David Jeremiah - The Coming Golden Age Interview
David Jeremiah: Please help me welcome Sheila Walsh.
Sheila Walsh: Oh, Dr. Jeremiah, this is so exciting. So this new book is amazing, "The Coming Golden Age". But honestly, I don't think I've heard many people talk about that. I certainly haven't read another book like your book. Why did you write this book this time?
David Jeremiah: You know, Sheila, whenever I do a book project, one of the first things we do, I have a staff that helps me do this, we look up on the internet, and any other sources we can find, all the other books that might have been written on the particular subject we're going to write on. And when we began to look for books on the Millennium, we couldn't find any except theological books that wanted to argue over whether Jesus comes back before the Millennium or after the Millennium. I didn't think that would bless you all that much, so we kept looking and, finally, I remembered a statement that Dwight Pentecost made in a class that I had with him in seminary and I found it's written in some of his books. And here's what he said. He said there is more information in the Bible about the Millennium than there is about any other subject, including salvation, heaven, hell. He said the Bible is full of information on the Millennium, but the information is spread out in the Old Testament, a few in the New, and nobody's ever collected it together so that we have an idea of what this is all about. When I finished with "The Great Disappearance," I thought, well, what's next? Well, what's next is the Tribulation. We already have a book on that. So the next thing was the Millennium, and I dove into it. I have to admit, there were a few days after I got started, I wondered if I'd gotten in over my head. But it's been a real thrill to read and discuss and research these subjects.
Sheila Walsh: You're gonna love this book, it's phenomenal. What does it mean to be kingdom ready?
David Jeremiah: There are two aspects of the kingdom. There's the kingdom that's to come, the Millennium, which is referenced in Revelation chapter 19, and then there's the kingdom that's already here. In fact, there's a statement, and it's "almost but not yet". Almost we have the kingdom, because when Jesus Christ comes into your life, he becomes your Lord and your Savior and he becomes the King of your life. So if you're a Christian, you're already in the kingdom. There's a verse that says, "We've been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his Son". So if you're here as a Christian, congratulations. We're kingdom buddies, kingdom brothers and sisters, and we already are in the kingdom. But the Bible also says that one day Jesus Christ himself, the King, is going to come back to this earth and set up his kingdom for a thousand years and reign and rule on this earth. That's the kingdom to come. So there's the kingdom that's in your heart and the kingdom that's to come.
Sheila Walsh: Now, you have gone through scripture from the beginning until the revelation given to John and you've pulled all these threads together. So where does the Millennium fit in God's prophetic timeline?
David Jeremiah: Okay, here's how that works. We are living now in the church age and we know, if we've studied the Bible, that the next thing to happen is the Rapture of the church. The church will go to heaven. And then comes a period of seven years of Tribulation. We won't be here, we'll be in heaven, but the Tribulation will be divided into two pieces, the first half, the Great Tribulation, the second half. At the end of the Great Tribulation, Jesus will come back and he will win the victory of the battle of Armageddon. And when that happens, the kingdom is ushered in on this earth.
Sheila Walsh: So what is Jesus's role, particularly during the Millennium?
David Jeremiah: Well, you know, the Bible teaches in prophecy that Jesus will come back one day and he will sit on the throne of David. He will be the King of the earth. So, first of all, he comes back as a fulfillment of prophecy. Those prophecies in the Old Testament aren't just mysterious they're actual. There is coming a time when King Jesus will sit on the throne in Jerusalem and be king over all the earth. When he returns, to fight the battle of Armageddon and then we're ushered in to the kingdom, he will actually go to Jerusalem. He will be seated on the throne there. And he won't just be King of Israel or King of Jerusalem, he'll be King of the whole world.
Sheila Walsh: You've already touched on the "already, but not yet". How does the Lord's Prayer help us understand that?
David Jeremiah: You know, I remember years ago, Sheila, I preached a series of messages on the Lord's Prayer and I made a little list for the inside of my Bible. And part of the list was, "You pray for your priorities". And that priority section was this little phrase, "thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven". And I began to think how wonderful it would be to pray every day, "Lord, help my life to reflect heaven's priorities. Help me to live every day in such a way that your will is being done in my life even as if I were in heaven already".
Sheila Walsh: I love that, that is a great prayer to begin every day with. Some people might confuse the Millennium with heaven, but they're not the same, right?
David Jeremiah: No, well, you're absolutely right. A lot of people confuse it because a lot of people use the Millennial passages to describe what heaven's like. And the Millennium and heaven are very similar. I mean, they're not totally different. But after the thousand-year reign of Christ, there will be a final rebellion, but then the eternal state will begin, and that's heaven. Heaven is after the Millennium, not the same as the Millennium.
Sheila Walsh: In the section in your book where you talk about what will be in the Millennium, I mean, stay tuned, buckle your seat belts, it's great, but you talk about justice. What will that look like in the Millennium?
David Jeremiah: Well, there won't be any room for any discussion because the ultimate thing that will happen is truth will be executed. And everything will be done, it will be absolutely right with no possibility of it being wrong. And there won't be any injustice where people are treated wrongly because somebody doesn't know the truth, because the truth will be sitting on the throne.
Sheila Walsh: Amen, I'm clapping there. Wow, that is just fabulous. One of the things that you write about is Jesus reversing the curse and restoring God's creation to perfection.
David Jeremiah: Well, that's a very interesting thing. When you get into the Bible in the first part of the book of Genesis, you know that Adam and Eve sinned and then the curse came, and what was the curse? The curse on the ground, Adam and Eve were separated in their intimate fellowship with God, the other parts of the curse. When you get to the Millennium, all the things that we lost in the curse are given back to us so that the world that God intended us to have at the beginning becomes ours at the end. And that's such a wonderful thing. You know, I used to sing in a quartet years ago and we used to sing this song, "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through". Aren't you glad this world isn't our home? I mean, especially now, right now. The world's falling apart. But this, you know, this is gonna be an amazing thing when all the things that went wrong in Eden are made right in the Millennium.
Sheila Walsh: Wow, I love the way you write about worship during the Millennium. Talk to us about that.
David Jeremiah: You know, in my lifetime as a pastor, and I know we have some other guys here who are pastors, or on their way to being pastors, the most controversial thing in the church has been worship. Can I get a witness? I mean, we fight over that more than ever. Should you raise your hands, or shouldn't you? Sway back and forth, or not? Some people get down on... I mean, I don't like to fight over those things. I worry more about, what are the words in the song and are they biblical? And that can cause some challenges too. But in the Millennium, there's going to be undivided worship, where everyone from every tribe and every kindred and every race and every color will be together in worship. And there will be no division and there will be no discussion about whether this is right or not. We will be so focused on King Jesus that nothing else will matter, and it'll be amazing.
Sheila Walsh: You write a lot about true happiness and joy. I mean, we're living in a time where there's so much anxiety and loneliness and stress. But we are promised true happiness and joy in the Millennium.
David Jeremiah: When we get to the Millennium, we're going to have unmitigated happiness and joy. And think about the moment in your life when you would be the happiest. And don't ask yourself, "Was that joy or was that happiness"? It was both because it came from God, and God wants us to have happiness and he smiles when we're happy, and that will be a wonderful time in the future.
Sheila Walsh: You write about something that impacts every single one of us in here and those watching at home, and that is that Jesus will give out rewards. I haven't heard a lot of messages on that either.
David Jeremiah: When you get to the Millennium and you see your King, he'll say, "Well done". But people say, "What are we going to do in the Millennium"? We're going to work. We're going to serve. And did you know, the Bible teaches that your role of leadership and administration in the Millennium is going to be based, to some degree, on your faithfulness to God during this life? So don't screw your life around here and go to the Millennium and wonder why you're sweeping streets in the back alley, you know? The Bible says your faithfulness here will determine your administrative responsibility in the Millennium. And we're going to be surprised when we get there to find out who some of the people are that are making the decisions.
Sheila Walsh: Will there be sin in the Millennium?
David Jeremiah: Well, there will be no sin that goes into the Millennium, but there will be people in the Millennium, in their human bodies, who will have children, and those children will not be, you know, God doesn't have any grandchildren, He only has children. And if you're born into the human family, you have to be born again to get in God's family. So, the children who are born to those who go into the Millennium, many of them will be unsaved, and there will be sin.
Sheila Walsh: Wow, but an opportunity for them to find Christ?
David Jeremiah: Yes, there will be salvation too. And somebody says, "Well, what kind of salvation will it be"? It'll be the same kind that it is today. You'll have to believe in Jesus and be forgiven.
Sheila Walsh: Will people die, and who will die during the Millennium?
David Jeremiah: Well, during the Millennium, as I understand it, people who are rebellious against Jesus Christ will die, unbelievers, and those who die in their sin will die. But Christians, those who put their trust in Christ, will not die, death will not touch you because you're going to live for a thousand years and then go into heaven.
Sheila Walsh: Where will the devil be during the thousand years?
David Jeremiah: Oh, this is my favorite story.
Sheila Walsh: I know, this is great.
David Jeremiah: How many of you remember Flip Wilson? What did he say? "The devil made me do it". Oh, remember? Well, in the Millennium, that isn't going to happen. You know why? The Bible says that Satan will be cast into the bottomless pit, into the abyss, and he will be chained there for 1,000 years. So throughout the entire Millennium there will be no presence of Satan. We're told in the Bible that we have three enemies: the flesh, the devil, and the world. And in the Millennium, one of those enemies is gonna be taken away. The devil won't be present. But you know, I have a chapter in this book called "No Excuses," and what that's going to do, guys, is this. Maybe you think that you're a Christian and you're having all these problems with temptation and sin because the devil just won't leave you alone. When you get into the Millennium, you're going to have some of those same problems and you won't be able to blame the devil 'cause he won't be here. So what that tells us is our problems with sin aren't totally the devil's fault. We have a sin nature. And if we don't deal with that, whether Satan's present or not doesn't matter. We're still gonna be sinful. So one of the things that will happen during the Millennial time, and even in the rebellion at the end, is that God is gonna prove how evil the human heart is without God, and it's not all about Satan. Satan's a part of it. He takes what he gets and weaves it into something terrible, but there's this old poem that I read every time I get a chance at reciting it. It goes like this, "Two natures beat within my breast, the one is foul, the one is blessed, the one I love, the one I hate. And the one I feed will dominate". So when we live as Christians in this life, we should concentrate on feeding the new nature. If we happen to be alive and go into the Millennium, we won't ever have the devil to blame for whatever we do if it's wrong. It'll be all us.
Sheila Walsh: One of the things I've struggled to understand is at the end of that thousand year period, Satan will be released from the pit. Why would he be given another opportunity?
David Jeremiah: You know, God goes to great lengths to prove his point to us, you know, that we are helpless without him, that we are hopeless without him, that we're sinful without him. And we may think, okay, we lived through this great Millennium, here's Satan out for a little bit. He will prove again his power and many will fall prey at the end. These unbelievers will fall prey to it and there will be this rebellion on earth, and it will be just one more point that God is making. You need to be regenerated, you need to have a new heart, you need to be born again, you need to be a new creature. If you're not going to be that, you're going to be a victim.
Sheila Walsh: You have spent your entire life pouring into us. You've spent your entire life encouraging us, studying the Word of God, writing great books. When you finished writing this book, what was there, particularly, that encouraged you, Dr. David Jeremiah?
David Jeremiah: I just was so, you know, God's plan is so much better than anything anybody's got, any politician's got, any pastor's got. God's plan is so rich and pure and good, and I want to be a part of that plan in every way as I go toward that goal in my life now. I want to be the kind of man that God can bless because I'm living a life that's honoring to him. I want to live righteous and godly. When I go into the Millennium, I don't want to have to take two years to adjust to the righteousness of the Millennium. I want to be able to walk in there and, obviously, I'll have some adjustments like everybody else. But, you know, sometimes we get saved, and we generally get saved, and then we live our Christian life on such a low plane that it's almost hard to determine whether we're Christians or not. I want to be a God-honoring Christian that lives his life in such a way that all the way through to the end I bring glory to his name.
Sheila Walsh: Amen, amen. I'm thinking of anyone who might just have suddenly tuned into this program and they don't really know everything we're talking about and they don't really know Jesus. Is there hope for them?
David Jeremiah: You know, if you watch this program and you don't know Jesus Christ, you're just missing out on everything that's good that God wants you to know. He doesn't mean for you to live your life in discouragement and depression and wondering what's going to happen tomorrow. He wants to know you. He loves you. He wants to be with you and he wants you to be with him. But you have to get to the place where you're willing to deal with the sin barrier. The Bible says, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and that "the wages of sin are death". So if you don't deal with that, you can't know God. Jesus himself said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Me". If you don't come to Jesus, you can't know God. You may say, "Well, I pray to God". Well, you're praying to whoever, but you can't know God apart from Jesus Christ. So what you need to do, if you've never done it before, is to pray, tell Jesus that you're sorry for your sin and ask him to come and cleanse your heart and give you the gift of eternal life, which he promises to anyone who will ask for it. And if you pray that prayer and you ask him to do that, he will come and he will set up his throne in your heart and he will become King Jesus in your life.
Sheila Walsh: Amen, and Dr. Jeremiah, what can we say but thank you for being such a good and faithful servant.
David Jeremiah: Thank you.