Prophecies of Hope

Michael Hargreaves

Lowell Hargreaves

Amazing Facts

15. Revelation’s Millennium, when the Devil Goes on Vacation!

Our topic for tonight, Revelation's Millennium, When the Devil Goes on Vacation.

How many of you here tonight love to take vacations?

Well, of course, the more vacations the better.

But we might like to have vacation for a little while, but the Bible reveals to us a time when the devil will have vacation for 1, 000 years.

Let's go in our Bible to Revelation 20, 1 and 2.

Hey, students, Revelation 20, verses 1 and 2.

We're going to read about the binding of the devil.

Revelation 21 and 2 says, And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him, how long?

So here we have a thousand years, and this thousand year period is often called the millennium.

Of course, millennium is not found in the Bible, but the concept is there.

Millie is thousand in Latin, annium is years, 1000 years.

And we want to begin our study tonight with this question, when will the thousand year vacation of the devil begin?

We'll start to answer that by looking at a passage from Jesus in John 5, 28 and 9, if you're taking notes.

John 5, 28 and 29, Jesus here outlines 2 resurrections.

John 5, 28, marvel not at this, Jesus says, for the hour is coming, hasn't come yet, but it's coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice.

And when they hear his voice, they shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.

We see here 2 separate general resurrections.

Apparently, the saved and the lost do not come up in the same resurrections.

There's a resurrection for the righteous, resurrection of life, And then there's the resurrection for the unrighteous, resurrection of damnation.

We're not talking about any special resurrections here.

Well that brings us to this question, son.

When do these 2 resurrections take place and which 1 comes first?

Well, let's begin to answer that from Revelation 20, verse 6.

Revelation 20, verse 6 tells us, blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection.

Since there's a first resurrection, that implies there has to be a what?

Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection.

On such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." Where do they reign with him?

Well, we're going to come back and answer that in just a moment, but please notice here the first resurrection is for who?

So this is the resurrection of life, this is for the righteous, the blessed and the holy.

If you die, this is the resurrection you want to come up in.

No wicked person comes up in that first resurrection.

Revelation 20, verse 4 says, 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 and for the word of God." Now, these are not disembodied souls.

"...and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands.

And they lived..." In the original, that means they came to life, so they were resurrected.

They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

We'll answer that in just a moment, but please notice they lived, they came to life, they were resurrected, and then they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

So evidently the 1000 year vacation begins with the resurrection of the righteous.

No wicked person has any part in that first resurrection.

All of the righteous that are in the graves are resurrected in that first resurrection.

Verse 5, Revelation 20 verse 5 says, but the rest of the dead, who would that be?

Since all the righteous came up in the first resurrection, who is the rest of the dead?

That would have to be the unrighteous, the wicked.

But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished, or until the end of the thousand years.

And if you're following in your Bible, the last sentence in verse 5 actually belongs to verse 6.

So here the Bible says the rest of the dead, that's the wicked, they didn't live again until the thousand years were finished.

They will live again, but not until the end of the thousand years.

Jesus called that resurrection the resurrection of, resurrection of damnation.

So here we have 2 resurrections separated by 1, 000 years.

First resurrection is the resurrection of life.

And then the second resurrection is the resurrection of damnation or condemnation.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, they shall reign with him a thousand years.

And then, verse 5, but the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years were finished.

2 resurrections separated by a thousand year period.

Well that leads us to the question, when does the first resurrection take place, which would begin the 1, 000 year period?

Let's get our answer from 1 Thessalonians 6, or 4 rather, verse 16.

1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16 says, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, this is Christ coming back, With the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall what?

There's another text showing that the dead in Christ come up in the first resurrection That's the 1 for the blessed for the holy.

So This first resurrection takes place, resurrection of life, when Jesus comes back.

When the Lord returns, there are 4 groups of people.

The first group of people are, number 1, the righteous dead, number 2, the righteous living, and number 3, the wicked dead, number 4, the wicked living.

Every person who ever lived or died falls into 1 of these 4 groups.

Righteous dead, righteous living, wicked dead, wicked living.

What happens to each of these groups when Jesus returns?

Let's start with that first 1, the righteous dead.

14. The Three Steps to Heaven

Our topic for this morning is 3 steps to heaven.

If I told you you could jump from here to the moon, you'd think I was crazy.

It takes an awful lot of power to get a man or a few men off of planet Earth into space.

And yet we know far beyond the sun, the moon, the stars, is God's home in the universe called heaven.

And there's no spacecraft that will ever be designed that can fly there, and yet, you and I, we can get there by taking just 3 steps, 3 steps to heaven.

Before we look at the 3 steps to heaven, let's ask ourselves what God will not allow to enter heaven.

And we're going to read it from Revelation 21, 27.

Revelation 21, 27, our first text this morning.

And there shall a no wise enter into it, that's heaven, Anything that defiles, neither whatever works abomination or makes a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Revelation 22, 14 says, blessed are they that what?

Do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city.

And the Bible told us In Revelation 21, 27, there shall a no wise enter into it anything that defiles.

Now if we could sum up what defiles the world, defiles our lives in a 3 letter word, what would that word be?

And the Bible says in Isaiah 59 verse 2, you're taking notes, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear.

Separated from God, separated from life, we die.

So to live in the presence of a holy God, we must have the separation created by sin removed.

Number 1, step number 1 to heaven, we must have our sins forgiven.

Now many people want to know how can they have their sins forgiven.

Well, we want to see there are 3 ways to have our sins forgiven.

This is actually not a complicated process.

This is simple enough even a child could understand.

There are 3 conditions to having your sins forgiven.

Would you like to have your sins forgiven?

Those are the 3 conditions to having your sins forgiven.

And let's look at these, each 1 individually.

Well, the Bible tells us that sin, 1 John 3, verse 4, sin is the breaking, the transgression of the law.

Bible tells us Romans 3, 23, all have sinned.

The penalty for sin, Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death.

We've all broken God's law, and the penalty for breaking God's law is what?

But instead of giving us what we deserve, the penalty, the wages of sin, which is death, God offers us a gift.

Salvation is a free gift, cannot be purchased.

Mark it down, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith And that not of yourselves, it is what?

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

But instead of giving us what we deserve, God offers us the gift of eternal life.

If we earn something, that's what we earn.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

How can he offer us life when we deserve death?

When we see God's goodness in offering us life when we really deserve death, God's goodness, God's mercy, God's love toward us leads us to want to repent.

That's the first condition to having your sins forgiven, repentance.

And it is God's goodness that leads us to want to repent.

The Bible says, Romans 2 verse 4, or despise thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance." So it is God's goodness that leads us to want to repent.

But not only did Jesus pay our penalty and take our place by dying our death, the Bible actually reveals to us that our sins killed Him.

Here the apostle Peter is preaching his Pentecost sermon and he says to the multitude, him, that's Jesus, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

So Peter says to the multitude, you crucified the Lord.

Now when they began to realize that, well, reading on, first of all, He continues to say, therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

And when they began to realize back then when Peter said, you killed Jesus, when they began to realize the enormity of their guilt, they said, Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, they were convicted, and they said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?

First words out of his mouth, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, every 1 of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Repentance is the first condition to having our sins forgiven.

It involves, number 1, sorrow for sin, and number 2, turning away from sin or forsaking sin.

There are many today who are sorry, not that they sin, they're sorry they got caught.

That's like when I was driving, in America 1 time, I was driving too fast, and I got stopped by the police for speeding.

And after the policeman had given me my ticket, my fine, he let me go, and I was driving down the highway slower now and I was feeling sorry.

And the Holy Spirit began to talk to me, Loel, why do you feel sorry?

Are you feeling sorry for breaking the speed limit?

13. Revelation’s Lake of Fire!

Our topic for tonight is Revelations lake of fire and brimstone Hell fire some years ago the Russians were drilling The deepest well at that time in planet Earth.

They ended up drilling down to 12, 262 meters deep.

Can you imagine a well that goes 12 kilometers into the earth?

And according to urban legend, they dangled a long wire with a microphone on the end of it down into that well and they thought they heard screams coming up out of the hole.

They thought maybe they drilled down into hell.

It became known later as the well to hell.

Is hell fire down way underneath us somewhere or down under Siberia?

We are looking at the hottest topic tonight in the Bible, but before we look at this topic, we want to consider the character of God.

The Bible tells us in 1 John 4, 8, God is love.

Will a God of love 1 day torment the lost all eternity in hell?

We understand the devil has taken advantage of the topic of hellfire more than any other Bible topic probably.

To lead people to look upon God as unjust, cruel, vengeful, and even to hate God.

The question we want to consider tonight, does hellfire reveal to us a God of love and justice?

We will answer that in our study There are 2 primary teachings in the Christian world regarding hell Number 1 is that hellfire is unending torment, where the wicked are always burned but never fully destroyed throughout all eternity.

The other is that hellfire will ultimately destroy the lost.

And both of these people try to prove from the Bible.

We know the Bible is not teaching 2 different things, so we want to see what the truth is from the Word of God.

First of all, the term hell is found about 54 times in the King James Bible, translated from the Old Testament Hebrew word sheol and translated from the Greek word Hades.

However, of the 54 times that the term hell is used, 42 times it simply means the grave.

Here is a text from Job chapter 17, 13, where it says, if I wait the Sheol, the grave is mine house.

So here the Hebrew word Sheol is translated what, son?

For great is thy mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest sheol.

Here, the same word, sheol, is translated what?

But in the margin, it actually says, or the grave.

Now in the New Testament, the word Hades is used.

First Corinthians 15, 55, O death, where is thy sting?

But oftentimes in the New Testament, the word Hades is translated hell.

So we understand that of the 54 times that hellfire is used in the Bible, 42 times it simply means the grave.

We wanna answer 3 questions in our topic tonight.

First of all, number 1, when will hellfire burn?

And number 3, how long will hellfire burn?

If we can correctly answer these 3 questions, we will know the truth about hell from the Bible.

The first question, when will hellfire burn?

To answer that, son, we're going to go to a story that Jesus told in Matthew 13, 24 to 30.

Jesus told a parable of a farmer that sowed good seed in his field, and at night an enemy came and sowed weed seeds among the wheat, or the rice.

And when the crop came up, here were all these weeds growing with a good seed.

So the servants asked the farmer, shall we go out and pull up the weeds?

And the farmer said, no, let them grow and let their people harvest it, then we will separate the 2.

You can read that in Matthew 13, 24 through 30.

Later, the disciples came to Jesus and asked him to explain the parable.

Matthew 13, 36 to 39 is Jesus' explanation.

Here Jesus said, Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house.

And his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.

He answered and said unto them, He that sowed the good seed is the son of man.

The good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked 1.

The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.

Jesus says, "...as therefore the tares..." Who's the tares?

"...as therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be when?" In the end of the world.

"...in the end of this world, The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.

There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So Jesus says it will be in the end of this world.

Bible says, So shall it be at the end of the world.

The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.

So now we can answer our question, when does hellfire burn?

12. The Devil’s Door!

It was on the weekend of March 22 and 23, 1997, that 39 members of Heaven's Gate cult joined in a mass suicide, was the largest suicide in American history.

Because you see, they believed that through death they would enter a higher level of existence.

Gordon Melton said about the Heaven's Gate cult.

He is the editor of the authoritative Encyclopedia of American Religions.

He said, in this case, they, the Heaven's Gate cult, they had a positive motive, a great place to go, he says, so why hang around here?

Another statement from James Tabor, cult expert at the University of North Carolina.

He said, this group is completely different.

These people rather calmly followed suicide as their exit in a very positive way to a higher level of existence.

They define death not as the enemy of life, but as life itself.

Is death the entrance to another life, in another form, in another place?

The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, 26, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Mark that in your notes, our first text tonight.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 26, death is what?

An enemy, but notice the Heaven's Gate cult, they define death not as the enemy of life, but as life itself.

Well, you see, they had opened the devil's door, and instead of turning out to be the gate of heaven, it turned out to be the devil's door.

Virtually all cults have opened the devil's door.

And many Christians have also opened the devil's door.

Before we can answer that question, we need to answer the question, what is a cult?

In fact, they estimate there's 5, 000 cults in America alone.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

15. Revelation’s Millennium, when the Devil Goes on Vacation!

43m

14. The Three Steps to Heaven

45m

13. Revelation’s Lake of Fire!

45m

12. The Devil’s Door!

41m

11. The Mysteries of the Mummies

51m

10. The Bible’s Longest, Most Amazing Prophecy!

49m

9. $10,000 Offer for Missing Bible Verse!

42m

8. The Topic that Satan Hates

56m

7. Revelation’s Two Martyrs

50m

6. The AntiChrist Coverup!

50m

5. UFOs, the Occult, and Christ’s Coming

48m

4. Revelation’s Omega, The Secret to Personal Power!

45m

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