Mike Bickle emphasizes the profound truth that God desires to elevate weak and broken people to reign with Him on earth in the age to come. He highlights the biblical theme of eternal rewards, particularly the significance of reigning with Jesus, which is often overlooked by believers. Bickle encourages the congregation to understand the implications of their obedience in this life, as it directly correlates to their roles in the millennial kingdom. He stresses the importance of overcoming spiritual passivity and immorality to receive the promised rewards and positions of authority in the age to come. Ultimately, he calls for a deeper commitment to loving and serving God now, as it prepares us for our eternal assignments.

We'll turn to Revelation chapter 5 if you want to follow along your Bibles, but you got all the verses that we're going to use right there on the handout, so you can follow along with that. Father, we thank you for this glorious subject that was birthed in your own heart, that you longed to have weak and broken people. You would forgive us, cleanse us, sanctify us, and raise us up to partner with you in ruling the earth forever and forever. Oh, we thank you. We magnify your love and your grace. We thank you for the way you love us. We bless you in Jesus' name, amen. Well we're on session 5 on a biblical overview of eternal rewards, and each session I'll just say it for those that are visiting here the first time, that this is one of the most emphasized topics in the Bible, I mean of the teaching of Jesus is eternal rewards, but it's almost totally ignored by the body of Christ. And yet it is one of the, not the most, but one of the most emphasized topics, and the apostles refer to it regularly. And I feel like, I have a hunger in my heart to understand this area and to see other people rooted in it like the apostolic community was in the book of Acts. The eternal reward, paragraph A, and we got six pages so we're not going to go through all these notes, but I want to leave you with verses and some explanations that we won't have time to cover here in the teaching session. But paragraph A, the eternal reward most emphasized, we looked at heavenly garments last week, but the one most emphasized is reigning with Jesus in the age to come. I'll give you a few verses there, Revelation 5, 10, he made us kings and priests, we all know this verse, we'll reign with him, but I don't know how often you think about the implications of that. That is staggering. The implications are vast. The fact that he wants us to reign with him, as weak and broken people forever, and what are the implications of reigning, there's so many activities involved in reigning. And we will reign with him in a correspondence to how we obeyed him in this age. And a lot of believers, they don't pay that much attention to that connection, but that's a very important biblical truth, and I've said to the Lord for some years, Lord, shock me now, don't shock me then. I don't want to stand before you and go, oh my goodness, I should have paid attention. We got a Bible full of information, I want to pay attention now. It's called watching and waiting. Jesus used that phrase many times in his teaching. This idea of ruling with him in the age to come, it actually gives our life a sense of relevance even now. Because we're laboring now, and most of us don't see the fruitfulness that we're desiring. We're seeing some, but we all long for more. But Jesus is assuring us that every movement of our heart, even the giving of a cup of cold water, that he remembers it. And that in the age to come, he is going to tell us how he feels about the way we loved him in this age. That's called eternal rewards. That's Jesus communicating how he feels about the way we loved him in this age. But the apostles, Paul said it a number of times, he says the exceeding great reward of what's coming if I continue to press in and obey now. That was a very, very clear motivation to Paul in Romans 8.18. I don't have that on the notes. And 2 Corinthians 4.17 is another place where he said that. Paragraph B, that he desires us to be enthroned at the highest level of the created order. The entire created order of angels, and there's demons, and there's believers, unbelievers, all the created, the animal kingdom, he wants redeemed humans at the very height of the created order in his government. Look what he says. It's almost too big to grasp. I mean, it is too big to grasp. But it's so intense. I challenge you, meditate on this passage. He says, I will grant to the one that overcomes, Revelation 3.21, I grant you to sit with me on my throne. Like, what? I mean, if anybody else would have said that, you'd say, sit with Jesus? The Genesis 1 God who became a man to sit with him on his throne? Really? I mean, the implications, the honor, the privilege, the joy of that is beyond anything we can grasp. Jesus has planned an indescribable exaltation for his people to be a part of his eternal government. But don't overlook the word, to the one who overcomes. Now, we know in this context, Revelation 3, he's talking to the Laodiceans and they had to overcome just spiritual lukewarmness. But he said, I exhort you to be zealous and repent and overcome lukewarmness. And if you do, you will reign with me. That's a pretty intense, that the greatest honor I can imagine in terms of a function reigning with Jesus is connected to overcoming spiritual passivity in this age. He connected those two. He goes, I'm going to give you the biggest motivation I can give you in terms of function and activity in the kingdom of God. Paragraph C, the position of authority or the work assignment, those are really two ways of saying the same thing that every believer will have in the age to come will bring them great joy. The reason I say that is I've taught this subject for well over 30 years and I've always run into really sincere believers, they're very sincere, and they kind of boast about how they don't care about eternal rewards. And I say, well, you know, Jesus said you will enter into real significant joy in that day. I think you will. I think you will care more than you understand right now because we will be partnering with the one we love in a close, in a dynamic way. And so I encourage folks that imagine they have no interest in this subject because they're, you know, I'm just in it for the Lord. I don't really care about that other stuff. I always urge them to go back to what Jesus said about it and to take his words and not just kind of take their own philosophical kind of thinking about the subject of rewards. Paragraph D, all of us will have different work assignments in the age to come and our or job descriptions or positions of authority, use the term you want, they're all saying the same thing, but we will have, all of us will have varying degrees of authority. As we have emphasized in the first four session, Paul said that as one star differs from another star in glory, so also will be the resurrection. Every single believer will be distinct in the measure of the glory of God that's expressed in them and through them. Just like all the billions of stars, every one of them are different. Now Jesus emphasized this more than anybody. If you look at the verses that are all from the lips of Jesus, he emphasized that some in the age to come, he's talking about will be called least and some will be called greatest. He said it over and over and over. It's surprising to me that the apostles didn't say that because Jesus said it repetitively. He said it, I mean, again, when you put all the verses together, you go, wow, he really meant this. That he says, when I evaluate lives, I will call some lives, their life choices great and others, I will call their life choices least. And they're in the kingdom. He's talking about people that are in the kingdom. He taught a parable in Luke chapter 19 that made it clear that some will have authority over 10 cities, some will have authority over five cities and somebody entrusted authority to end up with no authority over any cities at all. You can read the parable more in Luke chapter 19, Roman numeral two. Now this is a familiar theme. Matter of fact, it's a prominent theme in the Bible, the earthly kingdom of Jesus in the age to come. Now the term, the millennial kingdom is very, very popular term. It means the thousand year reign. You don't have to use the term millennial. Millennial just means 1,000 as most of you are aware of. But the theme of Jesus's earthly kingdom after he returns, his kingdom on the earth reigning with saints from this age is a very popular, I mean a very prominent theme in the Bible. Revelation 20 verse six, they shall be priests and will reign with him for 1,000 years. The phrase 1,000 years is mentioned six times in Revelation chapter 20, the emphasis of 1,000 years. Then after that, there's the new heavens and the new earth, but it's still on the earth and it goes on forever and forever. And we assume it's the same principles of kingdom and authority and a lot of the same realities continue in even a greater dimension of glory. Well, during that kingdom reign of 1,000 years and then forever and forever beyond that, the kingdom will openly be manifest worldwide, affecting every area of life. The political, the social, agricultural, economic, spiritual, every single facet of human life will come under the Lordship of Jesus and be manifest on the earth in a global way. Paragraph B, this will be a 1,000 year period of unprecedented blessing on the earth. Jesus will establish righteousness in every sphere of life, in academics, in economics, in political, in legislation, education. Every sphere will have righteousness and justice all the way through it. He'll restore the agriculture, the atmosphere, the animal kingdom back to the conditions of the Garden of Eden, and I'm assuming and beyond. At that time, paragraph C, all the kings of the earth, there will be kings on the earth with natural physical bodies, all of them will worship Him. And that says that six times as well, that all the kings of the earth will be born-again believers radically committed to Jesus and His word and His government. Top of page 2, one preacher said, I quote this regularly, he said, well, I've heard it from different preachers, I don't know who originated it, that if we don't think rightly about heaven, we won't think about heaven. And I think that's really true because many people, they think wrongly of heaven and so they don't think of it because they think of heaven as floating on a cloud playing a harp and that's about it. And they go, there's streets of gold somewhere, but we're floating mostly. But there are streets of gold, we can't put it together. And I want to just bring a very, very simple, I got more on the notes than I'm going to cover, just a snapshot of the millennial kingdom. I have a series on the internet, I don't know, it's maybe 12 sessions, maybe more. I did it a couple of years ago, breaking down what the Bible says about the thousand-year reign. There's a tremendous amount of information in the Bible on this glorious subject. But one of the centerpiece ideas is Ephesians chapter 1, verse 9 and 10. Look what it says, Paul is talking, this amazing revelation that Paul makes known. It's never been made known before until after the resurrection of Jesus. Paul gets to make known the mystery, which is the hidden plan that's been in God's heart from ages past. He goes, here's what he's going to do, verse 10. He's going to gather together into one reality everything in the heavenly and the earthly realms. He's going to bring them all together, all the good things. And heaven and earth, those realms are going to be joined together on the earth. The heavenly realm speaks of the supernatural realm of God's presence and power being openly manifest. The heavenly realm, the supernatural dimension, the resurrected bodies, all the angelic activity. But the earthly realm, obviously the physical, that's where human process and physical sensation and human dynamics come to full expression. So what he's going to do when Jesus returns, the new Jerusalem is coming down to the earth with him. And the saints will live in the new Jerusalem, but the new Jerusalem will be in proximity to the earth. They will reign in the new Jerusalem with a physical, they will live in the new Jerusalem with a physical resurrected body, a physical body. I like to say with an elbow. I mean, you won't like hug each other and kind of pass through because you're just spirit beings. You will have flesh and bones, Jesus said in Luke 24. It'll be supernatural, but it will be substantive. It will be physical. You will eat physical food like he did. In the resurrection, he ate the fish, then passed through the wall. Did the fish go through the wall? You know, we got to figure that out some other time. Paragraph B, God's purpose has always been that heaven would come down to the earth and God would live together with his people with the full dimension of the physical realm and the full dimension of the supernatural room joined together with no veil between them. That was always his intention, always. Even in the Garden of Eden, that's where it was going. And then sin created an interruption to that, but only a temporary interruption. Now, in the millennial kingdom, natural processes, catch this, will not be suspended. But they will be significantly enhanced by the supernatural dimension of the Holy Spirit. There will still be learning. There will still be traveling. There will still be interaction. On the earth, gardens will be planted, houses will be built by people with natural bodies, because there will be people still on the earth that were not raptured when Jesus returns. They didn't say yes to the Antichrist. They resisted him, but they didn't say yes to Jesus, so they weren't part of the rapture. And they'll still have physical bodies, non-resurrected bodies. And there will be hundreds of millions or billions of them. I mean, I don't know. You know, after the Great Tribulation, it's hard to know with the number. But it'll be a massive number. And those with resurrected bodies will live in the New Jerusalem, but they'll reign on the earth. And it'll just be instant transportation from the New Jerusalem to whatever place on the earth, just like angels can move back and forth between the realms effortlessly. It will be, the veil will be lifted between the realms. There will be a supernatural dimension, but the people with natural bodies, they will have all the natural realities of life. But those with resurrected bodies will be interacting with them and actually have the government over them and the leadership over them. We see aspects of this natural and supernatural realm together. We see a brief window of this, just a snapshot for 40 days. In Acts chapter 1, when Jesus came back in His resurrected body, He's teaching them. They're overwhelmed with and excited. He's eating with them their food. He's hugging them. He's laughing with them. He's appearing and disappearing. But He's sitting with them and hours at a time teaching them. They're learning. And so for that 40 days, there's a brief snapshot of some of the conditions it will be where those with resurrected bodies will be interacting with those with non-resurrected bodies, physical bodies in the Millennial Kingdom. Paragraph C, I've already said this, but I'll kind of say it again so you can grasp the context of, like some of you are going like, now who's on the earth and who's where? How's this work? There'll be three types of people on the earth when Jesus appears in the sky at the second coming. There'll be the redeemed. And when He appears, they'll be raptured. They'll get resurrected bodies. There will be the reprobate. They took the mark of the beast and they won't repent and they end up under judgment. But it's this third category. There's a significant number of references to this third category. They don't use the word I use, but they describe the category. It's what I call the resistors. The unsaved survivors of the Great Tribulation, they resisted the Antichrist. They never said yes to Him, but they never said yes to Jesus. Somebody says, well, how could that be? Well, the analogy I like to look to is in World War II. In France, there was a resistance movement against Hitler. They resisted Hitler even unto death, not because they loved Jesus, but because they loved France. And they hated Hitler. It wasn't about Jesus. It was about hating Hitler and loving their country. And there will be people that will resist the Antichrist that won't say yes to Jesus' leadership in the Great Revival. They will still be there. I mean, all these remarkable events, the rapture, the coming of the Lord, the New Jerusalem coming to the earth, they're kind of looking around going, man, that was a one intense couple weeks here. You know, what is going on? The veil will be lifted between the two realms. The cities will be destroyed. The agriculture will be greatly in upheaval. I don't mean every city, but many, many of the cities will be. There will be disruption everywhere. Read the book of Revelation of the judgments of God as well as the attack and oppression of the Antichrist. You know, I think of the cities of Europe after World War II. You get that picture of desolation. But I believe what's coming on a global level, it will have parallels too. I mean, you look at some of the amazing, I mean, not amazing, but the tremendous amount of work that needed to be done to rebuild cities and nations. Well, that natural reality will still be in place. But people with resurrected bodies will actually be involved in the restoration process. That's part of ruling and reigning on the earth. There's many dimensions involved in ruling and reigning. You know, maybe just do an internet study on everything involved in reigning. Every degree from the smallest to the most significant activities. I think it would surprise you how many activities are involved in ruling a nation. I mean, there's massive amounts from very small to very big decisions and activities. Paragraph D, I have mentioned here, the New Jerusalem is coming down to the earth. That is declared three times in the book of Revelation. Three times it's emphasized the heavenly city is coming down to the natural realm. It really is. And it's going to bring the two realms together. And at that time, it will be true, heaven will be really truly on the earth. You know, Jesus said, pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth like it is in heaven. And that's happening in part right now, just in this hour of history. But there's a dramatic increase of this happening when the New Jerusalem comes and the veil lifts. Paragraph Roman numeral four, there will be natural processes of life will still be happening on the earth. And the reason I'm explaining this, and some of you already understand it, it's kind of, you know, Millennial Kingdom 101, what I'm covering tonight. But reigning and ruling on the earth are connected to understanding this. Because if you don't understand what's happening on the earth, and you've never thought through the dynamics of reigning and ruling to the minutia of small things to big things, then reigning and ruling is just a term. It doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't conjure up any thoughts or emotions to think you might be involved in that process. But when you see what the details of reigning and ruling are in real life, then you see how much activity is going to happen in the Millennial Kingdom. And then you see the saints are the ones in the top leadership positions over it. You start connecting the dots and saying, this is going to be a real ministry. This is going to be real. This isn't floating on a cloud, playing a harp, and just hoping the cities of the earth get restored. You're going to be, I don't know if you, but the saints, I don't know who will have what role, but the saints will be deeply involved in the whole process of bringing the glory of God to the whole earth. But with physical resurrected bodies, you will look like you look now, but in perfection. I know some of you are almost there, but there's still perfection to be added. You will be you with your personality, your DNA, your physical appearance, but brought to fullness and protection with no diminishing because of darkness or the attack of the enemy or weakness at all. It will really be you, and you will really know each other, and you will really have physical bodies. You will really eat dinner together. You will really teach each other things. You will really teach people on the earth things. You will set in order. You will establish. You will rule and reign. Again, many spheres, I mean not spheres, many types of activities involved in ruling and reigning in a nation. I have somewhere in the notes here that in the American infrastructure, just in America, there's 22 million people right now that are employed by the federal, local, or state governments. There's 22 million in the governmental infrastructure of America, and that gives you kind of an idea of how many levels there might be or how many types of activities involved in ruling and reigning over a nation. It's not just the president or the senators. The ruling and reigning aspect goes all the way through to the local, to the people that run the school board. It's every part of society is a part of ruling and reigning. So when the Lord says, you'll reign with me, He doesn't mean that several billion believers, we don't really know how many there will be, but some say there's been a billion up to now. I don't know if that's true. There's a, you know, throughout history, there's a billion believers now, that's two billion, a billion coming in the great harvest. So I don't know if that's true, but it's probably several billion, you know, some number like that. It's a big number. But there's only 200 nations in the earth right now. And when the Lord returns, He's going to probably rearrange the map a bit. But there's not going to be a billion nations. There may be 300, there may be 100. I don't know. But so a couple billion people won't all be kings. A king is over a nation. There'll be, you know, a couple hundred nations, maybe more, maybe less. A couple hundred kings, maybe more, maybe less. A couple billion people that aren't kings. But there will be people ruling and reigning at very many, many diverse levels involved in the infrastructure of bringing the glory of God. They have back at 214, I don't have that in the notes, but you know it well, where the glory of God will cover the whole earth as the waters cover the sea. And that glory of God, it's a little bit now. His glory is increasing, but it's going to be fully manifest in every sphere of life. And it's actually going to take the thousand years to bring righteousness and fullness and the healing of the land to fullness of maturity. It's going to take really the thousand years for it to happen because Jesus isn't going to wave His hand and everything pops up righteous and justice. He's going to do it line by line with people making choices to obey Him. But the devil will be thrown in prison and all the demons, so they won't be here. But there will still be a process. And the glory of God will cover the earth just line by line, just area by area. Paragraph B. The natural processes of life will continue. There will be a need to establish infrastructure in every sphere of every city, of every village throughout the whole earth. Now it will be established by people with natural bodies. But just like now, if you lifted the veil, there's undoubtedly angels at the side of people in every sphere of society working. They don't see the angels, but the veil was lifted now. I think we would be surprised how many angels were in this room right now. We might be surprised how many demons were in this room and of the war going on over the lives of people. But in that day, the veil will be lifted. And though the infrastructure will be done by people with natural bodies, the saints with resurrected bodies, it won't be the angels helping in the same way, I don't think. I think it's going to be the saints ruling and reigning, but in relationship with them. Training and teaching, managing, overseeing, planning, evaluating. Many things that are involved in reigning and ruling. I have a few of the things that are involved in the infrastructure right here in paragraph B. There will be life support systems, building projects, economic systems in the millennial kingdom. I'm talking about amongst the nations. The people with natural bodies, again, that are born in the millennium, that still need to be saved, and they will be doing that, but under the leadership of those that have the primary government over the nations, which is the saints with the resurrected bodies. Paragraph C. Jesus will rule a global kingdom that includes two types of kings. The Bible makes it clear there's two types of kings. There's kings that will be on the earth with natural bodies, just like there's kings right now, presidents, prime ministers, but there'll be kings with resurrected bodies. There'll be both types of kings interacting with each other, and together they will establish a godly social order that will bring transformation to the world, but again, it's step by step, line by line. It's not Jesus returning, waving over the earth, and everything is done, and he says, you know, saints, I could have used you, but I didn't really need you, so I just blew on the earth, and everything is now perfect. He could actually do that. He's powerful enough, but he didn't want to. He wants to do it in relationship with us. He wants to do it through us and with us, which is remarkable, but that's not just the Jesus of the future. He's the same man right now. He has the same personality. He really wants to use us right now, even in this age, but there's a continuity between what we do now and what we do then. We think the break of our physical death, everything is different. It's the same you, but the darkness is removed, but your deeds follow you into the age to come, and everything you've done, even giving a cup of cold water, that's been done in obedience to the Lord, is recorded in his books, and again, rewards are Jesus revealing how he feels about the way you loved him. Rewards aren't about strutting in front of people, but about the Lord saying, here, here's the garments, here's the crowns, here's the thorns. Come dine with me. Here's how you're going to interface with me because of the way you loved me on the earth. It's not about earning it, because though we take a step of obedience, he gives us a mile of blessing. It's far beyond anything anybody can earn. We've covered all that in the first four sessions a number of times. Top of page three, I love this subject. Physical proximity to Jesus. It's a subject that I don't hear much about in sermons, books, or in conversation. There's not that much in the Bible on it, but there's clear indicators of it. But this is an area, I think the indicators in the Scripture of it, that I really care about. I want you to pay attention, special note, to the promises in the age to come where Jesus uses the phrase, with me. You will sit with me. You will walk with me. You will dine with me. Those with me promises really have my attention. I go, whoa. Because I'm not thinking a couple billion saints all walking in the park holding hands with Jesus at the same time. I'm thinking he's thinking something far more specific than a couple billion people all at one really long banqueting table and Jesus is, you know, 6,000 miles on the end of it. Hey, Jesus, good to eat with you, bro. No, it's not going to be like that. It's going to be far more dynamic. But remember, paragraph A, or maybe this is a new thought, Jesus' physical body will only be in one place at one time. He became a man. Now, he's still God, so by the Spirit, he could communicate with his people now everywhere. He's with us and could communicate with us by the Holy Spirit now and he will forever, forever and forever. We'll always have access to his presence, to communication with him and to his heart. But when he became a man, he committed to become human and to live in a physical body for billions and billions and billions of years forever. That is a most radical commitment, but he had to do that to redeem us. He had to live in a human body forever and be limited to it in terms of his physical presence. Now, by the Holy Spirit, because he is God, he could communicate with us by the Spirit. Paragraph B, I believe that our work assignment will affect the closeness of our physical proximity to him, not our spiritual proximity, because again, I believe by the Holy Spirit, we can connect with him now and then forever all, you know, billion or two or three or whatever the real number is, saints. But I'm talking about walking with him. I'm talking about sitting in a room with him, with his physical person. I believe that our work assignment will affect the closeness of our physical proximity. Some people's work assignment will bring them into a place of working more closely with him, because of the nature of their assignment, because he's the governor, the king of all the kings, and he's administrating the whole earth, but he's doing it by the Spirit through his people, but he's communicating with, you know, many, many, many, this goes on for years and years and years, face to face as well as by the Holy Spirit. Look what he said. Here's some indications of this. He told the, when they were arguing who would sit the right and the left, Mark 10, Jesus did not deny the reality that somebody would sit at his right and his left. What he told them is that it wasn't, it was for who it was prepared for. He didn't say, hey, James and John, that's who was arguing about it. He didn't say, no, you got it all wrong. No, they had it right. There will be somebody sitting at his right and his left, and I don't think it will be two people for billions of years, and there it is. I think many situations, there will be somebody, many, many, many different situations. It's like a king over a nation. Depending on the occasion, we'll have somebody at the right and somebody at the left. That's just a guess. What he says here, he says three with me promises. Again, with me. I really pay attention to these. He says, Revelation 3, you have a few believers in Sardis who haven't defiled their garments. Meaning they haven't yielded to compromise. Now, a number of the believers, he's talking about the believers, had yielded to compromise. Doesn't mean they were not saved, but they have yielded, and their garments, figuratively speaking, were defiled. Their lifestyle, they were snared and caught in something. But Jesus said, a few of you, you've resisted the compromise. And look what he says. These few, they will walk with me. I think this is literal. I think, meaning there's a with me, that is not just by the spirit with a couple billion people. I think there's something more there. I don't know. I don't want to guess what it is. But I like that with me, because they're worthy. Not because they earned it. That's not what he's saying, because nobody can earn that by anything they do down here. But they've responded in a way that's appropriate to have this kind of level of involvement with me in the government of the earth. See, what the Lord's doing, he wants us to love him now, when we don't see him as the genuineness of our love. So that when we do see him face to face in that day forever, he's going to say, you're one of the ones that loved me when you couldn't even see me. That is the testimony of your love. And when he says worthy, I think he means it's appropriate that you would be in a position working closely with me, bringing my love to the nations. Because it's who you really were when you couldn't feel me. Things were not going well. People were not treating you right. The money wasn't right. Your physical body was weak. People were not understanding you, but you loved me. That's the kind of people I want walking with me in my world government, bringing the love of God to the nations, because you were in it for real when it seemed remote and far away, but you wouldn't back away from it. That's what I think he means by you were worthy. Then he goes on, verse 20, now he's talking to the group, the Laodiceans, who their big area of compromise was just passivity. And he goes on and he says, I'm going to knock on the door. If you will open it, you're going to dine with me. And I'm going to dine with you. And I believe it has a spiritual connotation in this world, in this age. I believe we open up to the Lord. We will feast on the Lord in that spiritual sense more in this age. But I don't believe it's limited to this age. Jesus is constantly thinking billion-year picture, not only 50-year picture. Most of his teaching had billion-year picture paradigm in it or whatever. You know, eternity is what I'm really saying. But then in verse 21, he makes it real specific. He says to the person that overcomes passivity, just spiritual passivity. You know why we get into passivity? The promises we're believing in, they keep being delayed. It's more mundane and routine than we thought it would be. We thought we would feel more power, we'd have more presence, more favor, more impact, more energy, more money, more comfort than we do. And we go like, I think I'm just going to chill out and coast. And the Lord says, don't, don't. He says the verse before, 19, he goes, be zealous and repentant. If you do, you will sit with me on my throne. It will be worth it. Press through the disappointment, the delayed promises, the bitternesses of people not treating you right. Press through it. Do it with me and for me. Do something bigger than relate to how people relate to you. Don't relate to them based on how they relate to you. Relate to them based on how I relate to you. And if you do that, you'll sit with me. I look at that, I go, this is inconceivable how big this is. Yes, yes. I go, Lord, show me, show me, show me. Put my name on this. I want my name on this. I don't want to be over you. I want to be sitting with him. Some folks say, I don't want eternal rewards because I don't want to be over people. I go, forget being over people. I'm talking about I want to be in leadership meetings with him when he's talking about whatever sphere I'm involved in. Mike, come on in the room. What are you doing over there? Well, give me a little report. You know, you have the Holy Spirit. You've got a resurrected body. We've met several times and face-to-face. How's it going? Well, we're doing it, Lord. I mean, I don't know how it probably won't be like that. But there's really going to be interactions, real ones. And again, he's not going to be meeting with a billion people every day all day walking in a park with him. I remember I told one lady that and it broke her heart. She goes, oh, I can't wait until I die. I go, why? I mean, I understand wanting to get a resurrected body. That's pretty cool. She goes, I just want to be with Jesus all day, just me and him in a park. I go, you don't really think a couple billion people are going to be waiting for you guys having a picnic every day while he's governing the entire earth. She goes, well, I mean, aren't I his beloved? I go, yeah, you are, but there's other implications involved. She was really heartbroken. She really didn't like that at all. I said, are we just going to wait? Are you going to have long lunches or short ones with him every single day, all day? She goes, well, I've never really thought about it. I said, that's my point. This is going to be real. It's a real man in a real kingdom, in a real world, transforming it, interacting with him with resurrected power. This is glorious beyond measure. But again, to many believers, it's just a faint thought that crosses their mind every couple years for a moment. Jesus related to people in his earthly ministry very differently. He had the three, the 12, the 70, the 120 in the upper room, the 500 he appeared to in the resurrection, and the multitudes. You know, among the 12, look at this verse. This is a very tender look into his relational dynamics. Verse 36, Jesus goes to Gethsemane. All the disciples are there. He tells the disciples, nine of them minus Judas, so there's eight. He goes, you guys sit here. It's the night before his death, and he knows it's going to happen tomorrow. They haven't figured it out. They're still a little bit confused. He goes, you guys sit here. Peter, James, and John, you come with me here. He tells those guys, you guys stay there. I love you. I'm really with you. As a matter of fact, your names are going to be on the New Jerusalem, on the foundations. You're good. But I want those guys over here with me. And he brings them over there because he wanted to share his sorrow in a different way, his extreme sorrow. Then he asked them, stay here with me. I mean, this is a very tender insight, just a glimpse into the man Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, how he will interact with people. And I believe there will be these dynamics that are recorded in the Word. I don't know the details of how that will happen, but I believe there will be all kinds of diversity and differences. Romans 6, the function of the resurrected saints. Well, I think there probably will be many functions, but the two functions that are emphasized the most is that we'll function as priests and kings. Now, being priests and kings both relate to reigning. But reigning isn't only the king of a nation. Again, in America, there's 22 million people in the governmental infrastructure. Those are all facets of reigning and ruling, just in small, microscopic kind of levels to the macro levels of being over the whole nation. Reigning includes many, many activities, not just the king declaring an edict over the nation and they go obey it. But reigning is the whole gamut of activities. Priests, as resurrected saints, will worship, and there will be the glory of God in our own enjoyment and revelation and enhancement in it. But I believe worship will also release the power of God. There will be intercession in the age to come. God will still release His power through the prayers of the saints. There will be teaching the Word, the teaching of the Word. There will be the communicating of the knowledge of God. Well, who are we going to communicate? Who are the saints going to communicate with? They're going to communicate and teach the Word to people on the earth that have natural bodies. There'll be hundreds of millions, eventually billions of them. They need to be taught. Well, they will teach each other, but just like now, in just glimpses, we get little glimpses of this, an angel will appear here and there and aid somebody and even give some instruction. Just a glimpse, once or twice in a life that might happen, or maybe it won't happen once or twice in a life, but it's very rare. But the idea of there is an interaction that we can imagine it because it's happening very little right now, according to at least our grasping of it. But I believe we will, we meaning the saints, with a resurrected body, they'll teach people on the earth. I believe the saints will teach the saints. When you get a resurrected body, you don't get a chip of omniscience. You know, resurrected body, you step across the line, now you know everything. I think the day you get a resurrected body, you don't know anything more than you know the amount. You learn real fast, but I think it's still you. You're going, okay, wow. You're learning really fast. Your mind will have a supernatural ability, but you won't have omniscience. You'll still learn line by line. You'll just remember real well. You'll understand real deep, but you'll still, for billions of years, you will be learning and you will be teaching. You'll be communicating to the angels. You know, 1 Peter 1.12, I don't have it in the notes, says the angels look at the saints to get instruction. Right now. Ephesians 3.10 says the same thing. I like the one, and I don't have these in the notes, I'm just thinking of them. The 1 Corinthians 6, verse 3, says in the age to come, we're going to be judging the angels. I don't think just teaching them, but judging them. Because you're not always going to be a newcomer. Right now, you're a newcomer. You've only been in the game for less than 100 years. Everyone in this room. The angels in this room have been around maybe billions of years. I don't know. But eventually, you're going to not just be newcomers. You're going to be profound in your understanding. And I don't even know where all that's going. But it's glorious. There's kings. And I think kings is the ultimate, but I think that kings also implies or infers the lesser spheres of reigning of which the king is the top. In terms of scope of authority is what I mean. Kings, they reign with judicial responsibility. Their responsibility is to establish a godly social order. That will include evaluating past events. That's what judging is. You know when it talks about judging the world, judging angels, judging. It doesn't mean punishing. It means evaluating. And it's evaluating, I'm assuming, to improve things. So when you see judge, don't think punish. Think evaluate, and then I think you'll be more in the right line of thinking about what it means when the saints will judge. Because all punishment, John 5 says, the father gave that to the son. He will be over all judgment, both the evaluation, the rewarding, and the punishing. He'll be over all of it. But I believe that the saints will be involved in determining action plans. That's what ruling and reigning means. You get together, see what the divine opportunities are. You train, rally, recruit, select, manage, and employ, and things grow. That's how it happens in this age, and I believe in the age to come because the natural realm won't be suspended. It will continue. It will be enhanced by the supernatural realm. There will be many, many, many dimensions of reigning. Paragraph D. I love this passage. Revelation 20, verse 4, And I saw thrones, and the saints sat on them. Here it is. Judgment was given to them. Again, he's not talking about punishment. He's talking about decision making, which involves evaluating, selecting plans. Judgment was committed to him, and they reigned. He goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 6, The saints will evaluate the world. They will judge it. Again, I don't believe he means punish it. They'll judge angels in the age to come. Now, reigning, here's the key point, will be relational. It will not be automated like robots. Some people have this idea, reigning, it's robotic. We go there, get the information from headquarters, simply implement it, come back, get more information. No. Judgment is committed to the saints. The Lord says, I want your involvement. I want your personality. I want your ideas. There's more than one way to do it that I will bless. Just like now. Now there's many choices we all make, and the Lord will bless many of those choices. Some of them he won't, but I mean, there's not always just one choice that's right. He says, I want you fully engaged. I can imagine when we're planning a ministry outreach, and we're asking the Lord, how about this? How about that? I can imagine the Lord saying, in this age and the age to come, well, what do you think? Well, Lord, I'd like to do it this way. He goes, let's do it that way. I can do that. Yeah, that's good. I believe that's how he worked with the apostles when he sent them out, and they came back and they told their stories. He goes, yeah, that works. And they all did it a little bit different. I think we'll make real decisions that will have real quality impact on people. It will bring improvement to other people's lives, and it will express our own unique personalities in the will of God. There won't be just a right and wrong answer, just like there's now. Now, sometimes there's a right and wrong answer, real clear, but many situations of going forward in growing a ministry in righteousness, the Lord says, there's a number of things, ways to go forward that I will bless. Now, the Lord doesn't need any of us. Again, he could come at the second coming, wave his hand over the earth, blow his breath, and everything be restored. Like in Genesis 1, he just said, let there be light, boom. He could do that again, no problem. But he wants to involve us because he delights in his people. Top of page four. Well, we're coming to the last few minutes here, so I'm just going to kind of give you what's on these pages, and you can take a peek at it at your own time if you want. I believe there'll be two levels of government. There'll be the people with natural bodies, and there'll be the people with resurrected bodies. Right now, in the government of the nations, there's men and women with natural bodies, and there's angels over the city. There's angels given charge over every city, every country. And there's demons that have been assigned to every city, every country, every leader. So the humans are in charge at one level. The angelic authorities are in charge at another level. But I believe in the age to come, it will be natural believers and resurrected. I think that will be the order that's coming, because he says it clearly. I have it in the notes, Hebrews 2.5. He goes, I'm not going to subject the world to come to angels. I'm subjecting it to you. So the resurrected saints will be over the people with natural bodies, and they'll interface with them. Just, again, like now you might be blessed to have an angelic encounter once in your life, or maybe more, or maybe you don't ever have one, but the angels do appear here and there, very minimally, and they give aid and they give instruction. I can imagine something far more dynamic than that happening in the age to come. Look at Roman numeral 8. There will be a progressive increase. Look at Isaiah 9. Of the increase, let's talk about the Messiah, of his government, there'll be no end. A thousand years, a million years, his influence and sphere will get bigger and bigger and bigger. Forever and forever, it will keep progressively growing on. What happens when we cover the earth? The earth is full of the glory of God. I'm assuming, he says, look up, there's billions and billions and billions of stars. I mean, who knows where it's going over trillions of years? I don't know. I don't care. I don't have to think about that right now. But I know that his government will never end. It will always progressively grow. Paragraph B, when the Lord gave Adam the mandate of dominion over the nations, he said, Adam, you and your sons and daughters, Adam and Eve, your sons and daughters, and all the generations, exercise dominion in my name. He never took that mandate back ever. We still have it. He gave it to humans to be the vessels, to bring the glory of God to the earth. And then the millennial kingdom will go to a whole nother level. Then it will go on beyond that in the age after the millennial kingdom. The new heavens and the new earth. I don't know the details of it, but I'm assuming it will have parallel principles to the millennium, at least to some degree. Paragraph C, catch this. This is the millennium. Many believers, I mean many people, verse 3, that's with natural bodies, you know, hundreds of millions, eventually billions, or I don't know the numbers. I'm just imagining. In the millennium after the tribulation, many people will say, let's go to Jerusalem. Jesus will teach us his ways. And he won't only just give Bible studies on the four gospels, undoubtedly he'll do that too, but I think his ways of government, he's going to show ways of agriculture, ways of economics. They're going to go back home to their nation with brand new ideas of how to do it better. And the nations will constantly be coming to Jerusalem for training. The point is, is they'll be teaching. And the teacher will be Jesus, but I don't think Jesus is the only teacher, again, where a hundred million people come and he's standing in front of all of them doing every seminar. I believe Jesus is responsible, and it's his teaching, and it's those that are under him, but I think it's the emphasis in Isaiah is that it's the Lord himself, and he's the ultimate teacher. But I believe it's Jesus, and all his teaching, I put the word institutions, that's probably an adequate word, but they'll be teaching on technology, agriculture, politics, education, and they'll go back to their nation. Top of page five, let's go to paragraph G. The kings of the earth, these are natural kings, they'll actually come into the New Jerusalem, because the New Jerusalem will be in proximity to the earth. They'll have an ability to enter at the king's will. They will bring the glory of their nation to present to the Lord. But here's what they do now, we'll catch this. They take the leaves from the tree of life in the New Jerusalem, they bring it back to their nation. What do they do with those leaves? I can only guess. My guess is there are supernatural properties in those leaves that when mixed with seed or water or whatever, it brings healing and purity, and it heals the land in some glorious ways that has many dimensions to it that is far beyond my understanding. But I know the leaves are brought back to the nations and the agriculture and the water systems and the atmosphere and maybe the people that eat the food from the gardens that are touched by those leaves or something like that. Again, I don't want to have too much detail because I don't have it, but we know in Ezekiel 37, 47 I mean, when the water comes from the throne, it heals all the bitter waters around the area. The waters are all healed when that living water comes from the throne in the New Jerusalem. But the New Jerusalem, remember, it's in proximity to the earth and it's connected to the throne of Jesus. Paragraph H, resurrected saints, there's much on this subject. They will partner with the leaders of the millennial earth to restore cities, justice, society, agriculture, atmosphere, animal life, everything will be restored. And it will be saints under Jesus' leadership impacting other people in the nations. Romans 9, I've already said this, but there's several, maybe several billion saints, we don't know. Not all of them will be kings over a nation. Again, there's only about 200 nations, there may be more or less, I don't know, but all won't be kings. Some will, some will be over 10 cities, some over 5 cities, some over various parts of a city, interacting with the people with natural bodies. Just to give you kind of a snapshot, not that this is the picture or the parallel, but just kind of look at the natural realm and see if there's any hints we can get. About what global infrastructure might look like. Today, just a casual quick study, there's 100 cities in the earth about that have about 4 million people plus. There's 5,000 that have 100,000 people. Totally, you can read the paragraph later if this is interesting to you, villages, towns, and cities, there's 2 million of them in the earth right now. But if that, not that that's the number of the age to come, I don't know. But there's 2 million in a whole globe right now. 2 million towns, villages, cities, but there might be 2 billion believers. So everybody's not even over a city. And the reason I'm saying that, I want people to look at this and make it real and not just poetic or figurative and think, this is actually real. This really matters. Top of page 6. Bring this thing to an end here. It's a big topic, but I love it, so I kind of get going on it. I think about it a lot. In Revelation, chapter 2 and 3, he gives 2 promises related to ruling the nations. And these 2 promises, paragraph A, are in context to overcoming immorality, idolatry, and being lukewarm. He said, if you overcome immorality and idolatry, you'll reign. You'll have power in the nations. I'm not telling you what level, but you'll be involved in my government. If immorality or idolatry touches you, and you resist it, if you stumble, you can rise up, get forgiveness, but you don't want to ever make peace with it, and say, I'm just okay, I'm just going to live that way. No, you're resisting it all the way. He says, it really matters. Look at here, he says to this one church, he says, you allow Jezebel to teach and seduce my servants to commit immorality and idolatry. But if you overcome this, I'll give you power over the nations. Then he tells, later on, that's the Thyatira he tells that to. Then later on, he tells Laodicea, he goes, if you overcome lukewarmness, she'll sit with me on my throne. Paragraph B, the point I'm wanting you to get is that there's many different levels, and it's not about being over people. To me, it's about proximity, working with what's near and dear to his heart. It's not about earning, but it's about your life being a testimony. You loved him when you couldn't see him, so now he wants you to impart his love now that you do see him, because your life was a testimony of loving him, when it was challenging and difficult. So he says, those are the kind of people I want in my government. So he tells the apostles, he connects their obedience to their job description. Now some people don't like this. That makes me feel pressure. Again, I say, Lord, shock me now, don't shock me then, because the Lord's not changing his word, or his kingdom policies, because some people in America don't like pressure. Some people say, I don't like that because I feel pressure. I say, so we change the word of God because you feel pressure? Or you just do the ostrich, put your head on the ground, and hopefully it changes. No! This is Jesus, the Bible, it's never changing, ever. I want to see what it says and embrace it. He tells the apostles, verse 27, they say to him, hey, we left everything. What do we have? He says in verse 28, and the idea is because you left everything, and there's a sovereign dimension he called them to, but they said, yes, you're going to rule on thrones. But he connects it to their obedience. Beloved eternal rewards are not based on your ability, they're based on your response. He tells them later in Luke 22, he says it's because you continued with me when it was hard. You didn't quit. Therefore, you're going to sit on thrones. So he connects sitting on thrones in Matthew 19, they gave up everything to his leadership, and in Luke 22, he connected it because they wouldn't quit when things got tough. They stayed steady under his leadership. Paragraph C. I love this. This gives all of us hope. You were faithful, here's the key, in only a few things. But the idea you were consistent. It's not only you were faithful a few times, that's not what he means. You were consistently faithful, but you didn't have much entrusted to you. But you stayed steady. Yes, you failed, but every time you failed, you recovered. And you came back with all of your heart. You're going to be ruler over many. Luke 19, he says the same thing a different way. He said you were faithful over very little. He didn't mean, again, their faithfulness was little, but the sphere entrusted, they only impacted a few people, and nobody really appreciated them. But they kept steady. They didn't do it because men applauded them. They did it because the Lord said, I want you to do that. Now I'm watching you. He says you'll be over ten cities. So, beloved, it's not about how much impact or how much education or how much money, how much favor, how much opportunity. It's about the response of your heart. Paragraph E. Our life on the earth can be likened to a 70-year internship. I've used this analogy over the years. We are being prepared in this 70 years. We're all in our internship right now. Our primary assignment on the earth is a 1,000-year assignment. What we're doing matters now. It really matters. It's not a practice game. But this is our preparation. Your 50-year, your 70-year assignment on the earth is not your primary one. You will have a 1,000-year assignment on the earth with a physical body. Teaching, training, leading, mobilizing, being involved. I want to use my 70 years with a view of my I'm getting trained for ministry. You know, worship team, go ahead. Come on up. You know, Billy Graham, he's about 95 plus. He's led many stadium events, probably hundreds and hundreds of them. I don't know. He's an intern. When he steps across that line, that resurrection for 1,000 years, he's going to have an assignment on the earth, I think, that's going to surprise him. But he's an intern. We're all interns right now. Again, that doesn't mean what we're doing is not the real thing. It really matters. But what we're doing now is not the only thing we're doing, and that's where people lose it. They know what they're doing is real, but they think it's the only thing. No, we're doing what we're doing now for real, but we're preparing for something else that's real. Paragraph F. Some of your personal prophecies, this may excite you or discourage you. Some of your personal prophecies, real ones, and there are real ones, they will have their greatest fulfillment on earth, but in the millennium. What? Well, the prophecies in the Bible for Jesus, Abraham, the nation of Israel, King David, the prophecies for them in the Bible had a lot more to do with the millennial kingdom than their first time on the earth. David has far more prophecy about when he comes back to the earth than when he was on the earth. I got a list of others. Daniel, Elijah, Zerubbabel, Ezekiel, Aaron, the tribe of Levi, Phinehas, Zadok. They had prophecies of their impact or what they would do when they came back in the resurrection. So my point is, we don't want to just be thinking only now. Who likes me and is it going good or is it hard? And then we evaluate, that's the whole storyline. Beloved, that's only a part of the storyline. He says, if you overcome, you will sit with me. Wow. If you overcome your lukewarmness, you will sit with me on my throne. I go, Lord, I'm going for it. I love that you said this to us, Lord. Amen and amen. Let's stand. Oh, I love your leadership, Lord. I know I gave you a water hose. Man, I don't even know what to do with all this. But just take it in the next weeks and just kind of check out some of the verses. Anything you find on here that you can't find with your own eyes and your own Bible, throw it away. Only accept what you can find in the Bible for this. You see something I said that doesn't line up, throw it away. But check it out. Check it out. Because there's a big storyline we're a part of. Amen. Lord, here we are before you. We love your leadership, Jesus. Great is our God. I'm going to pray for people. You feel like the Lord, the enemy is hitting you right now. You feel discouraged. The enemy is trying to get you on the small picture. How hard it is now. Is it worth it? You know it's worth it. But he's breathing hard. His fire against you right now. Beloved, there's a bigger storyline. How easy your life is right now. How much favor you have now. You're in preparation for a far bigger ministry assignment than you've ever imagined. He wants us to be focused only on him. The enemy has a big story. It has your name on it. The enemy wants you to think it's only now, only here that matters. He wants to get you to quit. He says if you overcome, you'll sit with me on my throne. Lord, I'm going to sit with you. I'm going to resist this passivity of lukewarm idolatry, immorality, those three things you highlighted about reigning in the book of Revelation. Lord, I want to overcome. I don't want to quit. Overcome. Beloved, if you don't quit, you win. To overcome means not to quit. You keep on pursuing. I'm signing up again tonight, Lord. I want to be faithful. I want to be faithful. Holy Spirit, release your power this room. We say no to immorality. We say no to idolatry, which is covetousness. The Bible says it's covetousness. I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful, I want to be faithful I wanna be found steady. I wanna be found faithful. Until the end. I wanna be found steady. I wanna be found steady. Until the end. Just keep me steady. I wanna stay before your hand. Lord, release some glory right now in this room. Asking for a manifestation of your grace. I say yes to you.