Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Next on Light on the Hill, we look forward to the day when believers will rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years. (Lyrics) I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you, cause all I need is you. All I need is you.

As this world gets darker and evil continues to rise, we might feel at times that there's no hope. However, if you're a believer in Christ, your future is bright. Today on Light on the Hill, we'll tell you about a thousand-year period of time when we will rule and reign with Jesus. It's going to be spectacular. We'll hear all about it in just a minute, but first, Pastor James Kaddis addresses the three primary views concerning the millennium and why we believe the first.

James Kaddis: There are several views regarding this millennium. We have the first view that I'm going to describe to you, and what I call our view—this is the view of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill—is what is called the pre-millennial view. There are lots of other ways of putting it. Some people often don't even use the word pre-millennial; they talk about dispensationalism, but I'm just going to make it very simple. We have what is called the pre-millennial view.

This is the picture of what the pre-millennial view is. It's very simple. It's what the Bible tells us. It's very obvious and it's right in front of us. The idea here is that the second coming comes prior to the millennium. So the second coming, the end of the rapture, is prior to the millennium. Then, of course, what happens is the millennium takes place. It is a literal period of time and that is when we end up ruling and reigning with the Lord.

There's another view. This is the second view of the millennium, and this is what's called the amillennial view. When we talk about amillennial, it means "not millennium." Like if you use the word atypical, that means it's not typical. When we use the term amillennial, it basically means that you do not believe in the millennium. You don't believe that the millennium actually exists.

In order for you to do that, what you actually have to do is you have to take away the necessity for a literal interpretation of the thousand years and you have to believe that it is somehow and some way metaphorical. The problem with that is it's crazy. In my opinion, there are some good people that carry this view, and I'm not going to sit down and put down anybody who might have this view, but I am telling you right now it doesn't make sense.

First and foremost, I want everybody to understand this: there is no exception to the number of years that's used anywhere else. In other words, when you have numbers that are taken literally, even people that are amillennialists who don't believe in the millennium take a lot of the other numbers literally. Like for example, at what point do you stop and say the two witnesses that are spoken of in Chapter 11? Are those actually two or does that mean something else? You have to really start asking yourself questions like that.

How about 7,000 people in verse 13 of Chapter 11? That's another example of where something like that happens. Or how about this? The four angels that we read about in Chapter 7 of Revelation. Are they no longer four? At what point do we take these numbers and do we switch them around? There's a lot of passages like this. Or the four angels in Chapter 8. There's lots of groups of angels. We read about four angels even in the Old Testament.

What about the 144,000 Jews that we read about in Chapter 7? What does that mean? Are they now something that doesn't even exist? I have more information for you on that. How about the 42 months that we read about in Chapter 11? Or how about this? The 1,260 days. What about those? If you stop to reflect upon it, does that mean that all of those are now metaphorical? It doesn't make any kind of sense.

Everywhere you go, you're going to look and wherever you see something that might appear to be symbolic, my exhortation to you is take it literally unless you're told it's symbolic. The way that you'll be told it's symbolic is often the passage will reveal to you what it's symbolic of. Like for example, we just read it in verse 2: "And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil." In case you're not clear: Satan. That's what he's talking about here.

Again, these are very literal. These are not sort of made-up ideas. If you're an amillennialist, you have to not take that literally because what your view is, you have to view everything as being symbolic. You have to believe that the nation of Israel doesn't exist, and they believe that. That's where replacement theology comes from. You have to believe in a lot of that nonsense. You have to believe that the Jews don't even have a right to anything because they technically don't exist because we ourselves have replaced all of Israel. That there is no real state that's recognizable. Well, by the way, that's already wrong.

You have to literally deny so many things that are already as stipulated as facts. So to have the amillennial view is a broken one. By the way, the most common people that carry the amillennial view, believe it or not, are followers of Calvin. When we talk about the Calvinists, that's what we're talking about. You go to a reformed church, that's what you're going to see. I am the grandchild of a reformed pastor. My grandfather in Egypt was a Presbyterian pastor, which didn't have a lot of the typical views of the reformed church.

But understand this, because this is really interesting. You need to know that when you look at Calvin and you examine Calvin's teaching, so much of what Calvin taught, who's the father of the reformation movement so to speak, so much of what Calvin writes is dead on. Very good. Incredible contributions to the body of Christ. But isn't it funny that in the period of the reformation he took with him the view of eschatology that the Catholic church still had? He took that with him and never looked at it biblically.

It's kind of funny how that works. When you begin to look at the ideas being communicated in the reformation, it's kind of remarkable. They say that in essence there is no millennial reign and we are sort of living in this period. This thousand years is symbolic of a time period that we in essence are going to exist. It's not even a real time period. It's a picture that represents something completely different.

I have a really hard time with that because nowhere have I actually seen any lamb laying with a wolf. Does anybody see lambs laying with wolves? How about the fact that when we see somebody who lives a long period of time, it's a pretty astounding picture. We were talking about my friend Easy—if you know Emil Zwane, he's an amazing guy, the president of Living Waters. Emil's father has just recently passed away and he passed away as the oldest man in the United States of America at the time that he passed and the third oldest man in the world.

To think about the idea that that man passed away at over 100 years old, what an astounding thing. He passed away at 103. So just think about the significance of that. He was around during the roaring twenties. That gives you some real perspective on something that's pretty amazing. I find some comfort in that because that means Emil is going to be around for a long time and I want him to be around. It'd be good if he outlived me.

We celebrate a guy who's living at 103 years old. But the Bible tells us that during the millennial reign, we'll look at a person that dies at 100 years old and mourn that loss because it would be like mourning the loss of a child. The Bible tells us that it'll be like, "What a shame. They only lived to 100 years old." Are we living in those days today? I think not. This is where the amillennial view is broken. It's why it's such a darkened view of the actual facts.

Then there's another view, and the reason why I'm sharing this is because I think we have to spend some time with them to understand it. Then there's what's called the post-millennial view. Now this view basically says that the second coming happens after the millennium. I'm oversimplifying the view and there might be some people who will get upset with me and say you're not giving all the points. I don't have the time to give all the points of it.

In essence, this is where you begin to develop a very different idea of what Christianity is. As a matter of fact, a lot of the people that believe in woke-ism, they are post-millennialists. Because the idea here is if we can create a euphoric world and that world is in essence in that euphoric state for a thousand years, then Christ will in essence come down. That will bring him over. That's what will bring the second coming and then he'll basically say, "Okay, give me the keys. I got this. I'll start taking over now."

Honestly, it's an absurd perspective and it's absurd for a lot of reasons because again, has man been ever able to achieve the euphoric conditions that we read about in the book of Revelation or Isaiah or anywhere else? No way. Come on. We still haven't figured out a way to just simply say hi to people without biting each other's heads off. We live in such a completely darkened world and the world is getting darker. So the post-millennial view doesn't work.

I think that it's important that we understand the differences between these views because it helps you to be able to better establish where we are and why we are there. The only way that you can view this, if you take the book of Revelation literally and you take the Bible literally, is the pre-millennial view regarding all of this. That the second coming of Christ happens literally after the tribulation, and then after the tribulation, then we actually witness the millennial reign and then we see all of these things begin to take place, which is very important.

Look what it goes on to say in verse 4: "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus." It's interesting. He talks about "I saw thrones." I would fully expect, and I actually checked it in the Greek language years and years ago when I first saw this, I would fully expect for it to be singular because when you're talking about a throne, you're talking about one person who's a king.

This really puzzled me 28 years ago. This puzzled me 25, 28 years ago because I think I started teaching through Revelation maybe my third year of teaching the Bible. But it really puzzled me. Why is it multiple thrones? That's when I began to realize that this is referring to us, the body of Christ that are ruling and reigning with him. We're talking about all of us reigning together. Multiple thrones. That's what we're talking about here.

We got a really great future ahead of us. There's a bright future when you think about it. During the millennial reign, we'll be ruling and reigning with Christ. Is that super cool? That's very exciting for me. That means we're going to be busy doing a lot of stuff. John is saying, "I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

This is where the church, we that have been raptured, we get to join in the ruling and reigning with Christ with those who actually died during the tribulation who said, "I refuse to take the mark and I believe in Jesus Christ." Now there was a heavy price that they paid for that. They lost their lives, but they gained their eternity. If you really think about it, it's not all that big of a cost if you think about the benefit that they receive from that.

But look what it says in verse 5: "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection." This is really important that we talk about this because there's going to be a lot of confusion with respect to the subject of the resurrection. This was another question that came up because of something that was back and forth within the women's study. It's a really important question that came out from some very astute women that were really wondering.

They said, "I just read here: 'This is the first resurrection.' So does that mean that the only time we see a resurrection taking place or where the true resurrection is going to take place is in essence after the millennial reign?" There's a lot of questions about that because it's very confusing. First thing that we should talk about because it's really important that we understand this, we need to understand when we talk about this phrase "first," we have to address it.

"First" can take on several different meanings. First can mean like the beginning of a sequence. So when we talk about first, we can say first let me tell you this, second this happened, third that happens. There's another way that that term can also be used and instead of it being connotative of a sequence in a timeline, it can actually be used to describe maybe something that you're going to do that might not necessarily be sequential.

For example, I could talk to somebody and I could say, "This becomes the first priority." So it's not necessarily sequential because I could have a list of 40 things that are being done and I could be working on while I'm working on those 40 things, that item that is the first priority. Now the first priority item could actually be completed after three or four or five or six or seven or eight items get completed, but that first priority started a process because it was the first or even the beginning of or the emphasis of something.

Think about it like this. I could go to you and I could say we're building a car together. Your job is to take care of the first priority, and that is the assembly of the engine. That is the first priority. Now what happens? While you're assembling the engine, guess what takes place? The tires get put on, you begin to build out the body, the paint goes on, and so on and so forth. And then when you get to the point where 30 or 40 things have already been done with the car, the first item—meaning not the first item in sequence, but the item that was of the greatest priority—has already now been done, but in reality it was a process that involved a lot of steps.

So the initiation of the process may have been the first thing that was done, but in reality it was a process that took a long time before it was completed. To say that when the engine is completed after 40 other things were completed while building the car, you can no longer call the engine the first, well that would be wrong. It's very important that we understand this. Or how about this? This is another term that we see being used in other languages. When we talk about a primary. You talk about an infrastructure in a business and you talk about a person referred to as the primary or the first, or how many of you have heard this: el primo?

It means yes, they're the first, but is it first in a sequence or is it first referring to primary? There's different ways this word can be used. When you look at this and you say, "Oh well, this is the first resurrection happening, that means all the other resurrections prior hasn't happened," well that's a really broken view. It's a broken view because if you believe that, then that means the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a farce. We're going to get into that in just a second and that's kind of where we're going to close because I want you to understand this.

Look what it says in verse 6: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." So we have to talk about this. First of all, I know it's going to sound confusing at the beginning, but I'm going to help you understand this. There really are two general resurrections. I want to make myself very clear.

There is the resurrection of those who have chosen to commit to Christ and there's a resurrection of those who have chosen to rebel against God. The resurrection that takes place of those who have chosen to rebel against God will happen at the end of the millennium, and that is when we see this white throne judgment. It is not going to be the resurrection that you want to be a part of. Nobody wants to be a part of that resurrection. That resurrection has in essence literally one part. It is those who resurrect who died without the Lord. Those who come out for resurrection specifically for judgment.

But in the resurrection of the believers, that is what we call the first resurrection. But that first resurrection has three sections tied to it. It's really important that we understand this. The first one is the firstfruits resurrection. Who is the firstfruits resurrection? The Bible talks about it all the time: Jesus. Jesus is called the firstfruit of the resurrection. You're not going to understand this unless you understand biblical law regarding harvesting.

There were three harvests or three parts of a harvest. The first harvest was called the firstfruits. The firstfruits of the harvest was a really important harvest. The reason why it was really important was because it did two things. Number one, it validated the notion that the farmer who had spent their whole season farming actually did the right job, because when they saw the firstfruits come forth, they recognized right away that their crop was going to be good. It was the most critical portion of the farming season.

By the way, that was also the fruits that would be given to the Lord. That was also part of the tithe. That's why the tithe was often referred to as the firstfruits. Then there was what was called the general harvest. In the general harvest, that is when the majority of all of the fruit would come forth from the ground and that's when you would go and you would harvest everything. Now there was a third part of the farming season and that part was called the gleaning portion.

The gleaning portion was really important because it was God's welfare system. When you start looking at the gleaning portion, this was the third part of the actual harvest. The gleaning section was the area where everybody who didn't have anything, who was poor, were able to go on the outer edges of the farm and be able to pull stuff. One of the most profound examples of this last portion of the harvest can be read about extensively in the book of Ruth.

You learn about it. It's very important and very critical. So when we look at these three parts, this is why I say understanding the Old Testament is going to help you really understand what's going to happen in the book of Revelation. You have three parts of the resurrection. If you look at the resurrection in the same term as the harvest, which the Bible does all the time because Christ is referred to as the firstfruits of the resurrection.

The firstfruit in the context of the believer resurrection—because remember we said there's two resurrections. There's the believer resurrection and there's the ungodly resurrection or the unbeliever resurrection. The first part of the believer's resurrection, it goes in three parts, is Christ, who was resurrected. We believe that he was resurrected in 33 AD. We can point out the point in time that he was resurrected. We know that that story is real. We know that that story is true. That would be considered the firstfruit of the resurrection.

The second or what we would call the general resurrection—the general harvest—would be the rapture. That's when the church is taken up and the dead in Christ rise. That's where the second resurrection is referred to and oftentimes that's called the resurrection. By the way, it's interesting, some people actually refer to the resurrection of Christ as the resurrection. I do that oftentimes. And then they talk about the resurrection of the believer being the resurrection. That's the one that takes place at the rapture.

So those died, there will be a resurrection of their physical bodies and those who are alive, they're actually raptured at this point. And then when we get into the gleaning section, that is in essence where we talk about this millennial portion. The beginning of the millennium is where we see the resurrection of all those that were killed during the tribulation. They are what I would consider to be the gleaning section of the harvest.

So if you think about it, the harvest had three parts, the resurrection had three parts, and the Bible uses the harvest in conjunction with the terminology of the resurrection. So when we talk about this and we look at it, it's really simple. We look at the firstfruit section of the resurrection being Christ. When we start talking about the general harvest portion of the resurrection, that is of course the believers that are taken up at the rapture. And of course the gleaning section are those people that by the hair of their chinny chin chin, right at the last moment, did not accept the mark and they are resurrected.

What's really cool about that and what begins to happen is they all have a part in ruling. The reason why you see this in the book of Revelation where it says, "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection." So what he's basically saying is the completion of the first resurrection has just been witnessed at this moment.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor James Kaddis on Light on the Hill. He'll be right back with more. As we go through this study of Revelation, there may come a time when you miss a message or would just like to hear a program again. If so, visit lightonthehillradio.com and click on radio or listen through our app. We have a Light on the Hill app available for iPhone and Android users. Just search for Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Pastor James, we're living in a day and age where people on social media in particular are saying some pretty crazy things, even about the Bible, prophecy, and especially Israel. Are there suggestions you have for our listeners to navigate the widespread deception? Can we learn a thing or two from the Bereans of the first century?

James Kaddis: Yeah, this is really simple. What you must do is you must check it with scripture. There's really no other way to put this. And when I make recommendations as to how to navigate through this, go to people that are teaching the scriptures. It's that simple. If you ignore that element, you're going to lose guidance all the way altogether. And the other thing that I would say is check the sources. As statements are being made, make sure there's collaboration with the statements that are being made with respect to the news stories. And then always take that information and line it up with the word of God and see what God's word says about it. You do that and you're going to be just fine.

Guest (Male): That's great advice. Thanks, Pastor James. Light on the Hill is heard all around the world and it takes a team to bring these shows to the radio and internet. With your help, we're able to reach people with the truth of God's word at a time when they really need to hear it. You can donate today at lightonthehillradio.com. You can also give through our Light on the Hill app.

As we're going through Revelation, this is a great time to mention Pastor James's new book entitled The Last Book. It will share what you need to know about Revelation, the rapture, and the end times. This guide to Revelation is part one of two and you can order it today at lightonthehillradio.com or at Amazon. Our study of Revelation will continue next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. Remember as a Christian, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill. (Lyrics) I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you, cause all I need is you. All I need is you.