Christ’s Great Kingdom <em>Before</em> the Millennium!

This begins the most extraordinary, short series of messages you have ever heard. It also contains the best news you have ever heard. These broadcasts will cover in pithy outline fashion what I've delivered to the Restored Church of God in over 1,000 hours of preaching, and over 20,000 hours of personal study and preparation during the last decade!

The Kingdom of God is not coming in the way we have believed.

Listen carefully and with an open mind. Don't answer this matter before hearing it. Mr. Armstrong so often said, “Believe the Bible, not men!” This includes me now! Tell fellow brethren about this series immediately after watching. Give them the same chance to realize time is short, with this thrilling and dramatically different picture than we have understood!

The Bible plainly teaches that there is a Kingdom under Christ before the Millennium. You will easily see this in just the next 20 minutes. You will learn this is the first iteration of the Kingdom of God that also comes as a thief just like the day of the Lord. Because God's people throughout the splinters and slivers of the Worldwide Church of God know nothing of this first Kingdom, they are awaiting 10 kings to give power to the Beast of Revelation.

This is what Mr. Armstrong taught and many 1,000s of brethren are faithfully watching for even though Europe is weaker and more divided than ever and while at the same time the world is spinning wildly out of control now and is about to collapse. Something has to happen and fast!

The purpose of the series is not to indict anyone, including your leaders. And we expect few brethren will care enough to join us. The goal is to inform, encourage and comfort brethren in today's terrifying world and to show you things you had no idea were in the Bible and yet had read many times and to bring you some bit of peace.

Part 1 involves a number of hard questions but with easy answers for those willing to be even a little thoughtful! Many more questions will follow in subsequent messages over the next two weeks. Let's begin…

The prophet Isaiah wrote that “in the last days…the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” No one believes this could be the Millennium that the last days encompass 1,000 years! These days so obviously precede the Millennium they are the last days before the Millennium. Micah 4 uses nearly identical language. Ask: Why are all nations flowing to Jerusalem to hear God's Word and Law in the last days? They would never do this without a governmental authority directing it!

Both passages state that the world disarms, turns swords to plowshares and spears to pruninghooks in the last days. Micah 4:8 calls this period the first dominion and the Kingdom the one in the last days the one before the Millennium.

In Acts 1:6, the disciples asked Christ an astonishing final question on their mind. It was the last time they would see Him before He ascended moments later. “Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” How could the 11 apostles possibly have thought a Kingdom could come immediately? Why weren't they looking for 10 kings? And why didn't Christ rebuke them for a non-sensical question? Were they so blind they couldn't understand what they just spent 40 days discussing, and years before that learning about? The answer is: These kings and the great tribulation do not come first, and the apostles knew it! A Kingdom to Israel comes first!

Think. Here was perfect opportunity for Christ to explain a Kingdom did not come next. Yet instead he explained: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power.” In other words, Christ acknowledged the arrival of a Kingdom was the next major event to watch for, but simply said it was not given to them to know timing.

In Acts 3:20-23, Peter followed chapter 1 affirming how God begins His Plan: “He shall send Jesus Christ…Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet [Elijah!] shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren [certainly Christ would not be raised], like unto me; him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.”

Many things jump out here. First, realize Peter told his audience that they would hear everything this prophet said. This means the Kingdom to Israel involves all Israel!

Also note spaces of restitution plural. First the Kingdom to Israel, then the Millennium: two Kingdoms, two restitutions. Similarly, verse 19 introduced this by speaking of “the seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord [God is here. He is who sent Christ]. And it shall come to pass [meaning after the restoration, not before it!], that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.” Season means “set or appointed time.” So there is more than one set time of refreshing under God's presence! Of course there is. First is the Kingdom to Israel, closing with destruction then the Millennium. Are you beginning to see a pattern?

Peter doubles down in verse 24 saying, “Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.” People since the Garden have understood this! But God's people today have not.

Just before Isaiah 2 references the mountain of the Lord's house, God had promised in chapter 1:26 to “restore your judges as at the first, and your counsellors as at the beginning.” This so obviously is restoring the Kingdom to Israel! Notice it adds that “afterward you shall be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.” This is just as obviously the Millennium after Israel and all nations learn great lessons.

Judges and counsellors means a government a Kingdom! This had to be what the disciples were asking about in Acts 1:6!

They understood I Chronicles 28:5 where David is speaking: “And of all my sons…he has chosen Solomon my son to sit upon [get this!] the throne of the kingdom of the LORD [God] over Israel.” Kingdom of the Lord is identical to saying Kingdom of God. This Kingdom has been here before! It has a beginning and was here first. No wonder Peter said it is a restoring a restitution! This means it's not arriving for the first time. (The series will carefully explain how this involves all nations all peoples who have ever lived not just Israel!)

Next, why did David record this in Psalm 110:1-2: “The LORD [God] said unto my Lord [Christ], Sit you at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule you in the midst of your enemies.” Under what Millennial scenario would Christ be ruling in the midst of His enemies!? Under what Millennial scenario would He make enemies His footstool meaning crush them?

The apostle Paul spoke in detail of this Kingdom in I Corinthians 15:23-26. Let's read carefully: The end (the Millennium) comes “...when He [Christ] shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign [rule], till He has put all enemies under His feet [think footstool].” The next verse proves Christ's first reign ends at the day of the Lord because he quotes Isaiah 25:8, adding, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” The Church has long known this prophecy begins the Millennium. This is impossible to argue! Christ reigns before the Millennium! Further, He puts down all enemies who have ever lived before He hands an existing Kingdom to the Father. Grasp this!

Now Daniel 2:28. How is Daniel's statement to be explained? “there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days [same as last days]...” An explanation then ensues about kings and world kingdoms that would follow the ancient kingdom of Babylon. We can pick up in verse 44: “And in the days of these kings [they're all here, too!] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” This is Christ putting down all enemies before the Millennium! As with Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, the prophet Daniel in agreement foretells that this initial Kingdom is built in the last days! Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea all affirmed that this Kingdom would appear in the last days!

The book of Daniel has been “closed up and sealed till the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4 and 9). It has come time to unseal it. Daniel 9:24 speaks of 70 weeks. Verse 27 says the Messiah Christ will “…confirm the covenant with many for one week [seven years]: and in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolat[or].”

This verse has been badly misunderstood and much could be said about it with more time. I can easily bat down every objection that could be thrown at this explanation simply because the critic is steeped in old thinking.

It makes much greater sense that one, final, prophesied, seven-year week remains with the first half a Kingdom and the second half punishment. This much better matches the Daniel 12:11 turning point when “the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate [is] set up” at 1,290 days to go. (How ironic that the world does see a seven-year Kingdom, but believes the antichrist leads the whole thing.)

We could ask, when and how were sacrifices started in our old model of thinking? The best guess was flimsy with a hastily-built alter on Mount Zion. No one saw a Temple! The Isaiah 2:2 mountain of the Lord's house—a government in the last days that would naturally command years of sacrifices!

Why does no one understand Daniel 9:27 closes with there being one week left, also called the week? These were seven-year weeks. Sixty-nine of them (483 years) passed long ago, when Christ became the Messiah. Seven years remain, not three and a half. Roughly speaking, this means a Kingdom of three and a half years before three and a half years of great tribulation.

In Matthew 17:10-11 (also Mark 9:12), the disciples asked Christ, “Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come?” His answer: to “restore all things.” This is why! (Same as Acts 3.) Jesus' answer had nothing to do with a Church figure. Malachi concludes the whole Old Testament with God sending Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful Day of the Lord after invoking all Israel in verse 4 and in chapter 3 verse 8!

Here's something fascinating: When the red horse of Revelation 6:4 rides, it says he “takes peace from the earth.” There had to be world peace on earth for the red horse to take it! No one considers this! Yet Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 described the last days as when armies turned their weapons into useful implements. This could not happen without a Kingdom the one that brought world peace before the red horse took it!

The same goes for the white horse that rides first: He brought false religion and went forth with it to conquer meaning with the war of the red horse! Think. The world is already shot through with every form of false religion! How could the white horse ride into today's world and carry this out? This could only work if his ride were ending the peaceful rule of Jesus Christ over all nations and when there had been no false religion!

Don't miss this question: Why would any of the four horses need to ride in a world already filled to the brim with what they bring?

Coming off this, Joel 3:9-10 says the following occurs some time before the day of the Lord: “Proclaim you this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near [they've been on pause!]; let them come up: Beat your plowshares [back] into swords, and your pruninghooks [back] into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.” Get this! Swords and spears had become plowshares and pruninghooks. Now God is saying flip them back! A Kingdom came but then comes a great test on the world. Tribulation means pressure, trial or test!

Now ask: Why in Revelation 16:14-16 are the “kings of the earth and of the whole world [all peoples!]…gather[ed]…to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Armageddon) with “shields, bucklers, bows, arrows, handstaves and spears,” as stated in Ezekiel 39:8-9? Where are tanks, gunships, bombers, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, naval fleets, missiles, laser-guided bombs and nuclear weapons that exist today? Revelation 19:18 adds that this army all rode horses! And several Old Testament verses stress that the armies of the world all turn their swords on each other. These passages cannot be spiritualized away as symbolic. Are the birds eating the flesh of men and horses just metaphors? Why does no one consider these things? What had reduced the world's arsenal to handheld weapons, and war on horseback, by the end? The answer is a first Kingdom and worldwide disarmament had to precede this time!

Now a question at the core of our subject: Why would a loving God introduce Himself to the world by bringing great tribulation? Paul asked in Romans 2:4, “…despise you the riches of [God's] goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance”? If God's goal is to bring the masses to repentance, why would He start by punishing a world that knows little or nothing of Him? And with no chance to repent?

Think of the seals, trumpet plagues and last plagues of Revelation. Prevailing theology is that God uses them to slaughter billions alive today before the Millennium who did not know His Plan. Their last questions would be, “Who is this God that's destroying me?” “And why is He doing this?” “And why is He using such horrible means?” “And why is He stretching it out for years?” So many would wonder, “What did God expect of me? Why wasn't I warned? I might have changed!” Were God any god to do this to an unsuspecting world, He would be a monster, not a loving God who would have all men to be saved. Ponder this!

You may now be thinking anything from: “OK, but I don't care about these verses” to “I'm in the wrong Church!!!” to a place anywhere in between. If you believe you can dismiss one, three or five of these verses, could you honestly set aside over two dozen? And this is but the barest beginning of all there is to know!

The critics who left us through the years don't know what they're talking about because they answered this matter before they heard it. Most went back to the world anyway and gave up all truth!

Many around you will be too comfortable to care. So be careful not to allow ministers or fellow members to dissuade you by mocking or pooh-poohing these things perhaps just because they don't know what you just learned, nor the many truths that will follow in the next two weeks.

We in the Restored Church of God are not waiting for 10 kings and the worst time in history to suddenly drop on the world. Rather, we are looking for a wonderful first Kingdom and world peace to suddenly appear and for all human beings since the Garden to be present!

Don't wait for Europe to “slam together.” There's no chance of this! Now, many questions remain and their answers will come in future parts. The next one comes in a few days. Watch for an announcement. In the meantime, I urge you to suggest to friends and family in your organizations that they view this message of good news of God's Kingdom coming soon. Give them the hope you now have!

Until next time, this is David C. Pack saying, Goodbye brethren.