Christ’s kingdom is coming, and a judgment of the nations will precede it. Seated on His throne in Jerusalem, Jesus will separate the righteous from the unrighteous. The righteous will enter eternal life and everyone else will be sent to eternal destruction. Are you ready and prepared?
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Transcript: Hi. Welcome to “5 Minutes with Pastor Lutzer.” Here today, we conclude our discussion of “God and the Nations” and what I’d like to do is to talk about the nations in prophecy—the fact that God still has a future for nations, and I want that to encourage you. First of all, Jesus said that as we get to the end-time, nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There’s going to be conflict in this world, as long as we are on this planet, and as long as the Lord has not yet returned. But at the same time, all nations will eventually bow to Christ. I love Psalm 2. “Why do the nations rage and the kings imagine vain things?” And it says that the nations say “let us break their bonds apart and cast their chords from us.” Next verse—“He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Now, that doesn’t mean that God laughs because it’s funny. He laughs because of their stupidity. The fact that there are nations in this world who want to take on God and cast off His restraints, but let us be encouraged to know that God rules and eventually every nation will bow and every nation is going to be represented among the redeemed.
I emphasized it in a previous program, but I want to say it again that in the fifth chapter of the book of Revelation, as well as in the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation, every nation is represented because God has a remnant of His people whom He is choosing out from the nations of the world. Now, don’t ask me to explain this in detail, but the Bible actually talks about nations in the Millennial Kingdom. For example, in the book of Revelation, Satan is bound that he cannot go out and deceive the nations any longer. At the end of the millennium ,because there will be children that will not believe on Christ, he is allowed to go out again and to deceive the nations. But let me talk about the Millennial Kingdom. I love this—the Bible says in the book of Revelation, Chapter 21, “The nations shall walk in the light of it”—that is the Holy City. And by the way, the Holy City does not need the light of the sun nor the moon for the glory of God shall be the light of it (quick parenthesis: This will be the only time when, finally, we will see uncreated light—the glory of God). But then it says, “the nations shall walk in the light of it and the kings of the earth will bring its glory into it.” The imagery is simply that all the kings of the earth and all the crowns (and you know Rebecca and I have visited England, we’ve visited Germany, and we’ve gone through these beautiful museums with all of these crowns that have been worn). The kings of the earth are going to take all their glory—that is the redeemed people of the earth will take all the glory that was given to them and those crowns are going to belong to Jesus, King of Kings; Lord of Lord. Exactly how these nations continue to exist, I do not know, but God has a plan for the nations.
Why did we have these studies? Well, first of all, it’s because I want you to see that God preserves a remnant of the nations. I like to emphasize that He’s doing more than we know about, but the second reason is history is actually going somewhere. So, as you think of all the conflict between nations—issues that also involve the United States and other countries and the differences of opinion and the struggles, remember this: God rules. And the real only question that you and I have to answer is simply this, what does faithfulness look like in the midst of a world that seems to have lost its way, considering the fact that in the end God wins? There’s a method or a purpose in what we think often times is madness. No. God rules.
Thanks so much for joining us and I hope that you join us again next time and as for today just go with God.