saying, and I was a bit suspicious, because I’d come from in Australia here where there was a lot of people who were spotting the work of the devil behind the scenes and they were spotted in society. And some of them had been cheekily telling me off for having a bank card. Sorry. And they said, That’s the mark of the beast. And I had been going through a time of you know, but I didn’t say ooo to them, but, and I still like my bank hard,

[00:37:40] it’s how I got there, paid for my airfare, and I was trusting the Lord for how to pay it off, and anyway, this man saved me, and he says, you know, that in the scriptures thatInterview talks about there being this mark of the beast, and that there being something put on there fore-heads. You just read it then. Who had not worshipped the beast in his image and had not received the Mark on their fore-heads or their hands. Fore-heads and Hands! Anyway he showed me all these passages and I said mmhmm, you know. I was polite to him because he was a part of the guy who was getting me opportunities

[00:38:20] to preach. Anyway, I went down to my local supermarket. is back, good 40 years now and there in Wheaton, the suburb of Wheaton, I went to the supermarket and I went to pay the money and I said to the girl there, she says, what’s this little contraption on the side that you’ve got? She said, oh, that’s where you can put your wrist. What do you mean? Well, they’re going to bring in an idea that you can have your number of your vancard on your wrist, and you just put it under here, and she described what this other guy was telling me that Andy Krish was going to do. And I got the fright of my life. Now it’s quite possible that it wasn’t the Andy Krish connection that was going to do this. It might have just been a business, but the idea was there. No, seriously, it

[00:39:11] gave me a fright to think that that which I’d always thought to be the crazy schemes that people got out of the book of Revelation that couldn’t ever happen, was about to happen in Wheaton, and it’s a Christian suburb of all places. And then it says, on their foreheads or on their hands. Now these ideas have never really gone away. The people who are interested in economies are very big on getting us model or new ways to have our number recorded. I watch the people who go to the supermarkets. They’re a lot better than me at being able to pull out their credentials. And the latest one, I’ve just noticed it, you people, because you’re younger, would know better than me, but where you go to get your fish and chips or where you go to get the meal that you’ve ordered over the phone. All they do is they walk in and they hold up their phone and the person scans it and then that’s that.

[00:40:14] I don’t know what’s going on but somehow the order they gave has been put into their phone and they’ve only got to show the phone and the order comes out. You’d know better than me, that’s probably normal isn’t it? Yeah, I haven’t learned how to do that, I’ve been, I’m very slow about all the things electronic. But these things are happening around us and in the capacity of the use of electronics and the use of the media. What about AI get lost? And that, while even if you were to look up our sermons that we have on the Internet, I’ll give you a bit of a hint that AI reads some of the little comments, makes up some of the comments. It’s not me that does it, but there’s a certain person in our family who does.

[00:41:02] And she’s not the one up there. And this idea of AI being useful is happening everywhere. The poor old educationists don’t know what to do, because now they can’t tell whether the students have used it to do their essays. They’ve got to think of new ways to have marking, so it’s a right to use that, because they’ve actually been quite proactive in using all their resources, so if you can think of a way of assessment that it’s alright to use the AI and you’re not going to mark it well because it just has such nice writing, not nice wording. That would be good.

[00:41:35] And I think the educational people will get around that somehow or other. But nonetheless, all this advance of the ability of the whole electronic world and a whole area of science being able to master our society for us and to have happening the very things that the Bible predicts, receiving a mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for 1,000 years.

[00:42:05] So the fact of this happening with your technology is not necessarily the only sign, thank goodness, there’s something a bit more like people coming to life and reading with Christ for 1000 years, and what that means is that it’s one of the miracles that’s going to happen when Jesus returns. So this is not anymore a post-millennial description here. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the 1000 years were ended. So our Scriptures are not backing-up post-millennialism. This is the first resurrection, go to the next little bit. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and Holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Now why is it talking about first resurrections and second resurrections?

[00:42:57] Well, first resurrection is something that happens before something happens, and post-resurrection happens afterwards a second resurrection. And the second resurrection would be if you were a person who became a Christian and you died, but there’d be a moment when Jesus comes again when you will be resurrected. But because you’re a Christian, you’re going to go to the second death, but you’re going to be someone who dodges the second death, so you’re alive because of the First Resurrection, over such the second death has no power. And what

[00:43:36] the Second Death is about is what in the morning I was preaching on, the fact that there is going to be hell to be paid by people who have ignored the Gospel call, and that hell is not going to be an annihilationism, it’s going to be something that is eternal and the second death will have no power over a person who’s a Christian but they’ll be priests of God and of Christ. They will reign with him for a thousand years. That’s going to be one of the other types of millennial and that’ll be a premillennial one which we’ll go and do another time. I hope I’ve just wetted your appetite a bit to get your heads around all these different terms and to give you enough information to make a decision as to whether you’re going

[00:44:24] to be post-millennial, amillennial or premillennial. That has been my purpose tonight. We’ll pick up the theme on another occasion. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the scriptures and for how the fact is that they don’t shy away from difficult topics. And they tell us about our future. Thank you that the future will come about because of Christ. And Lord, we in our part to play, we don’t always contribute well and Lord the Western world in particular but the whole world in general have not succeeded. coming upon a millennium in just our power.

[00:45:08] Even if we were used it with the power of the Gospel The Gospel isn’t always victorious at the moment but it would be one day. But for the present it’s not brought about a millennium. Help us to understand these things and not have to shy away from them because they’re beyond our grasp and understanding. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen