The Day After Christ Returns

We observe the Feast of Trumpets. Last week we talked about what the world would be like. Before Jesus Christ returned, the Feast of Trumpets, we talked about what would happen in the world before the return of Jesus Christ. And, of course, the Feast of Trumpets also pictures His return. And He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I want to take a minute here to set the setting for where we are today. Here we are after the Feast of Trumpets. If we project ahead to the time these things are fulfilled, Jesus Christ has defeated the armies that were gathered before Him. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You and I, if we continue in the way that God has called us, we will be standing by His side and we will be looking at a world that is absolutely decimated. They will have been through something, through the trumpet plagues, through the great tribulation, through the upheavals that will occur between now and the time that Jesus Christ returns. And they will have seen the greatest armies in the world with all the technical advancements and all the weaponry and all the might that's there. And they will be absolutely dazed and confused. They will have seen everything they know blow up. And they'll be wondering, what is going to happen now? Who is this that has come down from heaven with armies behind Him that has absolutely destroyed everything we counted on in the earth? Because you know that the people were looking to the beast's power. When the Babylon completely is destroyed and completely shattered, they wail over her. Where's our merchandise? Where's the things that have made us rich? Everything is gone. The world is in desolation. Everything is gone. Where do we go from here? And they will be standing there, those that are left alive at that time, and there will be people left alive. There will be people who live over into the millennium. And as they stand there that day, after Christ returns, you and I will be looking out at them. They'll be looking at Jesus Christ and us, and they'll be wondering what is going on. What is going on? What next? And you know they're going to be thinking a lot more than that, because even if they are told, it's Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ returned to earth. He's the one who shattered the kingdoms. He is the one who is now King of Kings, just as you heard those two witnesses say for 1260 days as they were on earth. Even though we say that, just think about what they've been told. They've been told everything. God has been blasting the entire three and a half years. The King of the earth, the beast power has been blasting out things, absolute mistruths. He's been battling and trying to downgrade God, so people are confused. They don't know. And you know what? They look at Jesus Christ as an enemy. Romans 8-7 says, The carnal mind is enmity against God, and they have been steeped in it. They have been there and they have heard all sorts of things. And they look out and they wonder what is going to happen now. And they look at Christ and they look at us and they think, what are you going to do to us? They have doubts and they have fears and they are scared and they don't know what to do. What will Jesus Christ do the day after He returns? What will you and I do today after He returns? Well, let's go back. Let's read the last few verses of Revelation 19, because we're here on the Feast of Trumpets, and another week we'll be keeping the Day of Atonement. We understand what the Day of Atonement pictures, and we'll be talking about that next week.

But in Revelation 19, just to set the setting even a little more than what I've just done, let's pick it up in the last three verses here of Revelation 19. The powers of the world are gathered. In verse 19, John says, I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, the leaders of the earth are there, and their armies gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse, and against his army that they see coming from heaven. And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, in which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. Those two were classed alive in the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. What a sight! Remember, it's a 200 million-man army. There's a lot of people dead! There's a lot of people that the world realizes has happened instantaneously! And then the very next person in the Bible says, I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in the sand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who was the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

What the day of atonement pictures! Now, the Bible goes from chapter 19, verse 21, right into chapter 20, verse 1. And that's the very next significant thing that happens. Is that what Jesus Christ will do the very first day He is on earth? Will He the very first day take Satan and bind Him and cast Him into the bottomless pit for a thousand years?

It may be! It may be that what He's doing. But I also have always wondered, why did God put a space between of nine days between the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement? Is there something that happens between the Feast of Trumpets and the Time of Atonement? And this is speculation on my part. God in the low knows what He's doing, and He may very well, the first thing He does, cast Satan into the bottomless pit.

We know He will do it, and He will lay on Satan all the sins of mankind, and He will bind Him so that the kingdom, the millennium may come, and people can learn the way of God. But as He stands there, and as we stand there and look at a world that is decimated, scared, uncertain, doesn't have a clue who He is, has been fed all sorts of mis-information about Him, what might He do if He doesn't turn or throw Satan into prison?

Well, maybe we find a clue to what He'll do back in Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61. Remember the first few verses here of Isaiah 61? Christ quoted and is recorded in the Luke 4 when He stood up before the assembly there, and He read in the temple the first few verses of Isaiah 61, and then He sat down in a dramatic fashion and said, this has now been fulfilled in your hearing. And the people marveled at what He said as He read the words that we're about to read here this afternoon.

Chapter 61 of Isaiah 1 says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord God has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prisons of those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of the vengeance, and the day of vengeance of our God. Now, that speaks to the time. It kind of describes what things will be like after the return of Jesus Christ.

There will be people who need to hear some good tidings. There are people who need to hear some truth. There will be people who are certainly brokenhearted. There will be certainly people who have to understand and don't understand that they've just been given liberty from oppression, but they have now, they will not understand that they have that, and they've got to be educated in that. When Jesus Christ returns, whether He finds Satan first or whether He finds or does something else first, He will be teaching people, and He'll be teaching them in a gentle way.

He understands what the world has done. He understands what Satan has done. He understands the misinformation that's been out there about Him. But you know, everything about Jesus Christ and God is, they're not willing that any should die. They want the people to understand. They want the people to understand who He is and to understand the truth.

The purpose that Jesus Christ is going to come to earth is to save mankind. Let's go back to Acts 3, save mankind from Himself. But from the time that He returns and for the rest of the time, in Acts 3 verse 19, verse 18, tells us what His mission and what His purpose will be. Acts 3 and verse 18. Those things which God foretold, by the mouth of all of His prophets that the Christ would suffer, He is thus fulfilled. And He tells us, Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all of His holy prophets since the world began.

When He comes, He will begin the process, and you and I will be working with Him to restore all things. That means restoring the world to the state that God had intended it to be. People aren't going to know that automatically. All they're going to know is the agricultural and the way we treat the earth today. The way we treat the earth today isn't the way that God had intended for man to treat them.

There's a whole bunch of education that has to go on, as the things are restored to the way that God would have us live on this earth and use it. He has to restore truth and trust in people. He has to let them know that He is God, that He is Jesus Christ, that He didn't come to destroy and make their lives miserable. But instead, He came to liberate them from the oppression they've always been under. He's come to set the record straight so that their future is something that they are alive with and that they can look forward to.

And He will be teaching the people during all of that time. He will be working with them and He will be educating them. Now, on that first day, certainly not everything is going to happen in one day. It's going to take a millennium of time to restore the truth to people. And each succeeding generation is going to learn more and more just the way it is with us today, that as we come into the church, we hope that our children learn more about the truth.

So, they are even better than us if we want to use that term. And the succeeding generation after that would even be better. Sometimes it doesn't work that way in today's world, but certainly in the millennium it should work that way, that each succeeding generation becomes purer and purer and purer and loves God more and trusts Him more and turns to Him more and becomes more and more like Jesus Christ having the character and the personality and the outgoing concern and the agape love for everyone that He has demonstrated.

That has to begin someplace. The world doesn't know that. They may remember what the witnesses did, but they saw the world rejoice when the witnesses were killed. They have to understand that this is what the world will be from here on out. I didn't come to make your life miserable. I came to make your life good. I'm not here as He would be explaining to them who He is, what the purpose for things are.

He will be teaching them because just like us, He wants us to understand. When we understand and when we're called, then we respond to Him.

Jesus Christ may well take the time to do that. Let's go back to Ezekiel. Keep your hands and your fingers in the axe. I'm going to come right back here to the axe, too, in a minute. Ezekiel 36.

Ezekiel 36. And verse 24. He says to Israel, I will take you from among the nations. I will gather you out of all countries. I will bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. That heart of stone that we talked about on the Feast of Trumpets, where people just had all these things happen to them, trumpets blaring loudly, but they just didn't listen.

They never repented. They sealed their hearts against God. God says, I'll take that heart of stone from you. I will give you a heart of flesh. And they will be taught that. And as He puts His Holy Spirit in them, just as He has put His Holy Spirit in us, the enmity between us and God should fade, should disappear. And that will fade for them and disappear, not overnight, because they're just like you and me.

But as they live and as they see Jesus Christ and as they work with you and me and the kings and priests that He's preparing us to be in that time, they will come to understand, this is a kingdom. This is a government unlike anything we've seen before. They'll learn about it, but they're going to have to live and experience it just like you and I did. They're not going to become perfect overnight, just like you and I weren't perfect overnight.

They may even have to sit there and hear Jesus Christ talk, whether it's before or after Satan is found and think, what is He saying? You know, some of us, we heard the truth, and it might have been years, years before we responded to it. Though we kind of let it percolate in our mind and it was back there until we realized, this is the truth.

You cannot look at the Bible and say anything else, but it's the truth. And for some of us, it took a while for that to occur. For others, it was instantaneous. And for those in the millennium, it will be the same way, because they have a lifetime behind them, where they've either been rejecting God, putting Him out of their minds, or practicing rejection of Him everywhere along the line.

We don't know what their backgrounds are. They're all different. But at that time, their minds will be opened. They'll understand. God will give them the Spirit, and they will begin to see what is going on. As long as we're in Ezekiel, let's turn back a few looks to Isaiah.

Isaiah 52. Verse 7, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, where God reigns. How good is that? They may not understand that the first day. They'll come to understand it. Your watchmen will lift up their voices, with their voices they will sing together, for they will see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion. Break forth into joy. Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.

He has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. They'll see Him returning. They'll see, they may not understand, that He saved them from total destruction. They will come to understand that. They will come to see Him as a Savior and not a conqueror, in the sense of the word that they have, may be thinking of, a conqueror.

And they will begin to learn. They will begin to learn the truth of the Bible, just as you and I learned the truth of the Bible. And you and I will be there to help them do that. You and I will be there to help them do that. We've turned back to Isaiah 30.

We're going to get back to Acts 2, but I keep having thoughts come into my mind, so we'll turn back here to Isaiah 30. Let's pick it up in verse 19. The people will dwell at Zion, at Jerusalem. You will weep no more, Isaiah 30, verse 19. He'll be gracious to you with the sound of your cry. When He hears it, He will answer you.

And the law of the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore. Your eyes will see your teachers. Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way. Walk in it, whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left. That'll be us. Well, we see people going astray. That's not the way. Here's a gentle reminder, This is the way. Walk in this way. Now, let's go back to Acts 2. Acts 2. In that time, Jesus Christ will pour out His Spirit on all flesh.

Here in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, after they received the Holy Spirit, he quotes from Joel 2. Let's pick it up in verse 17. He says, It shall come to pass in the last days, said God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My men servants and on My maid servants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.

I shall show wonders in heaven above. And signs on the earth beneath. God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh in those times. Often we talk about, and you will see as you read through Ezekiel, God gathering Israel back. But God is gathering all people back. Anyone that calls on His name. We'll see that here in a moment. In that day, when they are first introduced to Jesus Christ, they are aware of who He is.

And when He may lay out His plans for what mankind is, something they've never heard before, and they begin to graph what it is. And as He tells them what the future is and teaches them of those things, you know what they're going to be like you and I were. They're going to be ravenous for the truth. They're going to come to the point where, after time, they are eagerly go up and look for the truth. Because it is so different and it is so inspiring and it is so invigorating that that's what they want to hear.

And we read about that in Isaiah 2. You know, we're going up to the Feast of Tabernacles and I hope we all go to the Feast of Tabernacles with the same attitude that the people will have in the Millennium because that's what God wants to see from us as we go up there. Isaiah 2 and verse 2, it'll come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house will be established on the top of the mountains and will be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow to it.

All nations that are left, they will all go there because that is what God wants to do and you know what? They want to be there. You can't keep them away from there, just like you can't keep us away from the Feast if our heart is really with God and we are desiring what He wants us to have.

Many people will come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways. We will walk in His paths for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. That's what we will be like in that day. People will be flowing to it automatically, just like you and I do and should and certainly were when we first understood the truth.

So God will be teaching them of His ways and maybe that first day He will be letting them know what the plan is, but you know what else He'll be doing? As they look at Him and they look at you and I and the other resurrected saints there, as they see David there, they don't know who He is, and Abraham there, and all those men you see in Hebrews 11 that we read about in the Bible, I think He'll be introducing His team. I think He'll be probably saying, this is who these people are. These are these people who through the trials of life, they stood by Me.

They used My Holy Spirit. They overcame the flesh. They overcame the world. They didn't accept the mark of the beast. They didn't accept the world. And through it all, they stood and used My Holy Spirit and they chose Me over themselves. They chose Me over the world.

They chose Me over their families. They chose Me and they are here with Me to help you become who you can become. And He may even that day begin to show what some of the government is. In Ezekiel it tells us that David will be over the nations and the twelve apostles, it tells us in the New Testament, will be over the twelve tribes of Israel.

He may talk about some of those things. I don't know what he will, but in Isaiah 61, he'll teach. He'll teach and that will be something that happens early on and then continues throughout the time of the millennium. Let's go back to Isaiah 61. He'll teach, but there will be something else too because, you know, words are very good and we can say words, but people want to see the person behind the words too. They want to know what the person behind the words is like. In the chapter, we're back in chapter 61, the last sentence there or the last phrase of verse 2 says, as Jesus Christ says, He'll be there to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes because their world and everything they thought they had has been totally decimated, but He will replace the devastation with beauty.

He'll replace the mourning with the oil of joy, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, and He'll do that because what He wants for them is that they become trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified. They may not know it at that time, but they're in for the time of their lives, that their lives will be more meaningful, more satisfying, more purposeful than they ever imagined possible. It's the same thing that happened for you and me, that when God called us out of the world and we followed Him, that our lives became so much more than they ever were when we were enamored and chained by the things of the world that kept us busy and took all our attention away.

Never discount how important God's blessing is and the future that He has given all of us. But when Jesus Christ returns, He will be comforting. He will be comforting people. Here's the people that have been hurt.

Here's the people that have been confused. Here's the people that have been beaten.

I hope they're very humble. I hope they're very receptive at that time.

Whatever it is, Jesus Christ will be comforting. He will be a comfort to them. Isaiah 51.

He will show in the way that He teaches and the way that He is, they will come to understand He is someone they can trust and who is someone who has their best interests at heart and who loves them just as it said in John 3.16. That verse will come alive for them just like it's come alive for you and me when we understand that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him may have everlasting life.

Chapter 51 of Isaiah 3. The eternal will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places, and there will be plenty of waste places at the time after Jesus Christ returns. He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the Garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. That's what will happen. Not maybe that very first day, but they will see that, and they will begin to see the picture of what God has in mind for them.

Remember, you and I always need to remember, whatever trial we face, whether it's a health trial or anything else that comes in our life, God is not willing that any should die. He's not willing that any should die, but He does want everyone to come to repentance, that He may give them eternal life. And that will be what He tells the people of the millennium, too. I'm not here to see you die. I didn't want anyone to die, but people need to come to repentance, so they need to yield to God. They need to examine their lives, and they need to get back to what God, well, in their case, they need to get to what God wanted them to begin with and not pursue their own interests anymore. In Jeremiah 29, a beautiful verse that is set there in the midst of God's discourse to Israel, chapter 29, verse 11. It says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Eternal, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and the hope. He'll comfort the people. He'll let them know, I have your best interest at heart. I want to give you hope. I want you to see your future.

I want you to understand it's not going to be the same as it was the last three and a half years, but I do want you to understand that when you live my way, everything you've ever wanted in life and more than you could imagine will come your way.

Back in Ephesians, Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2, verse 4.

God is merciful, and the people will see He is a God of mercy, and they will come to understand that.

Chapter 2 of Ephesians, verse 4, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and He raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Kind, loving, agape, not willing that any should die, but that all should come to repentance, and all should follow Him that He may give eternal life. Verse 1. Verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundance mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

If He's begotten us again to a living hope, will He not beget those who live over into the millennium into a living hope? Will He not paint that picture for them? Will He not help them to see over time what is going to happen and how their lives will be? Has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that doesn't steady it away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time? What He's given us, He will give them. Now, we are first-prutes. They will have a different position because the first-prutes are those who are called in this life. But people who are in the second resurrection and people who live in the millennium will also have a place in God's eternal plan. And He is their salvation Savior as much as He is ours. Psalm 103. Again, remember, this is the people who have been decimated. They've seen their government topple. They've seen the society that they relied on gone. You remember the trumpet plates and the seven last bowls. The sea creatures are gone. The water has been turned to blood. There is total devastation on the earth. They may be wondering, how am I going to eat? What am I going to do? Where do I go tomorrow? My house is gone. There's no food. Everything is a mess.

Sometimes you meet the physical needs before you can reach the spiritual needs. Go back in Psalm. Go back to Psalm here. Psalm 103. Probably some of you have Psalm 103 memorized. It's a very comforting Psalm. But looking at it, the context of what the people who come through the last three and a half years of earth, Psalm 103, and verse 1, read it with that in mind.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is in me, bless His holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. The world doesn't know His benefits.

Who forgives all your iniquities. Who heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from destruction. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Who satisfies your mouth with good things. So that your youth is renewed like the eagles. They will see that Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, He is a healer. He is a provider. He can provide everything they need in the face of all that devastation. They will have what they need.

He will not let them starve. He will not let them continue. He will see what a good God and what a good Savior is there. The same thing you and I should learn through the course of our lives. He does all those things. If we look to Him first, these people have nothing else to look to do. No government, no banks, no stock market, no hospitals, no physicians, no bank books, no homes, no Publix, no Walmart. Nothing. The only place they can look is to God.

And He will answer every need. A lesson you and I can learn more and more and should be learning more and more. Look to Him He provides. Let's go back to Isaiah 61.

When Jesus Christ returns, and you and I, there as kings and priests working with Him, we begin to see what we will be doing. We begin to see what the people will be like and what Jesus Christ will be doing as He begins the Millennial reign. And then it will continue to progress through time. Isaiah 61 and verse 4, He will teach His way. We'll have a part in that.

He'll be comforting the people. We will have developed that spirit of agape in our lives as we do the things that we do today. And we'll have that spirit that we will be a comfort to people as well as we are learning to be in our lives now. In verse 4, it says, they will rebuild the old ruins. They will raise up the former desolations. They will repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. The world will be just a chaotic mess. Everywhere you look, there will be rubble. Where the people are, where Jesus Christ is standing on earth, it's going to be a total devastation, brought about by their own hands. Brought about by their own hands, and they will come to understand how man did this to himself. And they may be whale, and they may be mortified when they understand, we rejected God through all those trumpet plagues. How could we have ever done that? But they will do that, but they'll be looking around at total, total devastation all around them. But God says the world is going to be rebuilt. He came to restore. He will come to restore all things. The world will be built again. It's not a matter of nuclear waste that for the next thousand years, this is how you live from hand to mouth or whatever. No, he's got a plan in mind that the world will be rebuilt. And you and I will be there as part of that rebuilding process, and the people who live, who are mortals during that time, they will be part of that process. Christ isn't going to come and just snap his fingers and say, let there be a building here, let this city be restored. There's going to be people doing physical work just like you and I do physical work today. They're going to have a purpose. They're going to have a mission, and they're going to know what the process is, and they're going to have a vision of what's going on as Jesus Christ. And you and I paint that vision for them. It's going to be a world that will be a beautiful world, not like the world today where some countries have it all, but other countries have virtually nothing. It'll be a world where everyone sits under their own, has their own house, and looks out at their own vineyard in the backyard, as it says in Micah 4, verse 3. It'll be a world that will be rebuilt. It'll be a world of plenty. It'll be a world where there is plenty of food for everyone, not just the select few nations. They will be learning and being taught that the way of God and the world is just replenished and restored. We'll do the things that God wanted them done.

You and I will have a part in that. Let's go back to Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36, verse 6.

Under inspiration from God, remember, Ezekiel was prophesying after the ancient Kingdom of Israel had gone into captivity, and the cities of ancient Israel were never brought to devastation.

In chapter 36, verse 6, therefore prophesied. God says to Ezekiel, concerning the land of Israel, and say of the mountains, the hills, the rivers, the valleys, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and my fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations.

Therefore, he says, I have raised my hand in an oath that surely the nations that are around you shall bear their own shame, but you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they are about to come. As God begins to call the nations of Israel back to the land He had promised them, for indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be tilled and sown. I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it, and the cities shall be inhabited, and the ruins rebuilt. I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall increase and bear young. I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. Then you shall know that I am the Eternal.

This is what's going to be. This is how it's going to be. Better than before. God will lead it. You and I will be there as part of it. The people will follow, and the people will be busy. Now, when they're working and they're working hard, and they see the fruit of their labors, and they know that they're in tune with God, and the earth, and God, and man are all in concert with one another, we can't even imagine how beautiful and how inspiring and how awesome that time will be.

They'll live it. We'll live it. They will have a vision of what the world can be. We should have a vision of what is going to happen as well. We better be asking God to hone that vision in us and help it to inspire us just as it will inspire them as they see the fruits of doing things God's way in their lives and see how beneficial it is. Later on in the same chapter, chapter 36, verse 33, Thus says the Lord God, On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. So they will say, This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden, and the wasted desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.

When they see the process, when they see what goes on, then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it. People will be doing it, but they will be following His lead, following His word. He will be restoring the earth, restoring man, bringing joy, peace, and abundance to all people, and not just to the nations of Israel. Acts 15.

Acts 15 and verse 14. Acts 15 and verse 14. Simon says, has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. It's what he's doing today, because today, as salvation is open for all of mankind, not just the physical nation of Israel, but all of mankind, who God will call and who will respond to His call. After they have become silent, James answers, saying, Men and brethren... Up a verse, rather than down a verse. Verse 15.

The words of the prophets agree, just as it is written here, and he quotes from Amos 9, verses 11 and 12. After this, I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the eternal. Even all the Gentiles, who are called by my name, says the Lord who does all these things. All the world will have part in it. Everyone who seeks God. And there will be nations, as you remember from Zechariah 14, that will reject God at first, because they have been steeped in ideas of rejection, and it talks about in Zechariah 14, that some won't go to the piece of tabernacles, because they just don't want to go, because that's what they've been programmed to do, not listen to God. And he says, when death happens, I will rain down. I will withhold the rain from them until they realize, blessings come when you obey God. And we know that shortly after the millennium, as we read last week from Ezekiel 38, there will be a contingency who goes down and wants to attack the unvolved villages of Israel, the Gog and Magogs of the world, who have been steeped in anti-God philosophy. And even after they see the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and they begin to see what's going on, and things rebuilt, they still want to go down, and they still have that spirit of antagonism, that spirit of enmity in them, that they go down and they want to attack, attack what God is doing. And he, of course, utterly decimates them, because there won't be evil in his kingdom. People will learn to do what he has to say, but it will be for all of mankind. Israel may be the one who leads the way in yielding to God, and other nations see God blesses, God works with them, and God will do the same thing for us.

But it'll be a time, a time when there is plenty for all the world. In Amos 9, I won't take the time to turn to Amos 9, but you remember the verse there that says, the flower will overcome the reaper. There will be such an abundance that there will be worldwide food and plenty for everyone. And there will be joy, and there will be gladness in all the things that God said. He will be planting that vision in their minds, that vision that you and I should have, that this world isn't the end all and be all. No matter what we have, no matter what God gives us in this world, it's not the end. It is only a very temporary and fleeting thing. And we need to keep our eyes on the kingdom and the vision of what He will do for us. Still doing all the work that we do, still doing all the things for the best of our ability and whatever we find our hand to do, doing it with our might, but always remembering there's more than this world. And what we do in this time is to be building the character that God wants us to have so that we can be there with Him and do the things that sound, I hope, to you so appealing and so inspiring to know that you'll have part of that for eternity, for eternity, certainly in the millennium, whatever God has in mind past that. Let's go back to Isaiah 56. Isaiah 56 and verse 1, Thus says the Lord, or thus says the Eternal, Keep justice and do righteousness.

For my salvation is about to come in my righteousness to be revealed.

Blessed is the man who does this and the Son of man who lays hold on it, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, who keeps his hand from doing any evil.

Do not let the Son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Eternal speak, saying, The Lord has utterly separated me from his people. Don't let the eunuch say, Here I am a dry tree. For thus says the Eternal, To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, and choose what pleases me, and hold past my covenant. Even to them I will give in my house and within my walls a place in the name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Verse 6, Also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Eternal to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast my covenant. Even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. The Lord God, who gathers the outtaste of Israel, says, I will gather to him others besides those who are gathered to him.

It's for all of mankind. It's for everyone who lives over into the kingdom, just like the calling of God is to anyone that responds, or the salvation of God is for anyone that responds to his call today, and that goes through the process that he asks us to do.

Repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit, and live that way for the rest of your life, letting God perfect and mold you and get you ready for what we will be doing in what might be the near future.

Might be, you notice I said, might be. Jesus Christ will do all those things. The people will have a vision. They will be comforted. He will provide for them. They will see him and come to see him as a good king. They may reject him at first. It may take some time to work all that out, but the seeds will be planted. You know the other thing He will teach them? He will teach them why the world was the way it was in the time before He returned. He will teach them about Satan, and He'll go back and explain about Adam and Eve and how the world has chosen Satan and that this was Satan's world. And they will come to see as you and I see that Satan is here, not for our benefit. He is not here because he wants us to live. He wants us to die. He wants nothing more than to see you and me turn from God, turn to the world, and have everything else be more important than with God. He wants to see us choose something over God. He wants us to see and choose something and put God second because just this one time, just this one time, when God is saying, practice and learn how to put me first every time in your life. He wants to see us. He wants to see you. He wants to see me lose the salvation that God has given us. And the world will come to see that as well, and they will see. He was really the God behind that beast power that was out there. It wasn't anything for them to hold on to. Now they have something to hold on to.

And Satan, when he is put away, they will understand why he was put away, and they will rejoice that he has gone for a thousand years. But that's something for the day of Atonement to speak of. So as we go to the feast, and as you learn and as you hear about what the millennium will be like, listen to it, pay attention to it, get yourself involved in the Feast of Tabernacles, and rejoice everything that's there, all the physical things that God wants us to enjoy. But don't lose, and don't forget the real reason you're there. And that is to capture a vision of the Kingdom.

Watch out for other people. Take the opportunities for service. Be there among God's people. Go to services every day. Go to the first Holy Night service. Enjoy and embrace it all.

And let God and His Spirit lead you and guide you. Have a wonderful feast, and we will look forward to seeing all of you when we all return.