We are beginning a short series on eschatology, which is the study of end times or last days. Tonight, I'm going to have a kind of a brief introduction and then over the weeks to come, we'll dig in a little further. But I mean, there is such a vast If I can just use disagreement among theologians about what this looks like, that you got to wonder how do guys disagree so much? I mean, why is there such a big disagreement about I mean, among good, honest Bible believing Christians? And we're not talking about people who are trying to get away with something. We're talking about people who open the Bible and they look at that and they go, this is the word of God and I'm taking it seriously. And they come, but they come to such divergent opinions on what it is, what's going to happen or what did happen more than we see in a lot of other issues, you know, soteriology or pneumatology or You know, guys who agree on a lot of things don't agree on this. Well, so I'm going to do a little bit of an introduction tonight. And at least one of the reasons why I think kind of why people go off in just different directions. I think it's good for us to understand that, you know, so that we're aware of that propensity in ourselves. But first, let me open with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we do pray that you would Truly bless our time of study here as we pursue an understanding of really what amounts to be your plan for history. The history that we actually observe. What is it, Father, that you're doing in this world? Help us to grasp what the Bible has to say about this. that it might be something, Father, that we would be knowledgeable of, that we might work toward that. We pray You bless our study in these few weeks. In Jesus' name, Amen. A proper study and understanding of the Bible and its doctrines is a monumental but necessary task If we are to know the mind of God, I think that we are to think God's thoughts after him. And we are to know the mind of God. And that is expressed to us in the scriptures. The process. Begins with things. Which in some respect are simple to grasp. That there is a God in the beginning, God. Who created all things. In the beginning, God created. Pretty easy so far. That Jesus died to save sinners. So clear that even a child, small child, can get it. There's what the confession talks about, a perspicuity or a see-through-able-ness of Scripture. So simple in some respects that, you know, my five-year-old, Gets it. Doctrines, though, then become much more difficult. And and I don't want to sound accusatory here because I'm speaking to myself as well as anybody else. One of the reasons doctrines are difficult. Is because of our own ungodly assumptions. That we simply can't let go of. That's you, that's me. For example, if I am firmly convinced that man is autonomous, if I have planted my flag there, man is autonomous, then the doctrine of God's sovereignty becomes elusive and confusing to me. If I am firmly convinced that babies are innocent, then the doctrine of total depravity is something that I have a hard time getting my arms around. We must, therefore, seek to understand the full counsel of Scripture in order to have an increasingly proper understanding of the things that God would have us know. It's this ongoing process. In this respect, the Bible is to be approached In a similar manner that we would approach other literature. Now, obviously, the huge difference is that the Bible is absolutely authoritative and infallible in its message. But we should not think. Of the Bible as a magic book, which merely needs to be in our proximity in order for it to benefit us. You know, you put it on our shelf or on our mantelpiece or it's there. We have the family Bible. We shouldn't wait for the wind to blow the Bible open to certain pages and then read something out of context and go, there's the answer to the question. No, it should be studied the way we study books. When we read any literature, our mind, when you read things, our minds begin to place things into categories. That's the way we think. If I read a novel. I must begin to determine who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. I'm reading the novel and maybe a good writer's got me a little bit confused at the first, you know, they're writing and I'm trying to figure out, you know, because they're clever about it. And I'm like, where's this guy going to go with this? Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? How are these situations going to unfold? The unfolding plot and its intricacies find a file in our thinking And then we call upon that file at the proper time. You know, a whodunit. Mysteries. They they unveil the answer toward the end. And our minds begin their research as to whether it all makes sense based upon the information we already have. Right. You read a novel, you get to the end, it's like, oh, that. And then you're thinking, well, wait a minute, that doesn't work, because on page 37, Right. There's a contradiction here. I remember seeing a movie. Spoiler alert for the movie. The Sixth Sense. Spoiler alert. So if you haven't seen it, you know, I mean. It was revealed at the end of the movie that a certain character who we assumed to be alive was actually dead. So the whole movie, you think this guy's alive and then all of a sudden you realize at the end of the movie, it was clever, that he's dead. So what do I do? I start thinking about the scene where he's at a restaurant talking to his wife. And I got to replay that in my head because he's not really there. She's really kind of talking to herself. So you watch the movie over again. So you go, can this work? Is he really invisible to everybody? Because there's all these scenes where he's around people and they seem to notice him. But then if you watch the movie over again, I haven't watched it over again, but I assume. That you're going to realize everybody, he's not necessarily there. She could totally be just talking to herself in that restaurant or talking to the waiter or on the phone or something else. All of a sudden, things make more sense. The Bible is that way. It's simple enough for a child to read and discover enough information to know the way of salvation. At the same time, it is so deep, it is so complex, it is so profound that it can be placed under the microscope of the finest minds in human history for a lifetime of study, resulting in a tome that is too vast for all the libraries on earth. But it's that simple, and yet it's that difficult. It is a book to be read over and over. Have you ever noticed the more you read the Bible, the more it makes sense? I mean, it's not like other books, because it is so complicated that way. It's not like, oh, I've read that, but people tell me, oh, I've read the Bible like they read it once. As if I get it, really, you read it once and you get it because I've read it a lot of times and I'm still, oh, oh, oh, light goes on. The Apostle Paul. Wrote to the young pastor, Timothy and Second Timothy, 215 study. To show thyself approved under God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I write all this. That we might all appreciate both the difficulty and the necessity of the task of understanding the Bible correctly, I know I'm getting This is a gigantic and the whole evening is just going to be kind of a preface Because there's no point in me getting into arguing what I think it's saying without letting you know kind of how I got there and Because I I'm going to give you in the next few weeks I'm going to give you what all the physicians that are out there, you know within reason, but I I'm definitely going to be giving a persuasive paper here and And I'm not going to be totally like these are the four positions. Pick the one you like. You know, I'm going to give the positions and then I'm going to go and this is why I think this is the best one, even though good, godly people might believe in this one. But there's a reason that I personally ended up there. We and all of this are to avail ourselves of teachers. It is something, by the way, that the Bible tells us to do. First Timothy 411, Second Timothy 316, we have this idea of in the Bible of. Being instructed. We should take advantage of those whom God has raised up, not just who were surrounded by today, but raised up in history, the good teachers throughout history. Think about it, how many of us Because you talk to people and they're like, well, I don't really need teachers. I have the Bible. And I appreciate at some level that sentiment. But it's really a short-sighted statement. How many of us, if we read the Bible once, twice, fifteen times, would come up with an accurate doctrine of the Trinity? I don't think so. God has refined His church throughout history. great Christian minds getting together to discuss these types of things that you and I recognize are essential to the faith that you and I, if this was the first century and we just had it, probably would not arrive at a very accurate definition. I also write this to reveal that even though I'm going to take a persuasive position on this issue of eschatology in hopes of either buttressing your position or maybe changing your position. What I intend to do over the next couple of weeks here is offer a perspective that I personally believe best comports with the Bible as a whole and is at the same time Faithful to the individual eschatological passages that we read, you know, there's certain verses that are real Eschatological right, you know understand what I mean by that there. This is an end times verse right here and But we can't look at that end times verse as somehow inconsistent with all of the Bible It all has to work together Yeah, let me just going to tell you right off the bat here maybe it is maybe it won't be The position that I'm going to offer in the next couple of weeks may sound shocking, but it is consistent with historical Protestant biblical Christianity. Matter of fact, I would argue that two or three hundred years ago, maybe richer theological times, it would have been the common position. But it sounds shocking today because we are so bombarded with one particular eschatological position that to think that there might be other positions almost makes us feel like this is outside of orthodoxy. And let me just say the most popular position today The one we see in the novels, the one we see in the best selling books in the eschatology department at your Christian bookstores is a position that is just under 200 years old. You won't you will not find that that schematic of eschatology anywhere in the world. By anybody prior to 1830. You might see it germinally, you might see little seeds of it here and there, but as far as a well-developed, systematic presentation of God's plan for history and the end times, the most popular view today isn't in any historic, biblical, Protestant or Roman Catholic confession. So I say that not because the confessions are infallible, but I say that because I sometimes feel a little bit insecure in being in the minority. And so I take a little comfort in being maybe in the minority in 2012, but in the majority when it comes to Protestant biblical Christianity, I take a little comfort in that. And I think you should, too, that it's not some novel theology. I'm not going to ask you to close your minds or clear your minds from what you've been bombarded with. I'm not going to say forget everything you've learned, you know, like the flight instructor, right? Forget everything you've learned and just we're starting fresh here. I am going to ask you to weigh what you've been taught. As I've done, tried to do myself against the scriptures. Years ago, I took it upon myself as the pastor to teach through the revelation. I thought to myself, how hard could it be? Revelation chapter one, verse one, and I just approached it the way I approached any other. I had already taught through John, so I'm like, I'm pretty familiar with John. So, I mean, how much tougher can the revelation be than, say, the Gospel of John? I got about to the fourth or fifth chapter. And I think some of you know the story. I was preaching and I was lost by then. And what I mean by lost was, I mean, I was reading it and studying it. All the theologians that I had been utilizing were theologians of the modern popular position. And so I was reading their commentary. But I'm like, oh, and this isn't making sense to me. But they did write a book, so they must be right. You know, you ever have. And I was in the middle of a sermon and I, I gave the verse and then I gave the position. I quoted the theologian. And then I just stood there as convicted, as imaginable. Because commentaries, you know what a commentary is, right? I mean, it's a book generally written by an individual giving their comments on what passages in the Bible mean. And I think they're valuable. I mean, it's like sitting around in a room with people who've studied and going, what's your position? What's your position? What's your position? And listening to what they have to say and then kind of embracing the one that seems to make the most sense. Right. That's what we do. But I quoted this as if it was my position when, quite frankly, it didn't make any sense to me at all. And I was so guilty that I said, you know what? I don't. I remember telling the church this a long time ago, 20 years ago. I go, you know what? I just quoted. Might have been John Walvert or somebody. I just quoted. I'll be honest with you. I don't see that at all. I'm sorry. That's the end of the sermon today. Nobody complained. And then I had people approach me who were really into the end times. Like, can't you see it? Can't you see it? I'm like, I don't see it. I'm not saying I even have a position. I just don't see that. I don't see it. I don't see how that means that. The connection isn't getting there for me. And some people got really mad. One guy's wife called me a blockhead. It's because you're a blockhead. Granted, no argument there, but I'm not sure that's really helping the discussion. Interestingly enough, it was that that led us because the people who were really into the end times stuff kind of view these people anyways viewed people who didn't agree with their end times view as part of the end times church waxing cold. So I became like the villain. I became the guy in, you know, a thief in the night. You know, I became the pastor who, when the rapture happened, I was still there. You know, I had to become a tribulation saint and my head cut off or something, you know, I became that guy. And they started telling people our church was a cult and I was a cult leader. And that was when we were in an elders meeting. We didn't call them sessions in those days. And I think Mike and Scott were both there. And I remember So going, well, how do we know we're not a cult? I mean, he's calling us a cult. I didn't think we were a cult, but I thought, well, how do we know we're not like what what is our theme? How do we approach the Bible? I know we believe the Bible. We believe in the Trinity. We believe in Jesus. I don't think we're a cult. And that's when Scott kind of said, well, maybe we should think about adopting a confession, becoming more confessional. And I remember thinking a confession, where would we put it? I had never even heard of a confession. I thought he was talking about a confessional. Father Paul, you know, I don't know. I didn't have the words memorized. How long has it been since whatever? I don't know how it even works. And that's when we kind of got into the more historical position, you know, in terms of adopting a more full fully or reformed understanding. But nonetheless, I don't know if you've ever been accused of being a cult leader. But it's not something that you go to sleep easy that night as much as you think it's wrong. And so this whole eschatology thing weighed very heavy on me. It really bugged me. And I left, you know, we were out of Revelation. I'm like, I'm done with that. And I wouldn't even talk about it. What I started doing was reading everything I could get my hands on in terms of what everybody held, all the positions. And I'm going to try to share those positions with you over the next couple of weeks. But as soon as I, after, I don't know, maybe a year of reading what, you know, this guy, this position is, you know, the amillennial position, the idealist position, the premillennial, the historic premillennial, the dispensational premillennial, you know, the futurist, the idealist, the historicist, all these, you know, going, OK, what does everybody think, you know? So I had it pretty firmly in my head what all the options were. without me creating my own brand new option, which I didn't really want to do. And then I sat down and I just started reading from Genesis to Revelation. It took me a long time. And I read it with all those positions in mind. And I'm asking myself, which position does the least amount of damage to the text? In other words, there's disagreement among good Christian theologians. It's because it's a tricky issue. And everybody has to take a verse and make it not mean something that it doesn't mean, but go, you know, if you're going to hold this position, then your understanding of Isaiah 65 has got to be. I'll give you one example. In Isaiah, where it says that, you know, a child will live to be will die at one hundred and you'll say that he died in his youth. And I look at that and go, well, the Amillennialists for the Amillennialists, that's heaven. And I'm like. I don't feel comfortable with anybody dying in heaven, even metaphorically. And so, you know, you've got these verses that good people are using and they're kind of tweaking it to make their position work. And I have to say, after years, probably five years, I started embracing a position that I thought was most consistent with the totality of Scripture. And I went years and years and years. I wouldn't teach it. I just I had a position. And if you ask me, I tell you, but I wouldn't I never have since done the Sunday morning series on eschatology, although people have been I mean, revelations, probably a book I've studied more than any other book that I've never that I haven't taught on since. Anyways, moving on. I guess one of my goals here is that if I give you all the positions. You kind of get what the options are and then you sit down and read your Bibles yourselves. You know, and you go, yeah, this seems to make the most sense to me. You know, this becomes a lifelong study just like anything else. I'd rather have a church full of people that way, you know, rather than here's the position, everybody. Because this, by the way, the distinctions between there are certain eschatological positions that I would argue are inconsistent with the articles of faith in our church. And I'll share that with you because we believe in a general resurrection or general judgment day. It's one event, not multiple events. So I think if you're going to be a minister in a reformed church that holds to the Westminster Confession, there are certain boundaries that you're not allowed to cross unless you raise your hand and go, I scruple that. I have an exception to that position. But a lot of these fall within the boundaries. of what we as a church believe in terms of our secondary standards. What I'd rather have is all of you be really good students than me just tell you this is the position and you go, OK, I'll take it. You need to test. You need to test all things and hold to what is true. Now, having said all of that, some might question if studying eschatology which is obviously the science or the study of last things, has any value at all. We have a decent turnout here tonight, so at least you thought it was worth hearing about. But some people are like, it doesn't matter. I have buddies of mine who are pastors. They don't want to talk about it at all. And they make a joke. You know what they call themselves? You ever heard of this? Pan millennialists. Have you ever heard of that one? It'll all pan out in the end. It's not really that funny, but it's, you know, kind of funny. Or it's so confusing – the modern eschatological system, this premillennial distensational system, is so confusing to a lot of people that they just go, you know what? I can't figure it out. They just can't figure it out. There's just too many moving parts to it. Or they just figure, you know what? There's no real application. It's front row seats. As a matter of fact, some of the books have that as the subtitle. Modern eschatology books will have, you know, I'm trying to remember which book this was, but it was, you know, Last Day, blah, blah, blah, front row seats. And because the position is that the church in Revelation, anybody know, isn't around. The church gets raptured. And so we're just watch revelation. All of revelation is just us kind of watching, you know, with front row seats from heaven, as it were. So it is really it's interesting. But it doesn't really have an application in our lives, it's just something the application is, let's get as many people saved as possible, which is obviously a good application so that they're raptured away from those events that we read of in Revelation that nobody wants to be around to experience. But people wonder what difference it makes. They assert that there doesn't seem to be any direct application in terms of my personal behavior. But friends, there are a number of reasons why eschatology is important. The most obvious reason that eschatology is important. Anybody want to hazard a guess? What do you think the most obvious reason is that eschatology is important? Yeah, that's that's one of them, and that's definitely one. It's in the Bible. That's that's kind of it is in the Bible, so. It probably is a reason. There's probably a reason why God put it in the Bible. Well, we're not in the dark, yeah, so we so we can't I think it's an insult to God to go look at you put a lot of stuff in this Bible we don't really need. I mean, obviously, God wants us to wrestle through this. So I would say the most obvious reason is that it's in God's word. And we certainly don't think the Holy Spirit added a branch of theology to the Bible that was unnecessary. Eschatology is part of God's word. So to propose that it is useless to the Christian, quite frankly, is an insult to God. It'd be like me trying to explain something to my kids and my kids going, you know, I just don't need to hear that. It is part of God's word and it deserves our study. It may be a difficult subject. But a lot of the Bible is. It's certainly no excuse for never opening it. On the other hand, it may not be as difficult as one might think. I remember thinking that Calvinism was difficult. But quite frankly, I see it so clearly in the Bible now, I wonder sometimes how I ever could not think that Calvinism in terms of soteriology was accurate. I mean, it's just so obvious that sometimes when I talk, I have to when I'm talking to people who aren't Calvinist, I have to kind of go way back and remember how difficult it was for me when somebody first said that to me. Like, I don't want to be dismissive of. How hard it is for people, but, you know, you talk to elders in the Presbyterian Orthodox Presbyterian Church and that's not even a discussion. I mean, it's so obvious and It's because, again, of the way we the presuppositions we take to the Bible in terms of our understanding of man. I think eschatology, quite frankly, could be a lot easier if we approach it properly. However, one views it, the scriptures are to be studied because they have inherent value as the word of God. Beyond this, though, eschatology has value in terms of God's revelation. As Dennis mentioned, and I think Ruth jumped on to. Of what he intends to do in history. And how he intends to do it. Christians are to work and to pray toward that end, I mean, if eschatology is here's what God is doing in history, here's my goal, God saying, here's my goal for history. Then then I know, at least at some level, what what the plan is. And I am to work toward that end and I am to pray toward that end. That's a big one, by the way, when I because we'll get to this one of the views, one of the views in eschatology is that the world is going to get worse and worse and worse. That's the most popular view today. And the church is going to wax cold. The Antichrist is going to show up. And then all hell is going to break loose. Right. And so I remember doing a radio broadcast one time about this. Because people would say that even though the world's going to get worse, we should still do our part to make things better. And I'm like, all right, let's just grant that. But let me ask, how do you pray? Do you pray? If you pray at all for kings and worlds and kingdoms and nations and cultures, do you pray, especially those who have kids, grandkids coming, do you pray that this world will be a better place? Because if you think it's God's prophetic, providential decree for it to get worse, Why are you going to pray for it to get better when you know then you end up sounding like Peter, right? When he's telling Jesus, no, you're not going to go to the cross. What did Jesus say to Peter? Yeah, get thee behind me, Satan. I mean, no, that's exactly what's going to happen. And so are we praying if we understand if we believe that the world's supposed to get worse and worse and worse, but we're praying for it to get better and better and better, we should not do that because God has a plan for it to get worse. But how many of us can take a deep breath and pray for it to get worse? Our only option is to just not pray about it at all. Not sure if that's really an option. Here we see some monumental distinctions, if I think it is God's plan in history for the church to be insignificant As a world changing or culture changing force and by the church, I'm talking really about Christians rather than the church as a kind of an ecclesiological entity. I'm talking about us as Christians, not us as an elder board. You understand the distinction there? I think that's an important distinction to make. My daughter asked me the other day about the separation of church and state. I think there is a separation of church and state at some level. Not to get into that, but there is no separation of God and state. There is a separation of church and state, but there's no separation of Christian and state. We're the citizens. And we need to make decisions and vote according to our conscience as Christians, not as people who are only Christians until they walk into, you know, the box to make the. To make the decision. Nonetheless, if I think it is God's plan in history for the church to be insignificant as a life changing or culture changing force for the church to wax cold and end in failure. It will most assuredly affect my behavior as a member of that church or a member of that entity of that kingdom. On the other hand, if I believe God intends to redeem all of history via the success of his church, this affects my behavior as well. You understand? If I don't think God is concerned with the events of life, politics and culture, if I think God just doesn't care about that, then that will affect the decisions that I make. It just doesn't matter to God, so it doesn't matter to me. I wrote a column about something and I forget what it was, but it was something, you know, in a secular newspaper where I kind of presented the idea that I think this is the Christian life and worldview and this is the way it should be. Probably to do with abortion or gay marriage or something like that. And a Christian person wrote me and said, why do you care so much about Babylon? And I don't know if you know where that's coming from, but it's the idea that this this world, the physical concrete world with its cultures and kingdoms and what have you, is a is is a kingdom that is fully disconnected from the kingdom of God, which is invisible and immaterial and reigns in our hearts, so to speak. My response to that was because God owns Babylon. And if we want to play that game, every last single person in Babylon should make every effort to do what God tells them to do. I mean, regardless, I mean, of course, we would like Babylon to all call upon the name of the Lord and be saved, but it's not as if There is this entity that God is not concerned with. Or if that's if that's our position, if the position is, why are you worried about Babylon? Then, you know, to hell with Babylon. Just let's do our church thing and not worry about. The culture, if that's our eschatological position. In brief. The argument that it is all going to pan out in the end is short sighted. And the attitude reveals a lack of interest in participating in what God is doing in history. Eschatology tells us what God's plan is in history. You understand what I mean by history? By history, I mean the things that are happening in this world that we observe, things that will be written of in history books. That's, you know. Observable things. We are to work and pray toward that plan. James Henley Thornwell, who is a 19th century theologian, put it this way. If the church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her. In other words, it's God has this plan. This is where he's going. You are to fight toward that plan and embrace that fight because this is where it's headed. You're not. You're not polishing the brass on a sinking ship. Are you guys familiar with that phrase? The idea here is that, you know, all the world's going to hell. And so let's not bother trying to fix it. Let's just get the people in the lifeboats. You know, it's like the escape plan. And let me you know I mean let me just hasten to add that this eschatology. I mean in a certain sense it is a secondary issue. I mean you don't see it as a hard core article of faith. You know somebody else recently another Christian person who didn't like something I wrote in a public newspaper said commented on my preoccupation preoccupation with politics. Well first of all I don't think you know me. I'm not preoccupied with politics at all. If anything I am. I'm probably negligent you know in all this stuff. I'm maybe post occupied with it. You know I have some occupation with it. But if you come to our church you know that you know you have you ever seen me go through the voter's guide. Mentioned somebody that we should elect on Paul. I know just kidding. Just kidding. I'm just joking around. I don't even know what's up But they people they think that we're just Paul politically minded people, you know, and we start every service with instead of a a You know, an invocation, we do the Pledge of Allegiance or something. That is not the way we function as a church at all. I mean, I recognize that when we when we come in here as a church, that we're to the word of God and we're to the gospel and we're to the law of God. But but we also are to recognize that the way I function at home, the way I function as a citizen, all of this needs to be informed by the word of God, I can't be, you know, schizophrenic or double minded when it comes to those types of things. All right. Well, with that in mind, let me take a quick look here. I mean, let me give you a brief, brief synopsis of where I'm going to head here, because we only have a few classes and I think it's insufficient for a thorough examination of all the eschatological positions. So what I want to do is offer something in the spirit of simplification. So you get kind of what's out there. There are certain what we might call eschatological events that all theologians agree to be part of the eschatological schematic. In other words, there are big events that you go. That's part of eschatology. When we see the phrase the last days. Right. We think eschatology. When we think or we hear the tribulation. We think eschatology. Resurrection. Or a rapture, right? Secret rapture. We think eschatology. The man of sin. Eschatology. An apostasy. A great failure. I mean, there are verses in the Bible that talk about a great failure in the church. A great spiritual and geopolitical success we read of too. Normally associated with this place or this thing or this era called the millennium. It's the golden age. The millennium is the great. So you got the waxing cold and you've got this dark period the Bible talks about. Then you have this golden age that the Bible talks about. Israel. promises. We think eschatology, it's just talking to a guy yesterday, we were driving together to a certain event and he was all into what's going on in Israel. And so I'm listening to him talk about how it's all being fulfilled. It's all coming together. It's all better to be ready, ready, ready. Well, I'm you know, part of me is going, you have any idea how many times I've tried to get ready, you know, all dressed up and no rapture to go kind of, you know, Although I think everybody agrees that these events are in Scripture, there are great variations regarding what these events actually look like and when they did or will take place. There's nobody saying these events aren't in the Bible. The question is, what are they? And when are they? Or when were they? I'd like to convey that it won't be the purpose of this class to pursue the deep details of all those eschatological events. We're not going to be speculating as to who the two witnesses are in Revelation 11. We might touch on some of that stuff or who the man of sin is. And second, Thessalonians 2.2, we talk a little bit about that passage. Not that there isn't value in identifying the specifics of eschatology, but there is a broader picture to be had. I want us to get the big picture. Somebody once said, you know, somebody who I remember talking, I remember when I was having this conversation about the tribulation. And I hadn't worked it out, I mean, I had no idea, but I'm having a discussion with somebody and there's the because you get this post-trib, pre-trib, mid-trib. argument. Right. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that. Some people believe the rapture is going to happen before the tribulation, some at the end of the tribulation, some in the middle of the tribulation. And I'm having this discussion trying to figure it out. And I looked at a buddy of mine who was a little more savvy in the issue than I was. And I go, what do you what do you think? And his comment was, I feel like I'm listening to people argue about what color dragons are. What do you mean? It's like arguing what kind of boots Franklin Roosevelt wore when he was riding with the Rough Riders, charging up San Juan Hill. What kind of boots was he wearing? It was Teddy Roosevelt. It wasn't Franklin Roosevelt at all. And I feel like that's kind of what happens with eschatology. We're arguing about what kind of boots people are wearing, but we don't realize we're not even talking about the right event. It's an entirely different event. The game of identifying characters and events in eschatology has overtaken Christians. Prophecy conferences continually brewing out the latest speculation as to where and when the nuclear warheads of Revelation 6 are currently being stored. Where are they? I remember somebody, you know, Chuck Missler saying, you know what, they have a seven year lifespan and we're in year seven of when they were stored at such and such. And I'm like, oh boy, when's it going to, you know, and all of a sudden the seven years come and go. So people are so forgiving, right? But there's turmoil in the Middle East. Really? Is there sand? Dude, because I think there's sand. Turmoil in the Middle East. There's turmoil in the Middle East. So it's a sign of the end of the world. OK, well, then it's been a sign of the end of the world for at least 3,500 years. There's always turmoil in the Middle East. Trying to figure out which political figures resume most comports with the beast. Revelation 13. We talked a little bit about that last week. Now, we'll do a little bit of that. But what we're going to be doing is asking the bigger question of what is God's plan for the ages and where do these biblical events work into that plan? So let's not get into so much the details of who the two witnesses are or who the man of sin is or all that. But what is the big picture? We will begin by seeking to identify the various eschatological models. What are our options? Along with this will be a somewhat cursory explanation regarding the events and where they fit into the models. You understand I'm going to do is I'm going to go OK. We've got this premillennial dispensational model and in this model. Here's the tribulation. Here's where the man of sin is doing stuff. Here's that. Here's the all-millennial model. In the all-millennial model, you've got the man of sin is really this, and he's that. Here's a post-millennial model. Here's a preterist model. Here's an idealist. We'll go into the different views and where the events fit into those views. Hopefully, it won't be overwhelming, and I'll do my best to make the different positions clear to everybody. I hope to do justice to the various views, realizing variations people within each camp might have. In other words, not everybody who's a premillennial dispensationalist has the same understanding of premillennial dispensationalism. There's classic dispensationalism. There's progressive dispensationalism. There's revised dispensationalism. And so somebody might go, oh, it's a straw man. Well, I'm going to do my best to kind of go, well, this is what the model for the most part looks like, recognizing there are distinctions. And you'll find the same thing with all millennialists and postmillennial people as well. I would like to be up front that I intend to be persuasive regarding one view in particular, because I believe this particular view best comports with the eschatological scriptures, if, in my opinion, properly exegeted. And it best comports with the nature and power of Christ in his overwhelming victory over his enemies. The victory, which has as its source the power of the cross of Calvary. I am. So let me just let you know, I have this view that as a result of the cross. Everything down the road, everything is going to get better. And some of you might go, that is not going to happen. You are so Pollyanna. OK, well, just let me make the argument biblically, but I think that Oh, what's that hymn? As far as the curse is found. It's a Christmas carol, right? Far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found. Isn't that right? I like that. I think that as far, in the same way that the curse affected everything. The grace of God, the victory affects everything. As far as that curse is found, the sunlight is going to come in and it's going to bring light. So I'm just telling you, right? If you're if you're kind of not an optimistic person, this may not be the class for you. We're going to have an Eeyore class. You. They're basically going to be four categories, roughly millennial categories for prophetic categories, not going to get into those tonight. But you're going to maybe ask yourself, how do well-meaning and scholarly theologians come up with such radically divergent understandings of eschatology? I mean, you're talking about wonderful, godly, brilliant people. Who just disagree and they can't all be right. Matter of fact, they all have to be wrong, except for one view, right? I mean, you can't you can't, you know, there's only one right answer. I'm not going to say I'm not I don't want to sound like arrogant or anything, but I'm just saying, logically speaking, There's only one right answer. And so even even if my answer isn't the right answer, all these people who are super brilliant, all of them, except for one. Is wrong and maybe even that one's wrong, you know, maybe maybe we haven't figured it out yet at all. But we can't be afraid. I recently, you know. Posted something that I disagreed with and I got somebody come after me and just go, you know, basically, you know, who are you? to question this person. They went to Harvard, they did this, they did that. And it was almost like, you know, I mean, I felt a little bullied. You ever have that feeling like, you know, you just sit in that corner and you just read the book and you don't talk. I'll let you know when you can have an opinion. I mean, that's kind of what I felt. And I'm like, well, I don't want to be bullied, you know, just because somebody has a degree, because somebody who's got, you know, is published, not published New Horizons. And some other book that I don't even want. It's a Christian book, but I don't tell anybody about it because I'm one of the contributing authors. And I don't want you to read the other stuff in the book. People have different priorities, the reason for this, the reason they come up with different. Answers is because people have different priority priorities when it comes to the way they interpret the Bible. So before we seek to determine what the Bible teaches regarding prophecy, we must determine how we are to approach the prophetic passages. How do we approach those passages? Or really any passage for that matter, many modern Bible teachers. And I guess I'm going to be talking mostly in terms of what I want to refute. is today's popular position. I think it's really, in my opinion, a destructive position. So even though there are other positions I don't really agree with, this idea of the church waxing cold, a secret rapture, a seven-year tribulation, and a thousand-year millennium, I think it's a very destructive, in my opinion, a destructive position held by people who I highly respect in a lot of different ways. I just think that position I just I don't think it's just wrong. I think there's I think it's become its own kind of self-fulfilling negative prophecy anyway. Many of the Bible expositors who come up with that use a certain hermeneutic in terms of their primary approach and it's called literalism. Literalism. It really means by the letter. Are we to take the Bible literally? Of course, we take the Bible literally. Like I said earlier, it's not a magic book. It's not like we're looking for sub meanings, you know, or something like that. But is our primary hermeneutic literalism? Literalists, they take the Bible very seriously. They recognize the dangers connected with a non-literal approach to Scripture, which can be very dangerous, right? People go, well, Jesus didn't literally die. He didn't literally come back to life. It's all just a metaphor. And so I applaud their discomfort with people who are overly allegorical, right? Like I said, the Bible is to be approached the way we approach other literature, which is literally words, syntax, sentences, paragraphs that mean things. Dispensing with literalism can result in a rejection of an actual physical resurrection, an actual eternal life, an actual virgin birth. The literalist, rightly so, argues that the Bible is not an allegory. It is a record of actual historical events. There was truly a worldwide flood. There was a Tower of Babel. There was an exodus out of Egypt. There was the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of the God-man Jesus, and so on. That the precautionary interpretive principles of the literalist are to be admired. So I don't think for a second that I don't admire that. And I think that's valuable. Literalism became a test of orthodoxy and a primary driving principle in Bible interpretation as a response to the neo orthodox tendency to spiritualize huge portions of scripture. in an effort to accommodate the natural sciences, which were gaining momentum in the 19th century. You know, the neo-orthodoxy, you know, where you're reading the Bible and it's becoming real to you as you read it. And when you live in a culture like we have, that is lifting up the academic realm to the point of like intellectual worship. And then you have people in the Christian community who, in my opinion, are feeling bullied. And so they accommodate that by creating a methodology to approach the Bible that doesn't embarrass them at their cocktail parties. I can say that I don't want to be overly pejorative. You understand what I'm saying, though. I don't want to be embarrassed when I meet Matt Damon, not our intern, but the real Matt Damon. And he, you know, says, so you believe that, you know, the dinosaurs walked with man, you know, and I'm like, you know, well, I kind of, you know, I need to find a theology that doesn't embarrass me. And that was what was happening. And so there was a strong, no, we need to take the Bible literally. We can't be bullied or intimidated by the followers of Darwin, which were was they were winning everybody's affection a hundred years ago. But it should be put forth at the beginning of the study that literalism, as it's currently understood, has not always been the driving hermeneutic of Protestant biblical Christianity. The Westminster Confession of Faith, written in the 1640s, chapter one, paragraph nine reads, The infallible rule of interpretation of scripture. Is not literalism, but anybody know? is scripture itself. And therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, which is not manifold, but one, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. You have the clear interpret the unclear. So let me just say. The most unclear Well, not, I'm just, I'm overstating. They've got hyperbole, right? The most unclear chapter in all of the Bible. Take a guess. What do you think? What do you think I think it is? Revelation 20. I think it's one of the hardest chapters in all of the Bible. But when I read a lot of the more modern popular theologians, they have this theme. They're like going, the Bible is like every other book. All the answers are in the back. Right. And so what they do is they have Revelation 20 and maybe you don't know what that's all about, but it's where the millennium is and what have you. They read that. Come up with their eschatological schematic and then reinterpret the rest of the Bible based upon Revelation 20. Now, how does that comport with the idea of the analogy of faith or checking scripture with scripture? It's just the opposite. You're interpreting the clear by the unclear. You understand, I mean, at least that's the conclusion I drew. The conclusion I drew is you're taking passages that seem very clear and you're changing them based upon a passage that is not very clear. So the analogy of faith, that is, you lay scripture next to scripture. was, and I believe, the most vital hermeneutic coming out of the Reformation. In my opinion, what's more authoritative than Scripture? So clearly, Scripture should be what tells us about other Scripture, first and foremost. It is delaying the Scripture next to Scripture and letting the clear help us understand the unclear. When an inspired writer of Scripture interprets another passage, concept, or word in scripture a certain way, we are free, if not required, to interpret it the same way. I was at a baseball game and somebody was sitting next to a premillennial dispensationalist. And I love them. I hope it doesn't sound like I don't love them. You know, I mean, I was one, you know, I mean, and I hope that doesn't sound like I'm being condescending or something. But I really don't, I want the words to speak for themselves and I don't want you to try to second guess my soul. But something had just happened in the Middle East and he said, so you think they're going to start rebuilding the temple? And I'm eating my hot dog and stuff and I'm watching the game and I go, I think it's already been rebuilt. And he's like, you know, it's like, hey, I didn't get the latest intelligence report. And he goes, what? I go, no, I think Jesus said, tear the temple down and rebuild it in three days. He's talking about his own body. And he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know that. I mean, it was almost like, yeah, I know that. And I'm thinking, well, that's kind of a big deal. And interestingly enough, because there's a lot of talk about the rebuilding of the temple, right? The dome of the rock and all that stuff. There's only one place in the New Testament where we see any reference to a new temple being built. And that's what I just quoted to you. That's the only place. It's just there. So, the Bible talks of when Jesus refers to the temple as his own body, I shouldn't really stray too far from that. Like I said, I either have I certainly have the exegetical right or the hermeneutical privilege of doing that. I may, in fact, be required to do that. Another one, for example. A thousand, the number one thousand, you get the millennium, right? It's a thousand years. But you get your concordance out and you look up not don't look up a thousand and twenty seven or sixteen hundred. Look up a thousand. And what do you see? To the Lord a day is as a thousand years, a thousand years is as a day. One man shall chase a thousand, a thousand shall chase ten thousand. I own the cattle on how many hills? A thousand. You've got this number that just means what? It means a big number. Then all of a sudden you get to Revelation 20 and no, no, no, there There, it must mean a literal thousand. And what's odd about that is it's in Revelation. It's in the Revelation, which is written how? Yeah, it's it's apocalyptic language. It's it's the most figurative language in all of the Bible. Yet there we are like, no, that's not figurative. That's a literal one thousand. Although in the very beginning of Revelation, where we read twice in the first three verses, that the time is near. Right. The things which must shortly take place before he actually enters into the apocalyptic language, when he's still in his introduction, where he's talking the way normal people talk, the way you and I would understand that people take as figurative. That's where people go, well, that's He goes, most shortly take place. Well, to the Lord, a day is a thousand years. That's where they're using it. I'm like, well, wait a minute. First of all, he's not writing to the Lord. He's writing to us. And if that's the way we're going to interpret it, then time text in the Bible don't mean anything. Any time, three days. Right. For Jesus, that could be 3000 years because to the Lord, how long is a day? You see, you can't do that. I think you need to make your every effort to be consistent. It is here. Where we begin to hear the accusations fly, the literalist accuses the analogy of faith people of playing fast and loose with the scriptures, they'll say, if it doesn't make sense according to your system, just turn it into a metaphor or allegorize it. I mean, I've heard that. I appreciate the accusation, if it's done nicely. Of course, the analogy of faith people accuse the literalists of being selective with their literal approach. Calvin called them syllable snatchers. You say you take the scriptures literally, but you don't believe the stars in Revelation 6 are literal stars. Right. Their stars are falling to the ground. Well, you don't really take it literally at all, do you? You take it literal when it makes sense. Right. And certainly to look at, you know, to find Cobra helicopters in Revelation certainly doesn't seem to be a literal interpretation. It would behoove us to avoid going down a rabbit trail. Some of the texts in the Bible are metaphorical. Right. Nobody believes that Jesus was an actual door. Nobody believes, as Psalm 91 says, that God actually has feathers. We approach the Bible the same way we approach other literature. We recognize that some things are metaphorical, some things are allegory and some things are literal. So it doesn't help in the argument for me to accuse the literalist. It doesn't help the literalist to accuse me. What I have to do is approach each text on its own merit. All right. Man's attempt to interpret prophetic scripture have led them down many paths, and the four most dominant methods employed in interpreting prophecy are the historicist view, the idolist view, the futurist view and the preterist view. And we'll get to these next week. We haven't done long enough tonight. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we do pray that you would give us a spirit of forbearance with one another and that our dialogue of these types of things would be ironic. that they would be peaceful and productive. Nonetheless, Father, help us to be good students. Help us, Father, to know what your plan for the ages is, that we might, Father, know the plan, that we might work and pray toward that plan. And in all of this, Father, help us to understand the Scriptures accurately. What could be more precious to a Christian than to understand the will of his Father in heaven? And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.