As you go to your sheet, you recognize the first question is, what is it? What is eschatology? So tell me, somebody. Study of end times. Eschatos is last or end times or end things. And then Logos, of course, is the study of or the revelation of or the word on. Remember, it's a Greek word that kind of philosophers had that there was a revelation from God. There was some revelation from the rational scientific people or from a God person. And so it's some revelation or study of a word from on the last thing. Some other words that just I'm sure you're aware of, but I wanted to put them up here. Antichrist can mean one of two things. It can mean he's the one who is against Christ. I'm antichrist. I'm against Christ. All right. Or it can mean the one who is, what is it? Posing or poses as Christ. In other words, I'm pretending to be the Christ. And there is a sense in which what's the difference? If I'm posing as Christ and hopefully I'm not the end of Christ anyway, but if I were the end of Christ posing as Christ, would that be different than being against Christ? In some ways, it's different, right? But in some ways, The one who's opposing as Christ is obviously against the real Christ. All right. So there's a lot of debate theologically on which it's supposed to be. And there's a sense in which it's like, yes, true, all of the above. He will pretend to be Christ, pose as Christ, but he also be against Christ or the true Christ, the real Christ. All right. The day of the Lord is a phrase that's used in eschatology a lot. It's used in the Bible a lot as well. What does that mean? If I said it was the day of George W. Bush. What does that mean? There was a day when it was the day of George W. Bush. It was not the day of John Kerry. A victory. It's his day. All right. It's kind of like your birthday. It's my day, you know. So the day of the Lord is a phrase that's used. The day the Lord triumphs over evil, if you would. fully delivers his people. Those kinds of things are the phrases that you would go in there. It's the day of the Lord. It's his day. It's finally his day. And you'll find that phrase. Now, is it a 24 hour day? Are you sure? How long is the day of the Lord? Are you going to take this literally or symbolically? Oh, OK. We got that one saved. All right. You'll have struggles with that as you read the Bible. And there seems to me the answer is this. There's a sense in which the day of the Lord can refer to the whole period, just like the second coming. When is the second coming? Is that one day? Or when we study the second coming is that tribulation millennium and, you know, thousands of years. All right. There is a sense in which second coming is there is a day when he comes, bam, that is it right there. And that'll be the day of the Lord. There's another sense in which you use the phrases in a much broader sense. And so the day of the Lord is all those things that are associated with the day of the Lord, all the things that lead up to it, all the things that come after it. But I think there is a 24 hour day when it is the second coming of Christ. It's his day. Watch out. And it's a special day. So I think it can be broad. It can be very narrow. And so you get kind of caught up in that. Now, the rapture. Speaking of getting caught up, what does that mean? To be caught up. All right. Rapto in Latin and rapture is English. And anyway, to be caught up. And we'll study that in a little bit. Signs of the times. We love to talk about signs of the times. I have a whole bunch of signs to look for. The sign, all right, and it's interesting. I just keep these, the signs of the times over the years, you know, old articles, you know, the Gulf War of 1990 with, oh, look at the signs of the times, and then the next one, and back in World War II, look at the signs. Now, what are the signs of the times? What's a sign? Okay, a sign is something that points towards or tells you, if I have the sign of deer, it tells you there are deer around. If I have the sign of McDonald's, it tells you there's a McDonald's somewhere around. So the signs of the times tell you something pointing to or giving you indication of the presence of the times. Signs of the times is usually a phrase that means events that point to the return of Christ. I'd say it's getting close. That's why I started tonight with Lebanon. Some people would say that's a sign of the times. All right. We're going to talk about that a little bit. Tribulation means. At least theologically, in eschatology it means? All right. The time of Jacob's trouble or seven years of tribulation. So we'll just put down a seven year period or of time. Oops, got an extra word in there. Of Jacob's trouble. And of course, we'll study that. Millennium. One thousand years. All right. Eschatology, it means in which Christ rules and reigns on earth. The word literally means a thousand years, so mill and annum, two words, a thousand years. Kingdom. That's a big phrase. Probably the greatest book I ever read was The Greatness of the Kingdom by Albert J. MacLean. Really impacted my life. It is as boring as it gets if you want to look at it that way, but for me it was as exciting as it gets. And it was just, I'd never thought about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom. And it was just exciting to me. What's the kingdom? Thy kingdom come. What's the kingdom of God? Oh, the greatness of the kingdom. Daniel, chapter seven, become one of my favorite verses as Daniel sat there. Oh, the greatness of the kingdom. Yes. What does it take to have a kingdom? Well, let's put in the R words. A ruler, king, you've got to have a king. Some kind of ruler, all right? You don't have a kingdom if there isn't somebody in charge. And he has to be doing what? He has to reign. So you can have a, over a what? A regime or a realm, either. Well, there you go. So you can have a king who's sitting in exile. That's not a kingdom. You can have a mass of people without a leader. That's not a kingdom. You need a king who is actually reigning over a realm. Is he giving you trouble? OK, they're getting in trouble. All right. Very good. So a kingdom is a ruler who reigns over a realm. So the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of whatever, there's a ruler trying to reign over a realm. The kingdom of David was that. So we're going to talk a little bit about the kingdom. Armageddon. Or you should put an H in front of it. technically. Harmageddon. I did that in the bulletin one day. It was so funny. I bet you we had 150 calls about the misspelling in the bulletin, you know. Har means head or hill or overlook and Megiddo. And so Megiddo was a city. So it's the hill of Megiddo or Megiddo. It's the location of the great battle against Jesus Christ in the end times. So those are just some phrases that you'd be very familiar with. What are the options when it comes to eschatology? I'm just going to put down two, obviously. You could put down the liberals have a view and the preterists view. You know what the preterists view is? Exactly. John was just writing down history. He was just writing down what actually happened as he was watching it. Now, if you read Revelation, it's kind of tough to think that one third of the water turned to blood is so that John saw that. So, obviously, the way they handle that is by saying, in those days, just like now, if you're in a kingdom where the emperor is like God and he can kill you if you do something wrong, you might not say, you know, this emperor guy, he's a really bad guy and I hate him or whatever, you know, because then you're dead. So you kind of camouflage everything. And so you kind of write in symbolic words and camouflaged words. We're going to talk about Babylon. Now, we all know you're really talking about Rome. We're going to talk about whatever we really know. He's really talking about the emperor. And so they have to do all the gymnastics to make it sound like it really happened in John's day. He was going through some really tough times. So he said one third of the water turned to blood. Well, that meant there was a trickle. One of his buddies got killed, you know, or whatever. So that's a preterist. But there's a lot of different views. Here's the two that I just like to contrast. We studied this, I think, in a class a little while ago. What are the two options? Dispensational and. All right. Talk to me about dispensational theology and dispensational eschatology. So God has dealt with different people in different ways at different times. So what he did with Abraham is different than what he's doing with us. That doesn't mean he's a different God or he changed his rules or anything like that. But, you know, for Abraham, it was this. For Moses, it was this. And they gave him the Ten Commandments. And for for you and me, it's the church age. And we have the spirit and they didn't and those kinds of things. And so the end times is just another dispensation in which God will deal differently than he did before. And it's all based upon a chronological order. So that's Here's the definition or the statement I have. The view of history that sees dispensations or distinct periods of time in which God works or worked in a unique way with mankind. Covenant, that's the other major view within evangelical, fundamental Bible-believing churches of America today. What would covenant say? Okay. and they have only two, or sometimes they say there are three, but either way, there were only two, and basically we're under the covenant of grace. And so, from Genesis 3 until the end of time, until eternity, we have this new covenant called the covenant of grace. God has not changed the way He has dealt with people from Genesis 3. In the Old Testament, Abraham and Israel, they were God's people. They were God's covenant people of grace. We today in the church are still God's covenant people of grace. The church in the Old Testament was called Israel. The Israel in the New Testament is called the church. And those words kind of flip-flop all over the place and they're used interchangeably. And that kind of view says there is no millennium, no rapture. In fact, the list is there. There's no rapture of the church before other people. I was raised this way, by the way. I'll never forget when somebody, one of my buddies, his brother was saved in a Baptist church and was taught dispensational eschatology and then he told his brother, who was my buddy, and we were out hunting and we were talking about this rapture thing. First time I heard it, I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard of. How could anybody in their right mind believe something that stupid? You know, the Christians are going to be taken out of here, you know, and the rest left. It just didn't make a lick of sense to me. And we just had a great laugh that day as we went hunting. And then later on, I believed it. But anyway, they don't believe in the rapture. They don't believe in a tribulation period. They don't believe in a millennial rule. And they don't believe that there are different resurrections or first and second deaths. They believe there's one general resurrection. In other words, the way we were taught is this. We're going to live through life and Christ could come at any time. We really believe that he could come right now and you better be ready. OK, and there's a sense in which we believe that he could come at any time. You better be ready. It's unexpected and imminent and all those things. But as soon as he came, it was all done. You were either in heaven or you were in hell and there was no tribulation, no millennium, no nothing. It was just. Bam, one coming. If you were alive, you'd meet him right then. If you were dead, there would be a resurrection of everybody, dead and unsaved and saved. One moment, it was all over. So that's covenant theology. Remember those no rapture, no millennium, no that and one general resurrection versus two. We're going to see there are two, I think. All right. The question is why study this? Why study eschatology? I've probably said this enough that I don't need to tell you again of all the jokes that are made. In fact, this is from the Friends of Israel. Just got it the other day, February something of 2005. There's some new doctrinal things going on. Theology is going on. Replacement theology. Preterism is being rejuvenated actually. It kind of died. Nobody was a preterist and now all of a sudden you bump into people who are preterists again. But here's the newest one. It's called nothingism. I like that. What do you believe in? Nothingism. But it's also called pan-dispensationalism. What does pan mean? Many or all. And what they really believe is this, that they use it in a different way. And it means it will all pan out in the end. In other words, Don't worry about it. I mean, it really doesn't matter what you believe about eschatology. Now, it matters what you believe when it comes to soteriology, how you're saved. That's the difference between life and death as far as eternal life and eternal death is concerned. It does matter what you believe about sin. It doesn't matter what you believe about Christ, whether he's virgin born or not. Those things all matter. But when it comes to eschatology, the end, does it matter if you believe, bam, it's all over or There's a rapture and in seven years of tribulation and, you know, all these things happening in a millennium. Would that make any difference to your life? And the answer that was given is it doesn't make any difference. All right. Here's a book entitled a magazine entitled Zion's Fire. Marv Rosenthal, who was a pre-trib dispensational premillennialist, came up with a new view called the Pre-Wrath Rapture. All right. Which means we're going to live through, the church is going to live through most of the tribulation. And then we're going to hit the real wrath of God, which comes near the end of it, maybe two thirds of the way through it, something like that. And God will take us out just before that happens. All right. You say, oh, that's kind of interesting, but it doesn't make a hell of beans difference in your life, really. Well, if you know Marv Rosenthal, but Van Kampen was the guy who funded him. Van Kampen is a multi, multi, multi, multi, multi, Dead millionaire now. He died just a couple of years ago. Van Kampen lived in the city I lived in, in Grand Haven, Michigan. And that's where I built bridges. Van Kampen, in Grand Haven, Michigan is, Michigan's flat and then you got sand dunes, right? So the way you show your wealth is how high you live on the sand dunes. Van Kampen lived on the top. So it was a long driveway that none of us were allowed on. And underneath his house was a bunker, huge bunker. Most bombs would not do it. Maybe a buster bomb or whatever they call it would have got it. And in it, he had all kinds of stuff, all right? Then he bought a square mile near Grand Haven of land and he put his church. He bought all the land. He put a church in the middle of it and there's a fence, barbed wire fence around the whole thing with an electric gate. And so when you go to church in the morning, you just can't drive in. And you don't even see the church. Nobody really kind of knows where it is. And then he bought several square miles up in northern Michigan where he stockpiled food. And you know what? Because when this hat hits, you've got to survive those first five years of the tribulation. And so you don't want to take the mark of the beast and whatever. So they have stockpiles of food up there. He and the pastor, Dan Hayden, of his church is a personal friend of mine. He went to BBC with me. He was a professor at Baptist Bible College and Seminary and Clark Summit. And then he went to pastor this church. And people tell me it doesn't make any difference. It makes a world of difference. If you're pre-wrath, I'd be stocking up food, man, because you're going through it and you're not going to be able to buy food without a 666 on your hand. And that's what they believe. That's what they teach. So it does make a difference. It makes a lot of difference what you believe. But here are some biblical reasons why you might want to study eschatology. First of all, Matthew chapter 26. Why don't we just have people raise your hand if you'll read them. So Matthew 26, 26 is Rosemary. Romans 8, 18 is David. Brian's got John 14, 1 through 6. Jared, 1 Peter 4, 7. Al, you have 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Michael, you have 1 John 3, verse 2 and 3. And Matt, Titus 2.13. So we're just going to try to read some of these. And we could read a lot of other ones as well, but we're just going to highlight some reasons or some benefits. Why study this? What good does it do to me for my life to know that Christ is coming again and know the facts about it? So, Rosemary. OK, all this was done, the scriptures might be fulfilled. That is a phrase that's found often in the Gospels. All this was done, the scriptures could be filled. It brings proof. When you read eschatology, you have all these prophecies. By the way, there are 325 prophecies about Christ's first coming. Someone counted them up. I have not. I'm going to assume he's right. OK, 25 or 27 of them were fulfilled the day he was born. but many others about his first coming, where he would be born, how he would live, et cetera, et cetera. And all of them were fulfilled. So you have confidence that the Bible is true. And as you study eschatology and prophecy, you develop this sense that God lives up to his word. And there's some that haven't been fulfilled yet, but I am one who believes it'll be happening exactly as he says. So it brings proof and great confidence in our lives. David. All right. So knowing that there's someday a return of Christ and the glory is going to be revealed in us, what does that do? I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared. It brings perspective to life. OK. I suffer. I don't like that. We could have a lot of other verses. Our citizenship is in heaven. We're pilgrims and strangers on this earth. My light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for me an eternal way to glory. We are people who believe in a return of Jesus Christ and an eternity in heaven. and the living in the presence of Jesus Christ, and therefore it changes our whole perspective on the world in which we live. We're just strangers in pilgrims. We reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory. I mean, our whole life has changed. Now let's read John 14, 1 through 6. All right, we'll just stop there. We could keep reading. You've read it before. Let not your heart be troubled. Why are you not troubled today? Absolutely, you know that Jesus is building a mansion for you, and I am confident of that and you're confident that so I don't get everything I want here on earth and life's not fair and there's persecution, but not your happy trouble brings peace. All right, Bryant or I'm sorry, Jared. so that you can pray. The end of all things is near. Therefore, be sober or serious minded or self-controlled and pray. So it brings prayer. The fact that Christ is coming again is not something that causes me not to pray, it causes me to pray. How about 1 Corinthians 15, 58? So what does it do? It brings productivity. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Just imagine if all the things you did here don't matter. All the things you did here for Christ don't matter. At the end it doesn't matter because there's no return, there's no heaven, there's no nothing. I mean, you might as well just quit. But knowing that our labor is not in vain in the Lord is found in the fact that He's coming back. So that's a good one. Productivity. How about 1 John 3, 2 and 3? Beloved, now we are children of God. And it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We will know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him just as he is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is purified. Everyone who has this hope purifies themselves. It brings purity in your life. You're waiting for Him to return. It's like a kid at home and mom and dad took off and they said, we'll be back sometime and make sure this house looks clean. You know, if you really believe they're coming back, you're going to kind of sit with making sure you did all the right things. It brings purity. There are many verses. Wake up out of your sleep. Romans tells us that. Titus, soberly, righteously, etc. So it brings purity. And then finally, Titus 2, Matt. Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God. All right, we're looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearance. So it brings patient expectation. We're just waiting in that sense. And so we are clearly, eagerly waiting the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you probably could add some other ones there, a whole bunch of reasons that you should study this material. And it's more than just interesting stuff that you can debate with your neighbor. OK, any questions on that? All right. Yeah, right. There you go. Yeah, it was, he, Van Kampen was kind of guy. He was clearly a multi, I don't know how many millions and millions, hundreds of millions he had. And I had trucks and a lot of trucks, but he made his money. I don't know what, what he made it in anyway. He had some of the oldest manuscripts in Greek and Hebrew anywhere in the world. I mean, they were priceless. You know, the museums in Britain and America would have done anything to get them. He had them in a bunker under his house and once in a while, if your church was good, like my dad's church, went up there as a group and they got to walk through there and his archives and all humidity controlled and I mean, Can you imagine having some of the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament in existence in your little house, in your basement? I don't know what happened to him. I think they're still there. His wife's still alive. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Who knows? He was a unique guy. By the way, if you go down to Florida, Marv Rosenthal, right by Disney World, has a large theme park. Large by Christian standards. I forget the name of it. What is it? There you go. How to prepare for the end, you know. It's probably pretty, it's pretty nice. Yep. Yeah. And he has an archive of old manuscripts. He's got an original Isaiah scroll. He might have got them from Van Kampen, and they probably moved them down there, because Van Kampen paid for that whole park. See, Marv Rosenthal was the boss of Reynolds Showers for years. And then when he changed his position, he was always a pre-trip, pre-mill dispensationalist. shared it with the board. He was now violating his contract because he had a different doctrinal position. So he wasn't fired. He just said, I have to leave. And he did. And he started a new organization. And Reynolds showers is a personal friend of him and talked to them for hours saying, Oh, Rosenthal. Oh, praise the Lord. Rosenthal was a great preacher. You'd love him. He was, he is great. Yeah, that's true. All right, let's go to the next page. When will this begin? A couple of things about eschatology and second coming and all that. The time is not known. Nobody knows the times or the seasons. Mark chapter 13, verse 32 says no one knows the hour. Matthew chapter 24, verse 36 talks about no one knows the day, but the Father alone. So one is the hour, one is the day. How about Acts 1-7? Remember the disciples are sitting there, Christ is left, then he comes back, he's resurrected and they're saying, you know, what is the signs of the times or however they worded it? When will it be the return of the kingdom? And he says, it's not for you to know. The times nor the seasons, the epics nor the times which the Father has placed in his own hands. But you go do what you're supposed to do, which is make disciples. Don't worry about when I'm coming back. You just do what you're supposed to do. I think you could make a real strong case from those verses as well as many others that we do not know when he's coming back. And I'll never forget my professors, Dr. James Boyer in particular, saying to us, now young man, when you get up there preaching, You're going to want to preach a whole series on signs of the times and you're going to want to, you know, you're going to see something happen in history and you're going to say, oh, Lebanon's gone democratic. Christ is going to come back and fight. He says you're going to be tempted, tempted, tempted. And he said, what you need to do at that time is just only read the Bible. Only read the Bible, because he said all of us preachers have had that in our life. I know who the Antichrist is. It's Hitler or Mussolini. You've got it all figured out. And then Marv Rosenthal or Jenkins or Tim LaHaye had it all figured out. It was the common market. It was the beast. And the Roman Catholic Church. And they might still be right. Some of that might still be right. We don't know. But times change. And you go out on a limb and you're going to be in trouble. We don't know the times. Do we? We don't know when. And we have we we we have to be real careful about that. Here's 88 reasons the rapture will happen in 88. He wrote a new book, 89 reasons it will happen. No, not really. Actually, he did. He changed it to 89. And then it was 90, 91, 92, whatever. The day and hour. I mean, you just you go to the go through history and you recognize there's a lot of things written. I remember a young man in our church who was actually, he was saved through our son Jason. He was in, this kid had no religious background whatsoever, went to a public high school and there was a sign in Rochester that said, Christ is coming back in 88. So this kid believed it. I mean, it was just really strange. He just believed it. And so he's out in the hallways of a public high school, sharing with people that you've got to get ready because Jesus is coming back in 88. Well, he's not even saved. You don't have a clue what salvation about. But he was so sincere. So Jason, of course, talked to them and whatever. And he was ultimately saved and kind of got his theology a little bit strained out. But there are all of those going on and they will go on. And so just be real careful. I do get excited when I watch the news, but I also have to pull back and say, you know, I'm not really sure because the whole peace talks could break down tomorrow morning. And I'll be sitting there looking like a fool if I told you, man, he's coming back. So be real careful. We do not know the time. What about the signs of the times? You should have been here a couple of weeks ago when I preached about that. But anyway, what do you need, Matt? Oh, you're just holding your finger up. That's all right. Me too. All right. There are some conditions in the world that may seem to be close to the conditions that will be true in the tribulation. There are some, for example, prophecy says Israel will go back to the land and that has happened. I mean, there are things that will tell you, well, it seems like things are shaping up. But to go out on a limb and say you got it figured out, just be real careful because you don't. Yes. You do have your hand up. Good. There was an organization I wasn't informed about. this group of people who are trying to send Jesus back to Israel. Okay. Sure. Okay. Great. Excellent. You will find it all the time. The trouble is sometimes the world looks on and after a while they start to laugh about us. You know, they had a big sign in Rochester, Jesus coming back in 88, you know, and it didn't happen. And That probably doesn't do the program of God a lot of good. And if someone said Jesus is coming back, that would have been great because he is coming back. All right. The time is not known. Yes. It's later than it's ever been. OK. And it's a sure thing. All right. The time is always, the next line here, ripe. All right. And that's a good way to put it. I had imminent, but ripe would be a good one. I-M-M-I, not A-N-E-N-T. Eminent with an A means different than eminent with an I. What does eminent with an I mean? Could happen at any time. It could happen before 745 today. It could happen anytime. Some verses, Philippians 3, 20, we eagerly wait. I mean, if he's not coming back for a thousand years, it's really hard to sit on the edge of your seat, you know. But all the verses of scripture kind of leave you with the impression, I mean, Paul speaking 2000 years, we're eagerly waiting for the Savior. What's wrong with you, Paul? Don't you realize it's 2000 years away at least? First Thessalonians 5 and verse 6. So then let us not sleep, but let us be alert and sober. So there's a sense all the way through scripture like he could come back right now. You better be ready. You better be ready. Titus 2.13, looking for that blessed hope in the glory, superiority of the great God and our Savior Jesus. We are looking for it. I mean, if it's down the road 2,000 years, why are you looking for it? Hebrews 9.8, those who eagerly await him. And those are just some of the verses that leave you as you read the scriptures to say Paul, Peter, John and whatever. They were waiting, eagerly waiting, looking, thinking it could happen at any moment. All right. Even the Book of First Thessalonians is all about that. They thought it already happened and they missed the boat, you know. And so, they had to straighten it out. So, there is an imminency. Now, what do we mean by imminent? There, I misspelled it. Let me see your ink pen. Thank you. I always do that, imminent and imminent. That's why I had you pointed it out to you because I always do it wrong. What do we mean by that? Put it in your own words then. It could happen at any time would be one way you'd put it. What's another way to put it? There's never a time that it couldn't happen? Another way to put it is this. There's no event, predicted event, that has to happen before he can return. There's no predicted event that has to happen before he could return. And that means, boom, it could happen at any moment. So that's very... One question. Is that why Christ told the disciples in Matthew 16, 3 then? If you can look at the sky, sailors. Sure. Look at the morning sky, the evening sky. They can tell what kind of day it's going to be. Red sails in the morning, that kind of thing. Sure. But yet, you see the signs of the time and you can't discern them. Right. Right. And I think there's a sense in which my I think the balance point that I have is is this when I look at scripture is this. There's nothing that has to happen before he could return. So it could happen today. It could be a thousand years from now. I'd be real careful about saying, oh, I got my magic ball out and I know he's coming back in 88 or whatever year it is. On the other hand, as as I read prophecy, it says Israel be restored, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I see some of those things happening in history. I'm not oblivious to the fact that it's got to be closer than it used to be. I'm not oblivious to the fact that, man, that's pretty exciting. That's really setting it up. When they talk about doing all your financial trades without money or without, you know, through a code and whatever and all of a sudden you realize they have that all technology. I'm going, wow, that's pretty impressive. The whole world is going to see what happens. This isn't revelation and all of a sudden we have TV, you know. So, as I see all these things happening, There's a level in which I see it's getting closer. It's setting up. And yet, on the other hand, I don't know. You know, so I have to be real careful. Okay? No clearly predicted event has to happen before it comes. Nothing has to happen. That's a key phrase. Another thing is it does not mean that it's going to happen soon. It does not mean it's going to happen soon. It could, but it doesn't mean that it will. Or it doesn't mean that it's going to happen soon after some sign happens. You know, there's going to be an earthquake, a tsunami in the far east and then, you know, it's going to happen within a week after that. You know, it's not that at all. So be aware of that. The next lines are these and it's just what's up here. I'm trying to give you something of a chronological flow to this and help you to see kind of where we're going. Now, Dr. Showers is going to talk about the rapture, the millennium, the reign of Christ. We're going to kind of jump over that. He has an excellent article on the marriage of the Lamb, so we're not going to deal with that. But let's just run through these so that you see where we're flowing. First of all, 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13 through verse 18 says, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven or come out of heaven. and people will meet the Lord in the air. It goes on to say in verse 14. So, the first thing that happens is Jesus Christ is going to come out of heaven. He's not going to go all the way to earth. And we might call that the return of Christ in the clouds. Make sure we say that. There's a difference between the return of Christ to earth and one in the clouds. As you read on, there will be the dead in Christ shall rise. We who are alive will not precede them. We're not going to meet Jesus first. The dead in Christ will rise. So there's resurrection of the dead in Christ. Then we who are alive and remain should be caught up. That's the word rapture, the rapture of those alive in Christ. So those of us on earth, whether you're dead or alive, will be resurrected or raptured. And so shall we meet the Lord in the air. That's the reunion with Christ. After that, we're going to go back up to heaven. And there's going to be a reward ceremony, a payment seat, judgment seat for us. Somewhere in there, there's going to be the marriage supper of the Lamb. While all that's happening up in heaven for us, we're believers in Jesus Christ. Down on earth, there's going to be a tribulation going on, seven years of tribulation. So we have the reception of the bride at the marriage supper, then Chapter number seven, Jesus Christ will be revealed. This is the true day of the Lord. This is the true second coming. He really does come to earth. Number seven, even though I kind of put it there, but he's going to come all the way. So there is the revelation of Christ on earth. And we're going to read about that in Revelation 19. We're going to see him coming on a white horse, etc., etc. His eyes are like a flame of fire, etc., etc. So he's going to. There is the revelation of Christ on earth. There will be the reckoning of sinners on earth at that point, because he's going to have a battle called the Battle of Armageddon. And so there is a reckoning. And if you're a sinner, it's not going to be a real good day. That will set up his reign on earth, or what we call the millennium, number nine, the reign of Christ on earth. Then there will be a releasing at the end, as you know, of Satan, will be released for a period of time. And he will have an impact in the lives of people. And there will be a great white throne judgment way at the end of that. And that's retribution at the great white throne. So we have a reward ceremony at the Bema seat back here for believers. We have a great white throne down here where there is a final judgment. By the way, there are five, at least five major judgments in time in scripture. And so you have to keep them all straight. Here's a great white throne judgment, which is the final and ultimate judgment of mankind, number 10. And then number 11, there is a resulting eternal kingdom or eternal state. Maybe would be a better word because some will spend all of eternity in a real place called heaven and some will spend all of eternity in a real place called hell. All right. Any questions? I do have a lot of notes on signs of the time, but I'm just going to jump over that. Just be careful with them and be balanced on them. So let's go through these quickly. Some of them we're going to jump over fast and others we're not. We're going to spend more time on. So let's go to number one, the return of Christ in the clouds. First Thessalonians 4. Turning your Bibles there. And it is one of the classic and key passages of the eschatology. I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. And it goes on to say those things. There are four remarkable circumstances that will usher in this return of Christ in the clouds, and they're listed here. First of all, he'll descend from heaven, which is going to be quite a spectacular thing. Quite a spectacular thing. He'll be in the air. I don't know if the people around us will know what's going on or not, but we will. We're going to figure that out. There will be a shout, verse 16. The Lord himself will descend from heaven. He'll come with a shout. That little word, shout, is the word that's used to command. So it's not just a, hey, you know. It's some kind of a command, authoritative voice that speaks out. For example, the same word is used in John 11 when Jesus looked at the tomb of Lazarus and said, Lazarus, come forth. That was a command. It was a direct command. So there's going to be a shout. There's going to be the voice of the archangel. That'll be pretty spectacular. I wonder what he sounds like. Anybody in tune with Michael? So we have the voice of the archangel and then there will be the trumpet, the trumpet of God. I don't know what that sounds like either, but I suspect it'll be right in tune and it'll be quite impressive. He obviously is doing the beckoning of God and relating to Israel and to the church in this particular case. So there'll be a very spectacular movement there. And it'll be something that will catch our attention. It'll be hard to sleep through that one if you're a saint. All right. So I'm not really worried I'm going to miss it. Although we often joke about that, you know, the rapture happened and I was left behind, that kind of thing. So anyway, this is not the return of Christ to earth to reign. This is the return of Christ in the clouds. And, of course, for the covenant theologians, all this, you know, there's just one point here. He returns. End of discussion. Everything happens at once. There is no marriage of the supper of the Lamb in the sense that we think of it, etc., etc. Just boom. All done. All over. And you're either in heaven or hell. And it's instantaneous. Bam. All over. This is not the return of Christ to earth to reign. This is not the true and ultimate second coming. Another phrase for second coming is parousia. You'll see that often, the parousia. There's four or five words that are used. That is really here, number seven, when he really does come to earth. That is his true second coming. What are the various theories of the second coming? Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses, just one of many errant views, said he came in 1874 and then they revised it to 1914. You say, how in the world do you do that? Well, they read Daniel, talked about 77 and they somehow did the math and 70 times 7 turns out to be 2,520 years. And you'd have to read all the writings to figure out how 77 ends up 2,520 years. Actually, it's 2 times 1,260, which still doesn't make sense to me. But anyway, and we know that that all began in 607 B.C. So if you take 607 B.C. and add 2,520, You end up with 1874 and then you end up with 1914 because they missed it the first time around and so they had to do their math over. And anyway, now they, I don't know what they do. But anyway, they have some problems there. You'll find a lot of those out there. People have done gymnastics with the numbers and played with them and, you know, the Christian science, for example. Christian science is a really strange cult. In a sense, they're all strange, I guess. But anyway, their whole thing is knowledge, the Gnostic thinking of we have an idea or a knowledge or truth. And, you know, we're this special group because we have this hocus pocus knowledge that happens to us. So the return of Christ, he comes through the idea or gnosis or knowledge that they teach. They happen to be the ones who have the esoteric wisdom, as they call it, that you need. And then Jesus has come through that. He comes into your life through that, whatever. There's what's called the spiritual theory. He came in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And support for that sometimes is like John 14, where he says, I'm going to go not only to prepare a place, but he says, I'm going to send you another comforter who's going to be just like me. And that's the word that's used. He's another just like me, comforter. And so that happened at Pentecost. So Jesus came in the person of the Holy Spirit. And so the second coming of Christ is when Jesus came in the person of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Anyway, that's just what they believe. Judgment theory. He came in the judgment or destruction or the judgment at or of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. And some people hold to that. So that was his coming. He came in judgment or destruction of Jerusalem. Of course, the answer is that Revelation 22 was written after AD 70. So it's pretty tough to have right about something in the future that already happened. But anyway, I guess it's not a problem to them. Conversion theory, he comes into the heart of the believer. So he's already come. Jesus has come. He doesn't need to come again. He's come into your heart at the conversion or at believer. The death theory, he comes to us when we die. So the minute you die, Jesus comes to you in a unique way, something like that. Psalm 23 is often used for that. You either walk through the valley, shatter death, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And they use that somehow to prove that. Those are some errant views that probably you will never bump into when you're talking with Bible believing Christians. All right. Yeah. What did they do with that? Yeah. There's a lot of verses they have a problem with, but anyway, those are some views that are out there. The main three that you will deal with historically are the post and pre. So somebody tell me about post mill. What does post mean? It comes after. So the return of Christ is after the millennium. So how would you explain that one? What does that mean? Absolutely. So he's going to come after the millennium. And man will bring in the kingdom through the spread of the gospel. By the way, this is from Marv Rosenthal. He does a very, he is a top notch guy. I hope he did indeed return. Man will bring in the kingdom through the spread of the gospel. Christ will return after or post its universal acceptance to sit upon the throne. So Christ is going to, it's going to take a thousand years. I don't know when this starts, but anyway, it's going to take a thousand years and the church is going to be so effective that everybody will accept Jesus as king and he'll come back. You can't come, yeah, it should be any day now, you know. And we, it had, if you study the history of it, it was very popular in the late 1800s when liberalism was also gaining ground. And there was a real optimism in the world at that time that things were getting better and better and better and better and better and better. And, you know, we're ushering in the kingdom and pretty soon, you know, everything's going to be just great and hunky dory. boy, we're having great impact in the world. Missionaries are going out. People are getting saved. You know, this is going to be great. And then World War One came along and kind of like just took him off at the knees. So it kind of had a little resurgent and World War Two came along, took him off his knees. There actually is a little bit of resurgence now in this again, but it's a very, very minority view as far as fundamental Bible believing Christians are concerned. But he will come after the kingdom. OK, per your lines there, the world gets better and better and better. All right. Through the spread of the gospel, there's gradual victory. until the world is ready for Christ. Christ can't come back until everybody is ready to accept him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings. That's what it says. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was written as a post-millennial. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. And they sang it during the Civil War. It was a Civil War song as they sang around the campfires. The Union and both sides actually sung it because, especially the Union, his truth is marching on. This battle was about establishing the kingdom. And so that was inbred into the Union soldiers that you're just not fighting for the Union, you're fighting for the establishment of the kingdom. And my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. So that's very post-Millennium. I always get a kick out of that when we sing it. And it's one of my favorite songs. It's a nice one. Amil is the second view or one of the three views, major views in Amin's No. None. Amoral means no morals. Agnostic. Agnostic. No knowledge. And so it means he comes without a millennium. There is no millennium. There is no millennium. Amillennial. Between his two comings, Christ rules over a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men. In other words, his first coming was at his birth. His second coming is going to come. That's a covenant position. It's going to die. The thousand year reign. Or kingdom age is non-literal. It's the earthly kingdom. They use it in different ways. It's the kingdom of God in your heart or it's an earthly kingdom or something like that. So there's a lot of different ways to do it. That's the second view. And for your lines, evil will develop. This is the way I was taught too. Evil would develop side by side with good. And therefore, the wheat and the tares was one of our favorite parables. And therefore, the church should never even begin to attempt. to have only believers in it. I mean, that's foolish. Of course, there's going to be unbelievers in the church. So let it happen. There'll be some who look as good as the rest of us, the wheat and the tares, and it's just going to happen. So we didn't even try. So evil will develop side by side. He will wind up human affairs and immediately usher in the eternal state. In other words, Christ, when it's done, bam, it's all over and it's complete. And then the third view is pre-millennial view. Pre means before, and so he comes before the millennium. And that's the view that's being presented in the class tonight. Christ will return to the earth before or pre the millennium begins to inaugurate and reign over it. Before that actually is a seven year tribulation. But anyway, that's the view. Any questions on that? Just be ready for them and know that post and pre, those are the main three. Any comments? All right. Why don't you take A little break and we'll get back to the resurrection of the dead, which is number two, I guess it is.