Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Grace in Focus. Today, questions about Satan and the end times. And what is meant by the dead in Christ? This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society we come to you each weekday, and we have a website, faithalone.org. On that website, get information about our seminary. It’s a free online seminary to those who maintain a 3.0 average or better, and you can even work towards an MDiv degree. So if you’re interested, you want to go through the application process. It’s fairly simple, and then you’ll be ready to study with us at the beginning of next semester. The information you need is at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

BOB: All right, Sam, I think you’ve got a question from someone who called in, let’s call him John. John had like three different questions about the end times. 

SAM: Yeah, they’re all kind of related. I’ll read them all out and then we can go one by one. So first is why will Satan be sealed away and then released? And the follow-up is, is it so that unregenerate people who are left at the end of the millennial kingdom can choose not to serve God and to join with Satan in trying to overthrow him, and then if not that, what other reason would there be for God not to defeat Satan outright? 

BOB: Okay, so on the first one, why is Satan bound for a thousand years and then released? Well, it’s an excellent question, and we need to realize that the thousand years is called the Millennium, because the word Millennium means a thousand years, and that the Millennium is not some separate kingdom of Jesus. It’s not like He starts this thousand year kingdom and then now we’re going to have a completely different kingdom on the new earth. This is the first thousand years of the forever kingdom, but it’s different in the sense that this kingdom includes unbelievers. Once we move to the new earth, there won’t be any unbelievers anymore. 

And this kingdom is going to have Satan’s involvement at the very end, but the question would be, which John is asking, why let him come back at the end at all? Why not just send Satan to the lake of fire and not let him out? Why release him at the end? And I would slightly revise what John said. How did he state his second question? He said, was it because he wanted those who didn’t believe to be able to choose not to serve God? 

SAM: Yeah, so that they can choose not to serve God and to join with Satan in trying to overthrow God. 

BOB: Okay, so in a sense, yes, but here’s the thing. During that whole thousand years, the Lord Jesus Christ and all of us, because we’ll be there, we who are believers in Jesus Christ, whether we’re rulers in the life to come or not, we’re going to be in the Millennium, we’re going to all be evangelizing all the unbelievers. 

So people in the Millennium are going to be living much longer than now. It’ll be more like the life spans before the flood. People evidently are going to live the entire thousand years, those born at the beginning. Isaiah 65:20 talks about the fact that in the Millennium, people are going to have life spans like trees, you know, and trees can live thousands of years. 

So someone who is born at the beginning of the Millennium is going to have a thousand years of people witnessing to him or her. And Jesus Himself will be present on earth. They’ll hear Him on the news, you know, they’ll probably get opportunities to see Him in person and hear Him in person and they’re going to be able to interact with Moses and Abraham and David and the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter and so many people. 

And so the fact that there’ll be somebody who doesn’t come to faith during the Millennium is mind-boggling to me. But yet we do know because there’s a rebellion at the end that there have to be some who don’t come to faith. In fact, it appears it’s a pretty big rebellion. So there’s going to be a lot of people who don’t come to faith in those thousand years and it’s kind of puzzling on why that’s the case. But I think it helps to answer John’s question. What is it that opposes people from believing and also from following Christ in this life? What are our enemies? 

SAM: The world. 

BOB: Okay. So we’ve got the world system. 

SAM: Desire for sin. 

BOB: Okay. We’ve got the whole desire for sin, which the New Testament calls the flesh, right? So we have the world, we have the flesh, and then we also have the devil. Well, the devil will be bound for that thousand years. But the world’s not going to go away. There’s still going to be this world system. Now, it will be less powerful than it is now because Satan energizes the world system. And the flesh is still going to exist. People are still going to have fleshly inclinations and desires that will be evident at the rebellion at the end of the Millennium.

So I think the answer is, binding Satan for a thousand years shows that even in this age, which certainly it’ll be easier to come to faith during the Millennium than now, right? Because Jesus will be on earth, so will be all the Old Testament believers, so all of the New Testament believers. It’s going to be a time when certainly it would seem that people are going to see lots of miraculous things, those of us in glorified bodies are going to be able to do things that the people in the natural bodies can’t do. And yet people still won’t come to faith. 

So you can realize that even if Satan were bound today, you’d still have the vast majority of people who wouldn’t believe because you’d still have the flesh and you’d still have the world system. So I think that’s why Satan’s bound that thousand years, but having said that, the Bible doesn’t actually explain that. It just says he’s bound for a thousand years. 

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BOB: So there is another question he has and it’s a question about the dead in Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. So maybe you could read that Sam. 

SAM: Yeah, who are the dead in Christ? So starting in verse 13, “But I do not want you to be ignorant brethren concerning those who have fallen asleep lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep” rather, “those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 

BOB: Okay, so the dead in Christ are those who are believers in Jesus Christ who have died. Earlier in the passage notice it says in verse 13, “those who have fallen asleep”, verse 14, “those who sleep”, verse 15, “those who are asleep”. And this is a different Greek word for sleep than is used in chapter five of 1 Thessalonians. This word koimao is always used in the New Testament to refer to the death of believers. 

So the dead in Christ refers to those who are believers in Jesus Christ—whether they were faithful or unfaithful is not the point here. And all of them are going to precede us at the time of the Rapture. Notice verse 17, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Well notice this word “caught up”. That’s where we get the word Rapture from the Latin version of this. And verse 16 says “the dead in Christ will rise first”. So people who have already died and they’re in Christ. In Paul, “in Christ” means church age believers. They’re going to rise first. And then a nanosecond later, we who are alive will be caught up and meet them in the air. 

And so the dead in Christ are all believers. And this is good news because the fear evidently in Thessalonica was that the believers who had already died might miss out on the Millennium or they might miss something that was coming in God’s plan. And the point here is no, they’re not going to miss out on anything. Not even whether they were faithful or unfaithful. 

When you read chapter five, you find out that some believers at the time of Christ’s return are going to be morally asleep. And some of them are going to be morally awake and alert. But he says in verse 10 that whether we are asleep or whether we’re watching for His return, either way we’re going to be forever with the Lord. So the good news—and you get that also in 4:13-18,—all those who are dead in Christ are going to rise, not just the faithful ones. There have been people in church history that have taught a partial Rapture. Only the faithful believers are going to be Raptured. But no, all believers are going to meet the Lord in the air, all church age believers. 

So John, I hope that helps, you know, a lot of people make jokes about this. They say, well, the dead in Christ or the Baptist or the dead in Christ or the Methodist or the dead in Christ or this other, the issue is not some particular group. This is all who have believed in Christ and who have died. 

SAM: Well, I was just thinking he says those who are first will be last and those who are last will be first, but apparently those who die first also get to rise first. You know, I think verse 18 here is extremely important for us and for all believers, for he says “therefore comfort one another with these words”. And I think that is, again, we talk about a lot of these concepts of the Rapture or the millennial kingdom. And I think it’s hard for people to visualize that sometimes. 

But the bottom line is this is supposed to comfort us because we are given knowledge of the future because Christ could have just left and said, I’m coming back and like we never find out anything again. But this knowledge is here to comfort us, not to scare people into, scare people into believing or scare believers into living in fear that they’re not going to make it. These are for us to comfort one another. 

BOB: And it’s also interesting. Notice how 5:11 ends the same way in the section where he talks about you need to be watchful and you need to be alert, even so he says comfort one another in verse 11, “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another just as you are doing.” So both sections in 4:13-18, 5:11 end with comforting one another. And that’s why Rapture truth is comforting truth. Of course, we should also long to hear the Lord Jesus say, well done, good and faithful servant. And that’s the undercurrent in 1 Thess 5:11. 

SAM: So let’s stay awake, let’s comfort each other. Let’s keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode, what is the joy of the Lord? Please join us. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.