Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and proclaimer of our faith. A war is coming where all the guns of all time will be meaningless. When the world's armies turn on Jesus Christ, they will be destroyed in an instant. Untold numbers of bodies will lie dead on the ground. The battle of Armageddon, it's sign number seven that Christ will soon return. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is running to win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Erwin Lutzer is in a series on seven signs of Christ's return. Today, we're looking at sign number seven, which Pastor Lutzer calls the world's bloodiest conflict, an event that all Christians will see firsthand.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: So the Jews, many of them at that time living, will believe in Jesus and accept him as their Messiah and their king. Number five. Christ will establish his kingdom here on earth centered in Jerusalem. Now this time some of you are saying, you know, this is this is unbelievable. I can't imagine if you're a visitor here today and you are not acquainted with the scriptures, you say what planet did that guy come from? That's what you're thinking. But we actually, I say we, a friend of mine said that one time when he made a theological statement, he says we believe and some student challenged him and said who's we?

And he said God and I. So maybe I'd better change that. I believe, I believe that Christ is going to rule yet from this earth. Now listen. This is the time now for you to just kick back and hear my words. This is what Isaiah the prophet said. The day will come, he says, when many shall say come, let us go on to the mountain of the Lord, onto the house of the God of Jacob, onto Zion, Jerusalem, for he will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. For the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem and he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Now you answer the question, has that happened yet? Has the time come when there's no need for weapons because people have forgot how to fight and they do not learn war anymore? No, all that you need to do is to pick up the newspapers and know that those verses were never fulfilled. One day there was a little woman or at least a young woman by the name of Mary and the angel came to her and said you're going to bear a son.

Now listen what the angel said. He shall be great, he shall be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give onto him the throne of his father David and he shall rule over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end. How do you think Mary understood that? Would she not have understood that the child that she was going to bear was going to fulfill all those Old Testament prophecies when God said to David that you're going to have a child who's going to rule over the kingdoms forever?

Uh which she not think that this meant that he would rule in the territory over which David ruled, in the area that David ruled, and even the city from which he ruled? I believe that's the way she'd interpret it. Now you say but Pastor Lutzer, what does that mean for us? I mean where are we going to be? Well again, we're going to have earthly bodies and we're going to be given assignments. This is not yet the eternal kingdom, but even the kingdom here on earth, we will be given responsibilities to rule with Christ, rule with him.

You say yeah, but how can you have people who have earthly bodies, such as those Jews that you talked about a moment ago who are going to go into the millennial kingdom with earthly bodies and they shall live a long time, but they will die? The Bible says that the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, as I've mentioned before. Today, if you notice when the lion and the lamb lie down, when the lion gets up, the lamb is missing. You don't have that happen today. How can people with glorified bodies intermingle with those who have still earthly physical bodies?

Well Jesus did. You remember after his resurrection and his glorification, he even ate meat and fish with the disciples on the shores of Galilee. And we are going to be like him for we shall see him as he is, but that does not mean that we aren't going to have those spatial physical characteristics because we will. How that interaction will happen, I do not know. All that I know is this, that it says in the fifth chapter of Revelation regarding Christ, thou art worthy to take the book because thou wast slain and purchased for God people from every tribe and kindred and tongue and nation.

And thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests and they shall reign on the earth. That settles it for me. I don't have all of the details. I don't understand it all, but I'm just simply saying that the saints shall rule with Christ on the earth. Now let's look at Revelation chapter 20. After the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and the beast and the false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire and this gets a little bit complicated, but you're still with me today. I don't want to be like a politician who left a political rally in Chicago the other day and whispered to one of his aides, I hope that in the excitement I didn't happen to make myself clear about anything.

I'd like to be clear if possible. But in chapter 20, Satan is bound for 1,000 years and the martyrs who died during the tribulation period, and there are many of them, they are raised to reign with Jesus Christ for 1,000 years and I take it that we'll be reigning with them for 1,000 years. That's what you discover if you read these next verses. And then it says in verse five, the rest of the dead did not come to life until the 1,000 years were completed. That's actually a reference to the unsaved dead. Now this gets a little technical, but when it says this is the first resurrection in verse five, it's really referring back to verse four.

And the rest of the dead who do not come to life until after the 1,000 years are completed, that's the dead of unbelievers that we shall look at in just a moment. But the simple fact is that these people then are raised with Jesus Christ, that is the martyrs are, they rule with Christ, we rule with Christ, and then at the end of that period the kingdom is of course changed and it turns out to be heaven. But listen what the text says. It now gives us a glimpse into two different eternities at that point.

The millennial kingdom now ends, the 1,000 year reign is over and now we look at the final judgment. And this is the final judgment now of all the dead who lived from the beginning who did not come under the protection of God's forgiveness, his grace, and his beloved son. Of course in the Old Testament times, they could not believe in Jesus as we do, but they could believe in the God of Jehovah as the Jewish people did and they too would be saved whether they were Jew or Gentile because the Bible says that God was willing to overlook those sins knowing that Christ would come and therefore he also took away the sins of David, of Abraham, and so forth.

But now let's look at the judgment, verse 11. I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and there was no place found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.

And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Remember now we're talking about the rest of the dead. That is the unsaved of all the ages and they are standing before God. Is not this perhaps the most dramatic scene that one could ever possibly contemplate? I want you to look at this crowd and see first of all it's diversity, the small and the great. I don't take that to be physically, but it has to do with their stature in the world.

This is the place to see where the millionaire stands with a pauper. This is the place where the attorney stands next to the shopkeeper. This is the place where the person who owns a million dollar of mansions or even more, whatever, stands with those who grew up in the ghetto. They're all alike here. They all stand together. They are diverse in terms of their economics. They are also diverse in terms of their geography, geographically diverse. We think for example of the the millions in Asia. We think of the millions in Russia. We think of the millions in the rest of Europe.

We think of the millions in South America, in Africa, in North America, in Canada, and the United States. And our minds cannot take in the vastness of this crowd and they are all gathered together there before God. They are also diverse religiously. We think for example of the Buddhists. We think of the Hindus. We think of the Mormons. We think of the Catholics. We think of the Protestants. We think of those who are nurtured in the Christian tradition. We think of those who thought that meditation would somehow save them. They too show up and they are there.

Wow. They're also diverse in terms of their lifestyles. I can imagine a person who spent his entire life giving to charity and working and being a good, honest, loving person and promoting love and good deeds, standing right next to Hitler and to Stalin because they are there too. Wow. You say well if that's their diversity, what holds them together? What's their common thread? Because no matter who they are, they are not good enough to enter into the kingdom of heaven and the Bible says that their names are not therefore recorded in the book of life.

Even the best of the best must be damned. So this this judgment is to see the extent of their condemnation. That 's why there of course Hitler will get something quite different from the people who did righteousness because God is just, but the problem is they lack something and that is the righteousness of God. That's their problem. The people who are in the book of life, it's not as if they're such better people. God knows they were born with the same sinful nature, the same tendency to wander into sin, but there's something different about them and that is they knew that they could not get into heaven as a result of their righteousness.

Therefore the only righteousness which God accepts is the righteousness of Christ and therefore they trusted that righteousness and in the Old Testament they believed in Jehovah because they believed that a redeemer would someday come and take away sin and therefore their faith and their trust is in the only one who can redeem them. And that's why they're in the book of life. My friend, I do have to ask you this question. Are you in the book of life? How are you going to enter into heaven, your own righteousness or the righteousness of Christ? Settle that today.

I'm holding in my hands a book entitled When Jesus Returns and by the way this is the last week we're making it available for you. You might recognize names such as Jack Hibbs and Graham Lotz and a number of other writers contributed to this book. As a matter of fact, I have a chapter entitled One Minute After You Die. All of us talking about different aspects of prophecy. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. I hope that you take advantage of this offer. It's our thank you for your support of this ministry, but at the same time after you have read the book, pass it along to someone else.

It'll help you run the race of life all the way to the finish line.

Guest (Male): Erwin Lutzer has brought part three of the world's bloodiest conflict, the seventh sign in his series, Seven Signs of Christ's Return. Next time, the conclusion of this message and this series. When Jesus returns, living in expectation of the end times, that's a book compiled by Jan Markell. It contains the best teachings on Bible prophecy from a wide range of authors. This book is our gift to you for your gift of any amount to support Running to Win. For full information, call us at 1 800 215 5001. That's 1 800 215 5001. Online, go to offer rtw.com.

That's offer rtw.com or write to us at Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win comes to you as a ministry of the Moody Church.