The Spirit's Future Ministry (3)

We're going to do something a little different tonight. We're going to finish one study and begin a whole different one. Lord willing, I don't think we have much to finish in the study of of the Holy Spirit. We were just about finished with that last week. So we're going to finish that tonight and then start into a new study entirely. Let's begin by just reviewing a little bit. We're talking about the future ministry of the Spirit. In other words, the role of the Holy Spirit in what we think of as prophecy. And so we remind you by way of a prophetic chart, what we're looking at. This chart kind of gives a timeline of sequential events that will take place in the future from the perspective of where we are right here in the church age. Of course, the first thing that we would look forward to would be the rapture of the church following that the Tribulation Time, Christ's return to the earth to set up His Kingdom, the Millennium. We were talking basically about two areas where the Holy Spirit will be active. The first is here in the Tribulation Time and we saw over the past couple of weeks that the Holy Spirit will be active in the Tribulation Time. He will have a ministry to unbelievers. People will be saved as we saw in the Tribulation Time. And so obviously the ministries of the Spirit in convicting the unsaved and regenerating, bringing them to Christ, giving them new life will be operative during the Tribulation Time. But he will also have a ministry to believers we saw. We saw that His power is very evident. The filling of the Spirit is obvious because of the evangelistic fervor, boldness, and effectiveness of believers during the the Tribulation Time because of that boldness and witness and the effectiveness of their witness. Obviously that's something the Bible teaches can only be accomplished under the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit's power will be obvious in those ways. So the Holy Spirit will be active in the Tribulation Time. And then we saw last week that he will also be active in the Millennium. Do we have that chart again here, Tim? Thank you. So here's the Tribulation Time. During the Tribulation Time on the Earth, the church which has been raptured will be undergoing the judgment seat of Christ, the judgment of believers works. And then we will return with Christ to the earth where He will set up His kingdom for a thousand years on this earth, His literal reign on this earth in the city of Jerusalem. And we began looking last week at the Holy Spirit's role in the Millennium. And we found that He will have a ministry to unbelievers, first of all. Remember that we discussed last week the fact that everyone who enters the Millennium will be a believer because Jews and Gentiles will have been judged at the second coming. Those who are still alive will be judged and only believers will then go in their earthly bodies into the Millennium. But because of that, children will be born during the Millennium. And so people will be saved during the Millennium, or at least will need to be saved. The need for salvation is true in the Millennium. And so we saw that the Holy Spirit's work obviously again of conviction and regeneration. Those two ministries that always are there present when a person gets saved will obviously be occurring. And we saw some examples of that in the Old Testament prophets. Now here's what we didn't finish up. So we're up to speed. We stopped last week at this point, His ministry to believers. The Holy Spirit will have a ministry to believers in the Tribulation Time as well. And the first thing that we know He will do is indwelling believers. So let's look at His indwelling. We're going to begin tonight as far as the Scriptures are concerned in Ezekiel 36. So let's look at Ezekiel 36 versus 24 to 27. Clearly indicate that the Holy Spirit will indwelling believers during the millennial reign. This is speaking of Israel's restoration to favor as God's nation in the Millennium. And as a part of that, bringing the people back to their land in verse 24, He says this, for I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. This is a description of the new covenant that God will have with His people in the Millennium. And by the way, this regathering is not the regathering that started in 1948. I believe that was a work of God, and I believe it's essential to have a national presence of Israel in the land before the Tribulation starts. So what's happening now in Israel is certainly a work of God, but it's not the regathering spoken of here, because the regathering spoken of here is a regathering to peace in their land, and they are regenerated. This terminology of putting a new spirit in them, removing a heart of stone, giving you a heart of flesh. That's old testament terminology and even terminology Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 3 of the new covenant that God makes with His people in the Millennium. So that's salvation terminology. This gathering of Israel is when they are regathered into their land to start the millennial kingdom. Okay? So notice what he says then in verse 27. He says, and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. So the Holy Spirit indwells believers here, specifically Jewish believers, in the Millennium, to motivate them to have a heart to obey God, just as he does with us today. And so there will be no difference in the millennial kingdom in that regard. So all believers obviously will be indwelt by the spirit in the Millennium. Another ministry that is clearly indicated, and I want to go ahead and finish this out and then we'll pause for questions that you might have. Another ministry that's clearly indicated in the Old Testament that will happen in the Millennium is the filling of the spirit. And what we're going to do is just going to throw some verses on the screen, several of them that talk about the outpouring of the spirit in the millennial kingdom. Isaiah 32, 15. Says, till the spirit is poured on us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. Now again, I'm kind of pulling these out of context, but I went back and checked them all again last week and this week to make sure that in the context they're clearly speaking of that time when Israel is restored in belief to her nation, her land, and God is pouring out His blessing on them in the Millennium. Part of that blessing will be the fertility of the land and the ability to raise good crops even in areas that are currently desert areas. Another passage, Isaiah 44-3, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. And then Ezekiel 39, 29. I will no longer hide my face from them for I will pour out my spirit on the people of Israel, the clairs of the sovereign Lord. And then a passage we looked at earlier that kind of bridges the tribulation and into the Millennium is Joel 2, 28 and 29. And afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days. So all these passages talk about the pouring out of the spirit, that filling of the spirit to give people a special enablement to do the tasks that God has for them to do. The pouring out of the spirit will be a common thing in this glorious age of the Millennium. It will be an age that is really marked by worship and praise. The Bible talks about all the nations traveling to Jerusalem to bring offerings to the King to Christ and to worship Him. It will be a great era of worship and praise and willing obedience on the part of believers, spiritual power, life transformation. All of that will be the norm in the Millennium. Unlike today where we are the minority, the majority will be saved and will be serving the Lord, filled with the spirit, spirit being poured out on people. There will be an overwhelming spiritual fervor and love for Christ and a holy joy that will permeate believers and entire people groups in that day. So it will be a wonderful, wonderful time during the Millennium. And the Bible also talks about the pouring out of the spirit on Christ Himself as the King. Look at this passage in Isaiah 112. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him if you follow the whole context, is talking about the King of righteousness. The Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the might, the Spirit of the knowledge, and fear of the Lord. And then it talks about how He will reign with complete justice and will reign with a rod of iron and so forth. And He goes right on in that same passage, He's talking about the lion, will he down with the lamb? So this is millennial conditions. This is not in heaven. These are millennial conditions on the earth and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Christ Himself and enabling Him as well. Remember that Jesus and His humanity needed the power of the Spirit and this was true in His earthly ministry. It will also be evidenced as all three members of the Trinity work closely together in Christ reign. And so the Holy Spirit will be very much present and evident through the reign of Christ. Then let me just say about His other ministries. There's no reason why other ministries will not also happen in the millennium, although they may not be specifically mentioned. We would expect that the Holy Spirit would lead people, would see old believers and so forth. The normal ministries that He would do with believers in other times as well. With one exception, as we've seen before, and that is the baptism in the Spirit, which is unique to the church age. Part of being in the body of Christ is related to the baptism in the Spirit. So that will not take place in other times when the body of Christ is completed and already in heaven, there will be no need for that particular ministry. But otherwise the others would seem to be very much in evidence. Okay? Any questions? We wrap up. Yes, John? People will die in the millennium. It will not be as common as it is now. Isaiah 65, I think it's either verse 19 or 20, says, a person who dies at 100 in the millennium will be considered a child. So age spans will be greatly lengthened, but people will die. Obviously people have gone into the millennium from the tribulation in their natural bodies. And so they will die, but life span because of the removal of the curse will be greatly enhanced. What's the composition of, I'm sorry, right? What body, what physical body we have will have a glorified body. We will have already been taken to heaven in the rapture. Our bodies will be changed to be like Christ. So we'll have a glorified body. It will be like Christ. It will be a body, a physical body like we have now, but it will be glorified. It will be perfect. All of us will look better than we look right now. And that's the body in which we'll come back to earth with the Lord in. Yeah, there will, now those, those of us in our glorified bodies will be ruling and reigning with Christ. Revelation chapter 20 says, so will not be the subjects of the kingdom. We'll be helping Christ rule the kingdom. There's only those who go into physical bodies. It will be the subjects of the kingdom. We'll be coming up and worshipping the Lord and accomplishing the work of nations and so forth in the millennium. But then it's completely different in the New Heaven and New Earth. Once the millennium is done, after the Great White Throne judgment and all unbelievers are judged and cast into the lake of fire, then the New Heavens and New Earth, that's what's described in Revelation 21-22. The New Heavens and New Earth is our eternal abode. And I believe it will be on this earth, the New Earth, but it will be everybody there will be in a glorified body then. So there won't be two different kinds of bodies. Yeah, yeah, especially with the kind of conditions that are true in the millennium, with people living longer, there will be rapid expansion of population no doubt. I would think so in the same sense that the disciples recognized that Christ glorified body was different. It had different properties. It was still a recognizable body, but it had different properties. He could suddenly appear in a room. And so I think in that same sense, people in their natural bodies will recognize that those who are in the glorified bodies are different. Yeah. And how all that's going to work together, I don't know, we just don't have enough information in the scriptures, but we do know that those of us in our glorified bodies will be ruling and reigning with Christ. We know that much. Those who are in their physical bodies, normal physical bodies, not yet glorified, that go into the millennium will be the subjects of Christ's rule. They will be under his reign. Yeah, we really will have to wait and see. The Blaine is saying the Bible doesn't really say what happens to people who die during the millennium, where they go, but one thing we would know for sure, those who die without the Lord who do not have a personal relationship with the Lord would go to hell because the great white throne judgment doesn't happen till the end of the millennium, death and hell are raised up. All those who are dead and in hell are brought before the great white throne judgment and then cast into the like a fire. So we know that people who are lost will go to hell. People who are believers, I'm assuming, would be in the presence of the Lord. And I think there will be wow. Yeah, it's hard to say. It's hard how much contact will be between heaven and earth. The earthly reign of Christ will be here on earth. Whether those folks will go into the presence of God in heaven, I would assume. But do they make some trips back down here? I don't know. Okay, that's a great question, but it deserves several answers really. First of all, let me say, let me kind of get to the core of the question. And that is, the purpose of the, the purpose of the tribulation is not only to gather Israel, but to purge Israel, to judge Israel. Two-thirds of Israelites will die in the tribulation time, according to Zachary 14, I believe it is. Zachary 14 talks about two-thirds will die. Only a third will be left living. Same thing is true of Gentiles. It's the purpose of God to judge Gentile nations during the tribulation too. But people will be saved from both Jew and Gentile in the tribulation and will go into the millennium. So there will be both Jews and Gentiles in the millennium. But the real focus of the millennium is God's fulfillment of all of his Old Testament promises to the nation of Israel. And so there will be a particular focus upon the fulfillment of those Old Testament promises. And Ezekiel chapter 40 through 48 really highlights that. But yeah, the reason why the promises that talk about the pouring out of the Spirit that we saw dealt with Israelites is because most of the information about the millennium is in the Old Testament. Most of the information we have about the millennium is in the prophetic books and the promises that are made to Israel about their future. Promises that have clearly not been fulfilled yet because conditions have never been like or described in those prophecies. So that's the reason why. And that indicates again to us that the real focus is on Israel and the millennium. Now let me just run back to one thing that you mentioned that I think was a great observation. But I also think needs a little clarification for all of us. And that is the age in which we live now is often called the age of grace. I think we all I say that. I think we've all been taught that. That's a little bit of a misnomer. It is an age that is characterized chiefly by grace. But sometimes that gives the impression that it's the only time in human history when God's grace has been evident and that's not the case. Sometimes older dispensationalists have so played up the idea of grace in this age that they've almost made it sound like people were saved by keeping the law in the Old Testament. Nobody's ever been saved by the works. The only way people have ever been saved is by the grace of God. And so God's grace was manifested also in the Old Testament. It will be in the tribulation time and it will be in the millennium. But this is the age that we typically identify with grace because it ushers in the time after the cross and so forth. For that reason I prefer personally to call this age the church age and not just the age of grace because God's grace has always been evident and always will be. But there's a unique sense in which this age because of the church coming in is thought of as the age of grace. In fact in the old Scofield Bible that was done in 1917 there was a note. There was a note in John 117 where there was a contrast between law and grace. There was actually a note in that old Scofield Bible that talked about people were saved by the law and the Old Testament, saved by grace and the New Testament. There was such an uproar against that that in the 1967 New Scofield edition they took that note out because it was clearly unbiblical. It just wasn't right. People have never been saved by works or by keeping the law. The law had a particular purpose in the nation of Israel but people were not saved by keeping the law. Israel maintained its covenant relationship of obedience to the Lord so that the blessings of God on their land would come that was done through keeping the law. But they were saved by faith. That's a wonderful question that really included several different things and I appreciate that. All right, Walt. What are the Christians? Yeah. Well, you know, again, Zachariah 14 says, there will be one-third of Jews left. I don't know what number that is because we don't know how many Jews will be on earth when the tribulation starts. But let's say the Jewish nation is what now? Two million people? Maybe more. You could have a million Jews go into the tribulation or into the millennium. It's hard to know because the Bible does say there will be people from every tribe in nation saved in the millennium or in the tribulation. I'm sorry. So there'll be multitudes of people get saved in tribulation and many of them will still be alive at the end of the tribulation. So I think there will be a healthy population. But then again, what Jim said kind of comes in here with thousand years in the millennium and for practical, all practical purposes, the curse being lifted, there's still some residual effect of that, it's a cordonize A-65. But for all practical purposes, the curse being lifted, you have people living much longer, the population is going to explode through the millennium. So there'll be a lot for us to do. Whatever part we have in ruling and reigning with Christ, there'll be a lot to do. That's a question. That's a question. A great question, Francis, will people who have heard the gospel now but have rejected Christ have an opportunity after the rapture during the tribulation? That's a question that nobody likes to answer. I don't like to answer that question, but I'll give you my opinion. Second Thessalonians 2 basically says that those who believe the lie of the Antichrist will be sent strong delusion by God so that they cannot believe the truth. There have been many who have interpreted that to mean that if you denied the truth during the church age, then God would send you that deception and delusion, you would believe the lie of the Antichrist, you would not have the opportunity to get saved. I used to believe that, I used to preach that, and then I studied that past year's a little more carefully one time, and I'm not so sure that it's that clear that that's what it's saying. It seems to be in the context a description of tribulation time, not before the tribulation, but a description of what will happen to people after the Antichrist has already revealed, which is basically if people after he is revealed reject the truth, then they will not only believe the lie of the Antichrist, but God will confirm them in that and send them strong delusion. So I'm not so sure that it completely rules out people being saved who have heard before the rapture. Now the difficulty with saying that is that it sounds like you're giving people an extra chance, you know? And when people have asked me about that, what I've always said is you cannot count on that. First of all, you don't know if you're going to live to the rapture. Secondly, you don't know if you'll live through the rapture. Thirdly, you don't know what your heart will be like after the rapture. You may be so already deceived and deluded and hardened that you swallow the lie of the Antichrist anyway. I think a lot of people underestimate the deceptive power of the Antichrist and of Satan. And a lot of people think, well, man, I don't need to trust Jesus. The rapture happens. I'll just wait till I see it happens. I'll know it's all true and I'll get saved then. That is like playing Russian roulette with six out of seven chambers loaded. Yes. Yes. Yeah. People think that they're going to take care of this themselves rather than the Lord. So I don't like to leave the door open for people to have an excuse to reject Christ now. But anyone who thinks that way needs to rethink that position and realize there are any number of reasons why you may not have a chance after the tribulation. Okay. Rusty, we're trying. Trying hard, brother. Rusty told me that we're going to shift to this new study and Rusty said before the service started, you'll never make it. We're hanging by the way, brother. Okay. I don't want to squelch any questions. I know once we get on prophecy, there's all kinds of questions. Anything else before we move to a whole different subject? By the way, if we if we all live long enough, we'll eventually on these Wednesday night doctrinal studies get to a study of prophecy. And if hey, guess what? If the rapture happens first or if we all die first, we'll just let the Lord teach that part. Okay. And that would be better anyway. Much better.